In 2010, DrPeering.net had many success stories. This page documents several success metrics aligned with the mission of evangelizing peering and becoming the number 1 Internet Peering portal in the world. First let's talk about the DrPeering.net portal and promoting peering with its portal.
Internet peering was promoted through documentation on the DrPeering.net web pages, through presentations given at public conferences, through private peering workshops and consulting arrangements. All of these activities support the growth of the Internet Peering market.
In 2010 the DrPeering.net portal reached the widest audience ever - there were over 350,000 page views in 2010. Pretty amazing given how narrow of a niche peering is.
There were over 214,000 unique visitors to the site in 2010 according to the web hosters statistics (Source: 1and1 web statistics portal).
Part of the larger audience is reached as a result of higher search rankings, which may be the result of continuously updated material on the site. In 2010 we updated the original peering white papers and added another dozen white papers as web pages. In response to requests from visitors, the updated pages are arranged as peering tutorial sequences. These aid newcomers to the material by providing an order, guideposts to the journey to understand Internet Peering.
The metric we use to measure the success of the portal is where the DrPeering.net material shows up in various Google searches. To this end we always show up in the first few listings on Google, which again results in greater web page views and higher page rankings. We don't engage in reciprocal linking with other related or non-related sites.
In 2010 we gave 17 peering presentations or workshops, most of them international and for a private corporate or invite-only audience. Two were held in South Africa, Capetown and Johannesburg, one in Nairobi, Kenya, one in Frankfurt, Germany, and one in Montpellier, France. The remaining events were domestic, generally private and only a few days in duration. Several of the latter ones were remote participant teleconference events. Equipment vendors are increasingly asking for half and full-day peering workshops.
All Internet Peering speaking engagements were generated either from the DrPeering.net web portal or customer referrals. Most speaking engagements included a consulting portion or a paid speaker fee. These revenues go to site operations, and most recently, new research and development initiatives.
Other consulting revenue came from customizing presentation materials, document review, expert network participation, working with investment analysts covering the telecom sectors, executive coaching and business planning processes with international carriers and ISPs.
The most common DrPeering.net consulting activities are centered around Internet Data Centers. Specifically, these discussion tend to focus on the Build vs. Buy Data Center decision, the taxonomy of the Colocation market, the market dynamics that enable colocation centers such as Equinix to charge a premium when the commodity data center market is fighting in a bottom feeder market. Several of the "tricks of the trade" that colocation centers and Internet Exchange Points use to build, grow, maintain and defend critical mass are the focus of these discussions.
It is worth pointing out that the majority of revenue is coming from international workshop and consulting activities, mostly in Africa and Europe where there is increasing interest in Internet Peering, Internet Exchange Points, and expanding into emerging markets. The Middle East is also emerging as an emerging market for peering assistance. The challenge for some customers of course is the expense - these engagements tend to be very expensive, primarily due to the travel expenses and consulting time charged while away from the home office. In every case, the customers say the expense was worth it and have volunteered quotes to be used in the marketing materials.
We have removed all Google ads from the site. The amount of money generated was not worth the hassle of implementation. We also removed an experimental ad network from the site.
The web site is predominantly supported by the generosity of the DE-CIX, sponsoring the syndication of the ask.DrPeering.net monthly advice column. The monthly syndication fees cover the cost of hosting, software for creation, maintenance and distribution of the site as well as offset the labor costs of creating the popular Ask.DrPeering.net monthly advice column.
The long running InterStream project also contributed to the syndication of the ask.DrPeering.net monthly column, but came to a close in mid-2010 having run out of funding. Prior to July with InterStream we spent time on-site in LA working closely with the movie industry (Paramount, MGM, NBC Universal, Pixar, Disney, etc.) to assess the industry needs and tie them to a cooperatively managed CDN. On the policy side we worked closely with the legal folks from the AT&T, Comcasts, etc. of the world to try and find a common ground. The Business Case for a Cooperatively Managed CDN was the result and the basis for many talks, meetings, and conference calls.
The vision of end-to-end QoS is not entirely lost though. The end of 2010 led to a new but similar consulting arrangement with the European Commission project called ETICS, with goals similar but broader than InterStream.
The end of 2010 also led to the creation of the "Internet Peering Playbook". The motivation is to provide the material from the peering workshops in book form so that those who can not justify the expense of the peering workshops can still have access to the material. The material for the book is a super set of the material on the site, and follows closely the format and material used in the peering workshops. Over the past decade we have learned how to teach the material effectively, and the book follows the same sequence and in many cases uses the slides from the workshop.
Even though the web site design is a weak spot, we still generated a ton of consulting leads. This year we will engage a web designer to make the content more web friendly while at the same time take advantage of some of the power of HTML 5.
The Internet Peering Playbook is expected to go through more reviews and be released on Apple iBookStore, Amazon and in printed form using print on-demand services. The price is expected to be around $50 for the print version and $22 for the eBook version. The global market for this book is estimated to be 10,000 books. The book will both reduce the number of peering workshops and increase the revenue associated with the sale of the book. Consulting is expected to increase as a direct result of the release of the book.
There will be about twenty peering workshops or consulting engagements in 2011, many of them in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Of these, only a handful will require extensive travel.
The DrPeering.net organization is now a registered supplier for Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco. This speeds the procurement and payment for consulting services. We expect to participate in several Cisco telepresence peering workshops for example.
We are exploring webcast solutions, video capture, audio books and workbooks based on the peering workshops.
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The 2014 Internet Peering Playbook is now available on the iPad at the Apple Store and for the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle, ePub and PDF form are also perpetually updated on the DrPeering DropBox share.
