PEER 1 Hosting , the global online business hosting (http://www.peer1hosting.co.uk/) provider for the world’s largest free dating websites, is predicting the biggest ever peak in online matchmaking as more Brits than ever hit the web to find their Valentine. 92% of Brits plan to go online for the first time to find their Valentine, and 42% say the best way to find a date this year is online compared with in a bar (31%) or through friends (29%).*

UK based Smooch.com , one of the world’s largest free dating websites, has already seen a traffic increase of 62.5% on the same time in December, and expects to hit 80% by 14 February. PEER 1 Hosting, which provides web servers for Smooch.com and FreeDating.co.uk amongst other leading players, is urging dating website service providers to get ready for the predicted unprecedented rise in online exchanges between romance seekers before Valentine’s Day. Websites without the right hosting in place could be responsible for putting a freeze on dating this week as sites struggle to cope with the additional demand.

“Each year we see a huge post-Christmas rush of single people looking to make their New Year’s resolution of a new partner for Valentine’s Day come true,” said Martin Bysh, MD of Smooch.com.

“In the days either side of February 14th our web activity really spikes, so we need to make sure the site is supported with automatic scaling up as and when we need it to ensure our customers always get a great service, even at peak times. We knew we'd experience growth, but it's been even better than expected. We put a lot of this down the superior hardware and support offered by PEER 1 Hosting. They've been able to scale our servers up rapidly to meet a massive spike in demand without interrupting service,” he continued.

“Just like retailers ramping up for Christmas, online dating has to cope with big spikes in activity around Valentine’s Day and slow page loading times or site crashes mean lost customers,” said Dominic Monkhouse, UK MD at PEER 1 Hosting. “It’s business critical for dating websites to continue to perform at their optimum rate at the business time of the year, and working with a scalable hosting provider means there’s no need to invest in a lot of extra capacity that won’t be needed for the majority of the year.”

PRWeb, the online news distribution service of Vocus (NASDAQ: VOCS) today announced it has published a new PR case study (http://www.prweb.com/pr/customer-examples/furnace-mfg.html) on how one small business’ first venture into online marketing began with a news release. Furnace MFG is a 13-year old firm that launched a new line of business in 2009 and for the first time, began promoting its business with online news releases.

“When we did the research there seemed to be two choices: hire a PR agency, or do it yourself,” says Manish Naik, the firm’s chief operation officer in the case study. “We’re a small business and we simply couldn’t afford to bring on additional headcount or hire a firm.”

“This fits in with our business culture of doing things ourselves, testing what works, and then focusing on what works with all our energy,” the firm’s CEO, Eric Astor added.

Naik says he began experimenting with PRWeb in the summer of 2009 – and that his releases earn between 500 and 1,000 page views. He also noted that success tends to have a snowball effect: a little visibility leads to more visibility.

Furnace MFG finds it receives regular coverage in blogs writing about its industry and was even once profiled by the Washington Post. Naik notes that Furnace MFG returns the 2 ranking in Google for a key word phrase that’s important to the business’ marketing efforts.

“This case study on Furnace MFG is an excellent example of small business marketing on a shoe-string,” says Sophie Shiatis, vice president of E-commerce with PRWeb. “Small businesses are often challenged with competing priorities – and PRWeb offers a simple and cost-effective tool that helps increase their online visibility and produces measurable results.”

The complete case study can be read online at: http://www.prweb.com/pr/customer-examples/furnace-mfg.html

InfoShore Software Private Ltd. today announced a campaign to help businesses reach their ecommerce goals by sharing with them the requirements of a successful ecommerce site.

There is no doubt that good graphics and templates contribute to the success of any web site. But when it comes to selling products or services, it takes more than a pretty face to succeed in ecommerce.

“The difference between making a sale and losing a customer to a competitor is often as simple as the number of clicks it takes to select a product, put it into the shopping cart, and checkout,” according to Ashish Arora, InfoShore Software’s Director. “I am always amazed at how many ecommerce web sites erect barriers making it difficult for customers to spend money,” Mr. Arora added.

One of the biggest issues facing online e-tailers is a phenomenon known as shopping cart abandonment rate. The term refers to instances where a customer will select an item, place it in the online cart, and then leave the site without checking out.

According to a study by PayPal®, a leading ecommerce payment service provider, shopping cart abandonment occurs for a number of reasons over which InfoShore Software says every online merchant has control.
Merchants can help avoid experiencing the ecommerce industry’s average 45% cart abandonment rate by looking at their site’s shopping process through their customer’s eyes.

Some common abandonment issues include:

•    Lack of an onsite product feature comparison tool
•    No link to customer service
•    Confusing checkout or registration procedure
•    No easy way for existing customers to retrieve user names or passwords.

“Even ecommerce site owners who use the most popular ecommerce development platforms like OS Commerce, or those who own a Yahoo Store, risk losing customers due to poor shopping cart implementation,” noted Mr. Arora.

That’s why he suggests that online store owners partner with an ecommerce development company (http://www.infoshore.biz/ecommerce-development.php) that understands the technology side of online shopping as well as the human side.

