Hi all,

Did anyone else happen to read the article entitled "Server Automation Evolution" in the February issue of Web Hosting Magazine?

I was quite surprised to hear Cpanel mentioned. They stated that "VDI is on the right track with Cpanel as far as this year's killer app goes." The article gave an overview of many popular server automation tools such as Sphera, Ensim, Plesk and Systemfusion as well as providers like Alabanza and Intermedia.net.

Overall, a good article. If you're not already subscribed to the magazine, I would highly recommend it!

Web Hosting Magazine - http://www.whmag.com

Anyone else have any comments?

Regards,
Matt
mlightner@site5.com

I did a real cheesy scan - 2 meg PDF :)

If you want to download and View it

http://vdi.net/articals.pdf

This month didn't come :bawling:

Where the hell is my issue? I always seem like the last one to receive it!!! :( I love that mag!

Ok, I don't feel as bad anymore. Chicken didn't get his yet :D

I never get one :( :(

It's pretty worthless, anyway. Didn't they recently give some sort of award to *****? Who in their right mind would take that seriously? And Mike A at webauthorities as some sort of reseller ambassador? No offense to Mike, but come on, he wasn't that active at recellar.com. If they started covering things a little more objectively and weren't so hung up on their own cuteness, it would be a lot better.

I have yet to receive a copy since I subscribed in December.

I wouldn't say that everthing in the mag is completely, 100% on, but it has some good stuff. Yes, they are stuck on their own cuteness, heh. They have had articles (or blurbs) about AIT (and I'm sure that gives a few of you a chuckle), and here's a nice quote:

"A moment of truth for us at WH Mag was getting acquantited with a web host by the name of CobaltRacks."

Now, this is taken out of context a bit, and they were honoring Cobalt Networks, not CobaltRacks (and I believe it was an attempt to reflect about their delight of all the cobalts they have racked up) but I still thought the statement was a bit funny considering...

WHM has a moment here and there, especially if you follow the hosting scene, since you'll see right through some of those things (award to *****, that mention of AIT, etc) and be able to laugh, but other than that, they should save the trees. Overall, not being a host but following the industry, if anyone tried to take WHM as hard core reporting on the hosting industry and tried to do anything with that information...well, let's just say that they'd either go down in flames or become a laughingstock to those who knew better.

Originally posted by kunal
I never get one :( :(

kunal....did you not receive the (second hand) December issue????

I posted it to the address you gave me, as promised....



sickofads,

you're right, or should I say, I agree....

...however it seems to indicate that there is a whole *other* web hosting culture somewhere nearby, similar to the one we know, that rarely visits this forum, but is easily accessible to the editors/staff of the WH mag..(????) maybe we are the minority... *gasp*

Also, it's one of those rags that is best kept for reading in that most private of places.... ;) ahem

Felix, absolutely. Of course, most magazine articles are written with that "special trip" in mind. ;)

And for those of you who think I'm just coming out of left field with this one, since I know some people think WHM is just delightful, remember that these are the same people that run ISPCheck. So when you're wondering why they write articles about addr.com, why don't you check out http://www.ispcheck.com/ with all its flashy, spinning, animated ads, note that addr.com is listed on their "guaranteed" sidebar, and then think about the type of weight you want to give their "reporting".

hmm.. felix.. me dint get it :(:(

kunal...

yeah...that's a pain...now neither of us have got it..

I don't know if the Post Office can do anything here...I doubt it...it's only a magazine.

Ahh well....maybe it will turn up late...not much good for you though....want me to try again.?? ..I won't be collecting them...that's for sure..heh heh

I've read the January copy to death now..

Originally posted by felix220
kunal...

yeah...that's a pain...now neither of us have got it..

I don't know if the Post Office can do anything here...I doubt it...it's only a magazine.

Ahh well....maybe it will turn up late...not much good for you though....want me to try again.?? ..I won't be collecting them...that's for sure..heh heh

I've read the January copy to death now..


na.. its ok :) Thanx anyways. it should show up sometime :)

I subscribed awhile back, and haven't seen an issue yet either. Maybe it's because I made it REALLY clear in the comments section that I don't want my information on ANY lists. Where's my FREE issue anyway?

Just out of curiosity, is anyone going to the web hosting conference in August?

I was in WHMag TWICE having written letters to the editor.

The international mail room at WH Mag must be more efficient than the local one, because I always get a copy within the first few days of each month.... and living in Australia where such occurrences are rare, this is pleasing, notwithstanding the largely spurious, but entertaining content of the rag.

