This week I have been asked to discuss two websites that I visit frequently. I really did not realize how many sites I access on a daily basis until I tried to pick two of them! I spend a significant amount of time on so many sites! Sites like Facebook, Google, Amazon, AWS (Amazon Web Services), Netflix, MiraCosta, Bitbucket, Chase Bank, Blogger, etc. are just a few and I access these almost every single day! Since I am supposed to choose two, I went with the most interesting of them all and the two sites that I am quite certain have in some way shape or form a hand in the making and maintaining of each and every one of the sites I am touching every day. Is that possible?
AWS is Amazon's cloud. When people talk about "The Cloud" they are usually referring to AWS if they know it or not. It is the world of virtual machines! AWS owns and maintains data centers across the world that they basically rent out. Netflix is one company that uses AWS. Have you ever wondered how everyone can be watching movies at the same time and it does not slow them down? They have a highly reliable and scale-able system through AWS that fires up new machines when too many people are logging on at the same time and shuts them down when they are no longer needed. I am a DevOps Engineer for a Media Broadcasting Technology company that uses AWS so I am on their console every day at work. If you would like to check it out, it is free to sign up for an account as long as you don't activate any services you should be ok. Go to console.aws.amazon.com if you would like to see it. I have included a screenshot of the console home page for you to get an idea of how many services they offer. Clicking on any one of these services will take you into an entirely new area that covers that service. It is probably the most intricate, fast and reliable site that I have ever depended on and I am quite sure that is one of the reasons they are the leading cloud technology services company out there. Keep in mind though that this site is for people who are already customers. You wont see a lot of marketing frills which is probably why it is so fast. However, if you go to aws.amazon.com you will see that they have that front page set up for marketing and keeping this console separate is what makes it so efficient. You do not have to search through propaganda to find what you need. There is one little thing that I would like to improve on this site and that is the sorting of the services. I can see why they need to have it this way and have grouped them for people who may not know the name of what they are looking for. However, it would be great if we could sort them alphabetically to make it easier to go straight to what you are looking for when you know what it is called.
For my second site I have chosen another site that I use at work called Bitbucket.org. Bitbucket is a web-based hosting service for projects that use either Mercurial or Git revision control systems. Am I speaking another language? Basically, it is a place where we can collect all of the code for our projects and share and make changes and store the information for version control of our software. That is why I say that it is another site that probably touches all of these other sites in one way or another. In fact, I just read an article that 1 in 3 fortune 500 companies are using Bitbuket! And how do they do their marketing? Well it most certainly is not through their site!! So, I googled that and the best I can come up with as far as their biggest marketing tool is.... wait for it...... BLOGS! Hmmmm So, now this has me thinking and on to another subject for another blog at another time but I will leave you with the thought. How important IS the money and effort put into the design of your website if you have a solid product and aggressive Social Media Marketing campaign?
The Bitbucket site is not colorful, it is not pretty, but it is organized well. And much like the AWS console, if you are looking for the fluff and want to be sold on something, just click on the "Plans and Pricing" or "Documentation" links at the bottom of the page and BAM! There is an instant change in font size, color, graphics, etc. It seems to me that they also saved all of the features that slow down your website and put them in their respective areas for those who would like to view them. Nicely done!
This week I have commented on the following student's blogs:
Skylar hunter
Nina Sokol
Matthew Truss
Fascinating summary of the mysteries behind AWS Jennifer!
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