As more people find themselves out of work or caught in the crunch of the global economic meltdown, the number of first-time ecommerce hopefuls is expected to soar.
But Mr. Arora warns that “Enthusiasm and dreams are no substitute for a solid ecommerce experience. And that lack of experience is responsible for the current 97% failure rate among new ecommerce web sites.”

Mr. Arora hopes he can help bring down those rates by sharing his ecommerce development experience with anyone seeking solid advice.
Prospective ecommerce site owners are invited to learn more by visiting the InfoShore Software web site: http://www.infoshore.biz.

New research from Broadbandchoices.co.uk finds that over half of broadband customers paying for ‘unlimited’ download allowances are not taking full advantage of their download capacity and effectively paying hundreds of pounds a year more than they need to.

In response to increased internet usage and the demand for faster broadband, ISPs have launched high end, unlimited broadband packages within their product suites. The result is that the majority of ISPs now offer an ‘unlimited’ package – which claims to provide their customers a truly unlimited download allowance enabling them to stream music, video clips and film to their heart’s content.

However, although ‘unlimited’ packages are increasingly popular, new research from Broadbandchoices.co.uk has revealed that many consumers are not even scratching the surface of their download limit and could save money by trading down to a capped package at a lower monthly charge.

Broadbandchoices.co.uk recently surveyed over 1,400 broadband users (1) about their download habits. Of those with an unlimited download allowance (2), over half (53%) downloaded 10GB or less per month and nearly three quarters (74%) downloaded 20GB or less. This is exceedingly low compared to the amount of content they have the opportunity to download with their unlimited packages, meaning that they are essentially paying for a service they don’t need.

Michael Phillips, product director, Broadbandchoices.co.uk said:
“When choosing a broadband package it is easy to become distracted by flash marketing and words like ‘unlimited’ or to be scared by the concept of download penalties. Our survey shows that the vast majority of broadband users spend less than 2 hours a week on each activity such as downloading music; watching video clips; or watching and downloading TV programmes and movies (4).

"Consumers who pay for a service they are not making full use of are in effect throwing money down the drain. Broadband customers should shop around for a deal to suit their usage needs using an Ofcom accredited price comparison site – those who do could save themselves £100 a year or more (5)."

Broadbandchoices.co.uk’s top tips for choosing a broadband package to suit your needs:

1. Think literally – try to realistically consider your needs as a broadband user. If you spend over 2 hours per day using iPlayer or downloading music and film you will need a package that can support that activity. If all you do is email and surf the net you’ll probably only need a basic service.

2. Compare broadband deals in your area – package availability and costs vary by postcode. There might be a solution available in your area offering greater savings so use an Ofcom approved comparison broadband calculator (www.broadbandchoices.co.uk) to check out the best deals.

3. Haggle with your existing provider – they may have a newer deal you can move across to without changing supplier.

4. Sign up online – many ISPs offer additional discounts and incentives if you subscribe online rather than over the phone. Price comparison sites also frequently have exclusive deals negotiated with ISPs, so check an Ofcom-accredited site for the best offers.

5. Use a download monitor – Use a download monitor to identify your monthly usage and set it to alert you when you are nearing the limit. Visit www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/broadband-download-monitor.html

1&1 Internet Inc., www.1and1.com, the world's largest Web host by known servers, today announced a new server category with highly flexible configuration options – the Dynamic Cloud Server. RAM, virtual CPU cores and disk space can be individually customized and adapted on-demand. In doing so, users only have to pay for the capacities that they need, for example, for websites, online shops, game servers or Web applications.

When ordering the product, the user determines the basic settings, including the preferred operating system. Several Linux variants are offered as well as Windows Server 2008 R2 in Web or Standard edition. 1&1 also offers recommended configuration settings for standard server applications such as email, database, Web hosting or a game server.

Should the server load change over time, perhaps because an advertising campaign achieves an increase in website traffic, the configuration options can be adapted via the Control Panel, which is highly intuitive and easy to use. In this way, users are free to select up to 4 virtual processors, between 1 and 15 GBs of RAM, as well as between 100 and 800 GBs of disk space. With the Dynamic Cloud Server, it will also be possible to change between Linux and Windows operating systems though additional fees will apply for a Windows OS.

Currently, customers purchasing new packages are eligible for $49.99 off of their Dynamic Cloud Server package for the first 3 months if they commit to a 12 month agreement. The virtual CPU allotment, RAM or disk space can be changed daily. Billing for these features will be made monthly.

The Basic package of the Dynamic Cloud Server is priced at $49.99/month and includes 1 virtual CPU core, 1 GB of RAM and 100 GBs of disk space. Each additional virtual CPU core and extra gigabyte of RAM is available for $15/month. Customers can also purchase parcels of 100 GB of disk space for only $10/month. As a special introductory offer, the 1&1 Dynamic Cloud Server basic package is offered free for the first 3 months, a $149.97 value.

The virtual processor cores of the multi-core AMD Opteron 2352 CPUs each deliver 2 GHz of processing power. Furthermore, the product includes, at no additional cost, 1 domain name for as long as the customer keeps their package, 100 email accounts on the 1&1 email system and 2,000 GB of traffic included with a 100 Mbit port speed. Additional IP addresses, domain names and other features can easily be added at any time via the customer’s control panel.

For more information on 1&1 Internet or the Dynamic Cloud Server, visit the website at http://www.1and1.com.