The Planet Blog

Do you want to meet your server?

Here’s your chance.

If you complete ALL THREE tasks included below within one hour (by 3:30 p.m. CDT today), we will head out to one of our DCs with a camera to give your server a well-deserved close-up. While getting a picture is not the same as meeting your server face-to-faceplate, it’ll at least tide you over until you can make it to Houston or Dallas for an “in real life” data center tour.

Your Mission (you should choose to accept it):

1. Post a Tweet saying “I’m Powered by @ThePlanet. #showmemyserver”
2. Post a comment on this blog that includes “My website is _________, and I’m Powered by The Planet.”
3. Send an email to twitter @ theplanet.com with the name you want included in the picture (or we’ll default to your Twitter name), your The Planet account number* and the IP address** of the server you want pictured.

*This is to help verify your account.
**This information will not be shared or included in the picture. It is simply being used to target your server.

Because this is our inaugural #ShowMeMyServer event, we’re limiting each qualifier to a single server – in case we get slammed with a request from each of our 25,000+ customers in the next hour. If you have a private rack, we can make an exception and snap a couple pictures of the servers on your rack if you’d prefer.

Once we close the window for submissions, we’ll start the photography process. The turnaround will depend on the volume of requests, but we’re aiming to get pictures back to you (replying to the e-mail you sent twitter@theplanet) by Thursday afternoon at the latest. While we employ a lot of talented folks, the people taking your picture might not be professional photographers, but we’ll get the best picture we can … and if a reshoot is necessary, just let us know.

Are you ready?

Go!

-Kevin

EDIT: Comments are Closed as of 3:31pm CDT. Scroll through the comments section and check out some of the awesome sites our customers host with us!

According to Wikipedia.org, O’Reilly Media coined the phrase Web 2.0 sometime in 2004. The term has since become ubiquitous, but it’s difficult to pin down when Web 2.0 — the focus of the Internet community on user-generated content — actually began.

When social-networking sites like MySpace began making news and gaining popularity of course I had to take a look. What I found was largely underwhelming. Not to disparage the creators of MySpace — that community is a force of nature, and something to be respected and admired by all Internet entrepreneurs — it just didn’t seem like a completely new concept.

After all, forums are comprised of users who generate their own content, upload photos to their profiles and create online communities, usually based on a particular interest or hobby. These are communities nonetheless. Who knew sites like Web Hosting Talk and our own humble customer forums would be the unacknowledged godfathers to an entire movement called Web 2.0?

Hopefully the popularity of forums won’t diminish like other user-generated content formulas. I’ve always felt the advantage forums have over other types of communities is their ability to foster dialogue in an arena overcrowded with monologues. And yes I am aware of the irony of using a blog to make that statement.

It’s my belief that both mediums of communication are essential to building relationships with our customers. In fact, I’d like to think that we add value that even goes beyond exchanging credit card numbers for dedicated servers. Blogs provide an opportunity to communicate a concept, idea or opinion to its fullest, while communication in our forums is mostly reactive versus informative.

So until next time … I’ll see you on the forums!

- Brooke