For those that have not received a magazine...Go and fill out the form again!! It took me about 4 months to get mine....I was so mad because I even wrote and complained?
Now by some bizarre thing...we get 3
go figure!!

Hey folks - email me directly (iwang@whmag.com) if you're missing issues of Web Hosting Magazine. I'll make sure our circulation department sends you out copies today.

For those of you who think our content is worthless - tell me more!! Everything we know about web hosting industry we learned from people like you. We'd appreciate any input to help us improve!

In response to some of SickofAds's points... Not to single him out or anything - he just happens to be the most outspoken :)

Yes, we do run ISPcheck - that's how we met many of you and got the idea to start WH Mag. Yes, Addr.com advertises on ISPcheck, but more importantly, the company is run by two 22-year olds who have 40,000 accounts, offices in San Jose and Denver AND time to vacation frequently in Hawaii. If you're doing as well as they are, let me know - I'll write about you in our next issue.

Yes, we did give ***** an award in January. You may not like them, you may think they have poor service, but you have to wonder why they have 80,000+ accounts while so many other hosting companies don't. Instead of focusing on what they're doing wrong, why not learn from what they're doing right?

By the way, many of you here deserved awards but were not mentioned simply because we don't know about you. I'd like to change that for our 2001 awards - tell me about yourselves!

-Isabel

Isabel Wang
Web Hosting Magazine
http://www.whmag.com
iwang@whmag.com

What a load of crap! Giving awards based on how well a company runs its advertising campaigns, how often it succeeds in scamming customers, or whether or not the owners can afford to vacation in Hawaii? Hey, the two owners of GX Hosting made $75,000 -- they must deserve an award too! Do you *know* that ***** has 80,000 customers? Did you *research* ANYTHING, or just believe whatever hosts told you becuase you're too lazy to do any real investigative reporting, and these hosts support you with their advertising?

Anyone who would give an award to ***** with their record of outright dishonesty has her head well up her ass. A publication I'll be sure to avoid!!

Hey Deb - Maybe you can help us out here. We recently started a "Best Web Hosts" project to research what makes a hosting provider good.

You say that commending financial success and the ability to run advertising campaigns is a load of crap - so what should we be looking for instead? Also, if Addr and ***** don't have your respect, are there any people or companies in the industry that do?

Honestly - I'm interested in hearing what you think. Rather than avoiding WHMag because you think I'm wrong headed (which I very well might be - you have more hands on experience in the industry than me), I think it'd benefit everyone if you could use the publication as a vehicle to get your own view across.

-Isabel :)

Jeeze -- should I NEED to tell a journalist to do her homework and research the information her magazine publishes before it gets into print? I don't think so!

You say that commending financial success and the ability to run advertising campaigns is a load of crap - so what should we be looking for instead?
How about starting off with honesty? Actually providing the services your cutomers have paid for? Making money doesn't mean sh*t -- any good con artist can make money, and that's exactly what many hosts are, as too many of us have found out to our cost.

Do some RESEARCH, Isabel! Hosts get bad reputations here because they *deserve* those reputations. The messages people post represent their experiences as *customers*. It doesn't matter what any host tells you, they all try to make themselves look as good as possible, even the honest ones. Anyone can tell you whatever they want about themselves, and if you publish it, you hurt those people who buy the same line of crap that you just did.

Wow, what a great publication yours must be, coming here after the fact to get the facts.

Hi Isabel,

We have seen too many people get screwed over by some of these big-money-making-hosts!! How much money a host makes says nothing about how they treat their clients. And I think how you treat your clients (support, service, attitude, etc...) is the single most important factor which I would judge a host by.

I'm not saying that all "large" hosts are bad, far from it. But when you give awards to hosts based on their financial success regardless of how badly they have screwed their customers only rubs salt in the wound, and servers to discredit your magazine. That being said, I still read your mag, but I do have issues with some of the content.

Deb - Just because I publish a magazine doesn't mean that I know any more than you, or that my opinion carries any more weight than yours. If you think ANY publication has all the facts before it goes to print, or can give the final word on any subject, I want to know what you're reading!!

tabernack - so you and Deb both think good customer service are key. Would you qualify your respective companies as top notch in service? What measure do you take to ensure this is and remains the case? Not to put you on the spot, but "good service" is an intangible concept. How does one spot a web host who really treat its customers right without repeating your bad experiences?

I understand your frustration when you see companies you've been dissatisfied with in the spotlight, but let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Deb says that "any good con artist can make money", but not every crook has the ability to be a good con artist.

