Last Chance to Stake Your Claim for an Award at The 2008 ISPAs
Supplementary forms due in by end of TODAY

A Terrific Trio Capitalise On The ISPAs
F-Secure, Orange & Seagate

The Hosts With The Most
UK2.net – Helping small businesses make the right hosting choices

Name A Hero, Shame A Villain
Have your say as ISPA invites Internet Hero and Villain Award Nominations 

Last Chance to Stake Your Claim for an Award at The 2008 ISPAs
Supplementary forms due in by end of TODAY

Time is running out for entrants of The 2008 ISPAs who have not completed their supplementary online forms. 

All entrants must complete online value added forms by THE END OF TODAY be in with a chance for winning an award.

If you don’t fill in the form, you will not win an award.

Judges will select the winners in each category using the value added information provided. Those that miss the deadline will not be given a second chance. 

The shortlists will be announced in January and the final winners will be announced at the gala dinner and the award ceremony held on Friday 14th March 2008. 

The ISPAs are ‘The Internet event of the year’ [Mirror], and are a brilliant opportunity to network. According to a post-awards evaluation survey, over half or respondents made new business contacts at the event last year. 

Ticket sales will be announced first via ISPA News. 

For further information regarding the entry of your supplementary forms, or if you have any general enquiries, contact the ISPA press office or phone 020 7609 1907.

A Terrific Trio Capitalise On Award Sponsorship
Introducing the newest sponsors of The 2008 ISPAs

The ISPAs has three new sponsors this month. F-Secure, Orange and Seagate have all accepted the great marketing opportunities created by The ISPAs sponsorship package and have committed to backing categories at The 2008 ISPAs.

The Best Consumer ISP has been sponsored by F-Secure who protect consumers and businesses against computer viruses and other threats from the Internet and mobile networks. They want to be the most reliable provider of security services in the market and demonstrate this by the speed of their response.

F-Secure’s award-winning solutions are available as a service subscription through more than 150 Internet service providers and mobile operator partners around the world, making F-Secure the global leader in this market. The solutions are also available as licensed products through thousands of resellers globally.

Orange are following up their CSR award at The 2007 ISPAs with sponsorship of The IWF Award at The 2008 ISPAs. Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators and now serves over 85 million customers across 23 mobile operations around the world. 

It is Europe’s largest broadband provider with over 8.1 million broadband customers across Europe, and is Britain’s No1 VOIP provider with more than 150,000 users. 

Seagate is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of
hard disc drives and has chosen to partner with the Best Dedicated Hosting category. They provide products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Branded Solutions. Seagate's technology leadership and world class manufacturing delivers industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers. 

The company is committed to providing award winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world's growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at www.seagate.com.

If you want to promote your business to the leading members in the UK Internet Industry, now is the time to sponsor a category at The 2008 ISPAs. There are just SIX categories still available so secure your own sponsorship package today.

The ISPAs is the best channel to promote your business to board members of the UK’s leading Internet companies using a variety of marketing communication techniques.

Benefits include oodles of online branding as well as a full-page colour advertisement in The ISPAs programme and a full projected audio visual presentation at the event. And best of all this is a networking event unrivalled in the industry for the seniority and sheer number of representatives present.

Find out how sponsorship could benefit your company and take a look over the Sponsorship Package here, or contact the ISPA Press Office (0207 609 1907).

The Hosts With The Most
UK2.net – Helping small businesses make the right hosting choices

As a small business, when you decide that it’s time to establish an online presence you’ll need to make some big choices about the hosting package and provider. You may know the basics of web hosting, or have some IT experience, but with a myriad of options available where do you start? UK2 understands that the majority of small businesses don’t have the time or resources to get too involved in IT decisions, which is why our hosting solutions come with everything needed to get a business online, quickly, simply and at a great price.

UK2 has been an established player in the hosting industry since 1998, and knows that small businesses want products at affordable prices, and a reliable and professional company to support them. UK2 also knows that the needs and ambitions of a small business can change, so our products are constantly evolving to adapt to the current marketplace.

So how do you get your business online with UK2?

First you need to decide on your domain name. This is your identity on the web and should encompass what your business is about and be as recognisable as possible. You can choose from many different types of domain from a .com to a .biz. If you’re just starting up a new business don’t forget to check that the domain you want is available before committing to your company name!

