Back in July of 2006 someone asked on the forum for ASPnix, the web host that specializes in CommunityServer, to add ISAPI Rewrite to their servers so that customers can clean up their URLs. Seven people including myself chimed in asked for it. Over the past eight months, little was said by ASPnix except by a former staffer who implied it was harm the stablity of their servers and who really gave no indication that any real consideration was being made to offer a solution for URL Rewriting.

Well finally, on Feb 22nd, Roma confirmed that ASPnix has will finally be offering ISAPI Rewrite on ASPnix’s web servers. That’s yet another IIS-centric web host who has finally freed its customers from the shackles of poorly designed URL Hell! Hooray!

Now let’s just hope that Scott Watermasysk can be convinced to add URL Rewriting support in CommunityServer using ISAPI Rewrite to eliminate .ASPX extensions and more on CommunityServer, sooner than later.

aspnix, communityserver, dotnet, forums, iis, isapirewrite, microsoft, scottwatermasysk, teligent, urldesign, urlrewriting, webhosts

They say people can’t understand an abstract concept unless they have language to describe it. For example, because Tahitians don’t have a word for sadness they think of sadness as they would a physical illness.

As we are immersed in a world of rapid change we need many new words to describe previously unidentified concepts. And when one of those new concepts inspires the masses, the media latches hold and a buzzword is born. And though everyone scoffs at them, we simply couldn’t discuss so as new concepts without using buzzwords. Like it or not, buzzwords are here to stay as the pace of change accelerates.

Recent examples of Internet buzzwords are ‘AJAX‘ and ‘Web 2.0‘ with the latter often being derided as meaningless and just hype. But ‘Web 2.0‘ is, by definition, not meaningless! Ney, the term ‘Web 2.0‘ identifies the nature and level of activity on the web not seen since the dotcom crash. So if ‘Web 2.0‘ were truly meaningless, there wouldn’t be a buzzword for it! Of course whether or not ‘Web 2.0‘ actually describes anything of tangible value distinct from prior periods is a matter of significant debate. :)

The reason buzzwords are so beneficial and will continue to be used is they give people a shared context in which to efficiently communicate, and that has an incredible value. Of course most buzzwords are merely shorthand for “the next big thing” but that’s just the nature of the hyped-up world we live in.

As an aside, the reason the term ‘Web 2.0‘ has attracted so much derision is it grouped hard-to-pin-down concepts having more in common with the current era than anything else. The shared context for ‘Web 2.0‘ is ‘the period starting around 2003‘ and since there is little value in discussing ‘the benefits of the period starting around 2003‘ the value of the shared context is diminished and dissonance results. It would have been much better had the purveyors of Web 2.0 done more to segment and focus attention on the individual concepts instead of defining the umbrella that covered them. Ah, but easier said than done.

On the other hand when the buzzword defines a concise and well understood concept the shared context can create many orders of magnitude more value than the concept on its own, as has been the case with the term ‘AJAX.’ Of course the downside to buzzwords is that wherever they go hype will follow, and that you just can’t avoid!

aspnix, communityserver, isapirewrite, sociology, urldesign

It’s about time! Teligent Systems is finally offering Community Server on a hosted basis! In my experience, trying to install Community Server a total of four times over the past so many years, and .Text before that, I must say it is the most infuriating and difficult to install application I’ve ever come across! The only time I was able to get it installed was the most recent time for an as-yet-unannounced new website, and it wasn’t easy; believe me!

Telligent also appears to have followed Google’s lead and are calling it a Beta even though it is a live hosted account.
 

Personally I can’t believe it should have been that hard to install, I just think Teligent did not put enough effort into their installer. And I believe that fact alone cost Telignent a huge opportunity in the market and significantly less marketshare than was possible otherwise. Although there are many aspects about CommunityServer that I don’t like, there are many more that I do especially its blog and forum integration. There are better forums and there are better blogs, but nothing integrates like CommunityServer, at least not of which I am currently aware even on Linux.

Pricing for the service feels a little steep, but maybe not depending on the revenue generated by the forum. Clearly it’s harder to cost justify for someone putting up a new community site than it is for a company using it to support and promote their products.  Here’s the pricing at the time of this writing:
 

So if you run a business and don’t have a blog/forum to promote and support your products, check it out. Teligent finally made it easy.

blogs, communityserver, forums, teligent