Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (The Hosting News) - August 24, 2007 - Web host, eCommerce and online marketing service provider for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet’s Gate.com, is offering a free two-night Caribbean cruise for two, to anyone who orders Windows web hosting through September 30, 2007.

Starting at $9.95/month, Gate.com Windows Web hosting is designed to allow for advanced applications. Built on a constantly updated ASP.NET platform, the four web hosting plans features include generous storage, traffic and email allowances, a 99.99% uptime guarantee and 24/7 technical support.

Through the end of next month, Gate.com sweetens the deal with a free two-night Regal Empress cruise for two for customers who purchase a Windows hosting plan. The cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Paradise Island, Bahamas includes:

• A comfortable stateroom
• All meals and snacks
• Live entertainment and shipboard activities

John Enright, Vice President of Sales and Marketing remarked, ”Gate.com is the leader in advanced Web hosting solutions because we know what the developer expects, and we deliver it. This is our way of showing our appreciation to customers for continuing to make Gate.com the top hosting company in the US among the web community.”

The cruise leaves from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The customer is responsible for transportation to and from Fort Lauderdale plus $59/person port taxes. Other restrictions apply. See official rules for details.

Gate.com’s parent company, Affinity, provides more than 200,000 web professionals and small businesses the tools to develop, maintain, market and support their web presence. Affinity’s brands include: ValueWeb, for web design, eCommerce hosting and online marketing solutions and Gate.com, UNIX and Windows web hosting services. Affinity’s co-brand and private-label partner programs ar designed to enable service providers and Internet brands to extend value proposition to include feature-rich web sites, ecommerce and online marketing services and applications. Affinity’s services are supported by its customer service ‘’success guides,” with knowledgeable consultants serving small businesses growth and success. Read more of this news »

Redmond, Washington - (Website Hosting Directory) - April 10, 2007 - Microsoft will join forces with a newly formed Fox/Newscorp and NBC/Universal joint venture, to distribute a vast library of online video content to MSN consumers. A statement released by Microsoft Corp., attributable to Kevin Johnson, President of the Platform and Services Division, specified:

“Today’s announcement is a great win for MSN’s more than 460 million consumers and for online video more broadly. When launched, this new venture will provide free access to an unprecedented library of high-quality video content.

“Our investments in MSN Video and SoapBox over the past couple of years have shown us that video is an amazing driver of user engagement and excitement, both for consumers and for advertisers.
Read more of this news »

Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (The Hosting News) - April 5, 2007 - Web host, eCommerce and online marketing service company for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet, has been acquired by web hosting solutions firm, Hostway Corporation, combining two of the most prominent web-centric service providers.

John Lee, VP of Global Marketing at Hostway commented, ”Both Hostway and Affinity’s current product offerings will remain intact. New integrated products will be launched through the new company, but nothing will be announced at this time.”

The new company will offer customers all the products, tools and services necessary to build and operate an effective online business on a global scale – from professional web development and design, results-oriented online advertising solutions, to powerful hosting and eCommerce applications. The acquisition is the conclusion of a long and involved process that took many months. Mr. Lee continued, ”Lucas Roh, current CEO of Hostway will remain the CEO of the combined company. Both companies’ teams will remain intact in the interim.” Read more of this news »

Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (Website Hosting Directory) - March 26, 2007 - Web site, ecommerce and online marketing service provider for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet, has expanded its product line, to include Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, under its ValueWeb brand.

Windows SharePoint Services is a powerful online collaboration tool used to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. Affinity is offering three levels of paid hosting packages: SharePoint Express, SharePoint Advanced and SharePoint Pro, all of which will integrate a robust, feature-rich hosting plan and domain with the full range of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 lightweight application functionalities. Read more of this news »

Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (The Hosting News) - March 20, 2007 - Web host, eCommerce and online marketing service provider for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet, is offering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 under its ValueWeb brand.

Windows SharePoint Services is an online collaboration tool used to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. Affinity is offering three levels of paid hosting packages: SharePoint Express, SharePoint Advanced and SharePoint Pro, all of which will integrate a robust, feature-rich hosting plan and domain with the full range of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 lightweight application functionalities. Read more of this news »

Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (The Hosting News) - February 14, 2007 - Web host, eCommerce and online marketing service provider for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet’s Gate.com, has released the grand prize winner of its advergame, ServerMechanic, an online competitive flash game created to build brand awareness of its web hosting subsidiary.

The free IT-focused casual game tested players’ technical prowess in a four-level online competition and even offered a 2-player option. Players vied for an array of big prizes, including the coveted Xbox 360, the popular Gears of War game, free domain names, free hosting and a grand prize of an LCD flat-screen HDTV. The competition ran from Oct. 16 to Dec. 15, 2006, during which Affinity Internet awarded a total of 216 prizes and gained a strong viral presence on the web.

Over the duration of the contest, tens of thousands of unique visitors played ServerMechanic and a whopping 63.9 percent of that traffic was obtained virally. Although the company employed a modest Google advertising campaign and did its own seeding campaign on related forums, the majority of the game’s traffic was from word of mouth marketing or “WOM” – traveling virally from player-to-player – far exceeding the percentage originally projected. Read more of this news »

Boca Raton, Florida - (Website Hosting Directory)- January 11, 2007 - The South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA), scheduled for January 11th, will be sponsored by web hosting firm, Affinity Internet, featuring information about the top search engines and their strategies for natural search, and pay per click marketing, among other topics.

After discussing the search engine landscape, the distinguished panel from the major search engines will discuss the nature of search engine marketing — where it is now and where is it headed in 2007 and beyond. The program will conclude with questions from the audience. Read more of this news »

Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (The Hosting News) - January 10, 2007 - Web host, eCommerce and online marketing service provider for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet, has released the results of its annual 2006 eCommerce Survey, which polled over 2,000 small business owners at the height of the 2006 holiday season.

John Enright, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Affinity Internet remarked, “Through this survey we were able to confirm what we already knew about our client base - the ValueWeb community is a force to be reckoned with. As a whole, they’re optimistic, knowledgeable and adventurous business owners. Our customers give their businesses complete focus, and as a result they want a team player that will treat their business just like they do – with complete focus and dedication. This survey will drive our team and shows we are offering a truly valued service to our customers.”

The poll targeted both Affinity and non-Affinity customers, and was designed to measure how shifts in eCommerce trends will impact small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) during the year to come. Survey results show an overwhelmingly optimistic outlook towards eCommerce—with a much higher degree of optimism over last year. Results also indicate that SMBs will commit greater resources to search engine optimization (SEO) marketing and other online efforts in 2007. Perhaps not surprisingly, the survey also found that compared to the average small business owner, Affinity’s customers have a broader understanding of the effectiveness of online marketing. Read more of this news »