After the domain name you’ll need a web hosting package that’s right for your business. UK2 web hosting comes with:

- Free Set Up – we don’t want to charge you for something we are experts at

- Free Domain Name – when you sign up for a year you get your domain for free, and if you stay with UK2 you’ll never have to pay for the domain renewal

- Free Google AdWords – enabling you to start marketing with Google at no extra cost

- Free 24 / 7 Support – so no matter what time of day or night you run your business, there will always be someone available to help

Our web hosting has a wide range of inclusive features, so not only can you create an easy to update website, but you can also make it even more relevant by having your own company blog, an online shop, a photo gallery to market your business and products, a forum, a proper support system for your clients, and more. To make things easy we have a great package installer tool, so that popular scripts such as content managers and blogs can be installed within a couple of clicks, making it easier than ever for the novice to not only create but manage website content. Also included are advanced tracking tools, monitoring all visitors to the site so that profits can be maximised, and multiple domain support to reduce the cost of having multiple sites.

UK2 web hosting is also very generous, particularly with webspace and monthly bandwidth levels. These are key things to consider when choosing a web hosting package, particularly if you expect your website to grow over time. Webspace is the allocated storage space for all the files that make up your website, so if you want a high content website with lots of pages you’ll need a generous amount. Monthly bandwidth is the total amount of data your website can transmit to users each month. For instance, if the total size of your website is 10KB, and one user visits your website and views every page, you have used up 10KB of your allocated monthly bandwidth. If 10 users do the same, you have used up 100KB of your allocated monthly bandwidth.

How to decide what kind of website to have?

We recently updated our own website to let customers know exactly what they can do with web hosting rather than just stating the specifications. Understanding the specifications and jargon can be a major sticking point for a small business wishing to get online, as knowledge and resources may be limited and needed elsewhere rather than spending time and money creating the site or picking the hosting package. Why go to the extra cost of enlisting the help of an agency to build the site when you can do this with a site builder or inexpensive template and manage the content easily yourself? 

A key decision though is what kind of website to have, the main choice being whether to just market online or to sell online as well.

Did you know that just 18% of small to medium enterprises are selling online* because of the perceived risk of online credit card fraud. Although actual fraud levels are very low, the perceived risk is enough to deter companies from e-commerce and prevents them from competing in a low cost global market. An alternative approach has been for small businesses to adopt existing online marketplaces such as eBay, or use web payment systems such as PayPal and Google Checkout. With these alternatives the potential business growth for small businesses in the UK has never been greater.

However, here at UK2 we have a selection of e-commerce options, to suit different small business needs. We listened to business owners who were eager, yet nervous, to embrace the e-commerce world and have developed an affordable, secure, flexible, easy to integrate, user friendly package that combines functionality with aesthetics to provide small businesses with the tools and support to launch their online shop in record time. Hopefully, this well help many more small businesses make the jump from marketing online to trading online.

To find out more about UK2 and our latest offers, why visit www.uk2.net today!

*Source: House of Lords Science and Technology Committee

[ The above article has been produced by UK2.net and is included in this newsletter as part of the benefits they receive as a sponsor of The 2008 ISPAs. This article does not represent the views of ISPA, the members of ISPA or The 2008 ISPAs. ]

Name A Hero, Shame A Villain
Have your say as ISPA invites Internet Hero and Villain Award Nominations 

ISPA wants your ideas and suggestions for this year’s Internet Heroes and Villains for The 2008 ISPAs. 

Each year The ISPAs include an award for these categories. You may want to put forward an Internet hero, for their prowess in the industry this year. Or perhaps you think someone has upset the industry and is deserving of being named the ‘Internet Villain'. 

The shortlist and eventual winner will be selected by the ISPA Council. 

Previous ‘Internet Heroes' include Annie Mullins for her work with the Home Office Task Force on Protection of Children on the Internet and the European Union's Safer Internet Programme and Stephen Timms MP for his effective work as E-Commerce Minister. Whilst past 'Internet Villains' tarnishing the ‘net have included Commissioner Vivianne Reding and European Commission for foisting the most arcane set of rules yet seen for prior registration of .eu domains.

Please submit your nominations to the ISPA Press Office by Friday 21st December 2007.