TheWHIR at Webhosting Day 2008, An Introduction

Normally I'd post something about this a little further in advance, but things have been rather busy around the WHIR office the last couple of weeks, as we've been working hard to assemble the March 2008 issue of the WHIR magazine (it should start arriving in mailboxes this week - which will warrant a blog post of its own in the next day or two).

Advance warning aside, however, I'm happy to report that the WHIR team is headed for Germany again (technically, I'm writing this as we head for Germany. When this post makes its way to the website, we'll be there). We'll be making our third consecutive appearance at (the third annual) Webhosting Day, the hosting trade show event held by Web hosting provider Intergenia.

I and WHIRtv host and producer Anastasia Tubanos will be on hand at the event, and that means two things, fundamentally. First, we'll be doing everything we can to provide thorough and up-to-the-minute coverage of the goings on at the event. And second, if you happen to be at Webhosting Day, please have a look around for us and say hello.

A few notes about the event (which begins Wednesday, March 12):

As with the past two years, Webhosting Day 2008 will be held at the always-bizarre Phantasialand, an amusement park near Cologne, oddly designed to resemble medieval China.

According to Intergenia CEO and event organizer Thomas Strohe, they're expecting 800 attendees at this year's conference, which is a definite increase over last year's approximately 500.

It appears as though the major sponsors of the event will be Microsoft and Parallels, both of which are currently working with significant new releases. So if the sponsorships translate into session content, which I suspect quite strongly they will, at the very least it promises to be relevant and current content.

Also interesting: we happened to be on the same New-Jersey-to-Cologne flight as Internet lawyer and frequent WHIR contributor David Snead. From this encounter, I determined that he, too, will be attending Webhosting Day. Reliable and insightful WHIR blogger that he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he offered some thoughts from the event as well.

One last thing - you can head over to our Flickr page to check out a set of photographs from last year's event. And we'll be adding pictures from this year's event as it unfolds. Of course, I'll post something about them just as soon as they're up.