There are lots of web hosts who have financial troubles in addition to bad reputations. Is it not conceivable that what set the big bad hosts apart from the small time crooks might be some sort of useful - and legitimate - skills that you can learn from, while holding on to your integrity?

While I have no love for ***** and don't think that they are necessarily deserving of an award, I think that it is important to remember that this magazine is targeted to the web hosting industry and not to consumers in general. Therefore I don't think that an award given by WHM would carry as much weight with a potential customer than one given in say PC Magazine. At any rate I found the awards that were given in the January issue to be less serious than most industry awards and many were obvious lampoons.

I read WHM to get an idea of industry trends and to learn more on how to build a successfull web host. If ***** has attracted 40,000 customers over the past year then I do want to know about it and find out what they did or changed that allowed them to make those gains, although I want to find out about in a nuetral and objective way. I also want to know how to keep those customers (something that ***** perhaps has not learned).

Also, as I recall, there was a feature article in WHM about a year ago on ***** and the problems it was having. It basically ripped them apart and said this is how not to run a web hosting company so I don't think it is completely fair to say they don't report negatively on some of these companies.

AP

Isabel,

There is no difficulty in understanding how the hosts mentioned here are able to rake in the cash and grow large, and of course continue to flourish.

It is a well known fact that the volume of NEW people and companies looking for a place to plant their web site is increasing at a phenomenal level.....surely you must agree.

It seems that many of these people have a limited understanding of the various factors involved in choosing and maintaining a hosting service.

You can see by the types of questions often asked at this forum that many have NO EXPERIENCE. You will also notice that the general mood of this forum is to assist those people, affectionately referred to as *newbie's*

Now to suggest that people like Deb & tabernack and of course many others here, are unable to emulate the cash flow results of a ***** or Addr.com etc because they need to learn something about how it's done is quite inappropriate..

Just because you choose not to tell lies to people in order to conduct a successful business does not mean that you are unaware of how it's done.

In fact making outrageous offers and flooding the market with advertising is hardly a *sophisticated* way to take money from unsuspecting victims.

It is a runaway, new and volatile industry and certain people and companies have made a decision to milk it by using tactics reminiscent of the 'cure-all' tonics and various other schemes designed to relieve the unwary of their money.

You may argue 'caveat emptor', but that scarcely mitigates the responsibility of people in your position to at least *attempt* to report honest facts, eventhough it may put a severe dent in your advertising revenue.

I think Deb is right, you must do more research.


Your mag is still entertaining though.. :)

Hi Isabel,

You're right, it is intangible. Which is why it is the most difficult to measure. I wouldn't qualify my company as Top Notch in the support/service/attitude department (or any other department for that matter), but it is the most important factor when dealing with my clients. My business is small, I don't spend any money on advertising/marketing, but I also have not lost a client in almost 2 years.

The reasons I don't advertise are many (day job, need for capital, school, etc..). But that still doesn't stop me from going above and beyond the call of duty when my clients ask me to.

Felix - Your message seems to imply that honesty and marketing genius are mutually exclusive; I disagree.

Yes, there are gazillions of new hosting customers out there. But not every company is capturing them at the same rate. Yes, many web hosts flood the market with advertising or try to lure unsuspecting newbies with too good to be true offers. But it takes more than huge marketing war chests and outrageous claims to reach new customers.

I've seen it first hand. Many ISPcheck advertisers have blown their big budgets with absolutely no result. Others attract a steady stream of customers at a tiny fraction of the cost. Their secrets?

They research what features appeal most to prospects. They fine tune their ad design to maximize the attention it attracts. They create service plans that are competitive and yet leave room for profits. They study their own websites to make sure customers can sign up smoothly and quickly.

Marketing is an art and a science - it's a laborious process no easier for crooks than customer service perfectionists to master. By the same token, honesty does not prohibit anyone from trying to turn more of his or her website's visitors into paying customers.

Originally posted by IsabelW
Felix - Your message seems to imply that honesty and marketing genius are mutually exclusive; I disagree.

Quite the contrary. Marketing genius is required if you are to succeed honestly

Yes, there are gazillions of new hosting customers out there. But not every company is capturing them at the same rate.

I agree, because it does require marketing skills combined with many other skills to "capture" and *keep* their customers.

This doesn't mean that they have to substitute *skill* with blatant lies and/or skillfully worded small print to capture the customer, take their money and then assume that because another one will be along in 5 minutes, not follow through on their promises.



They research what features appeal most to prospects. They fine tune their ad design to maximize the attention it attracts. They create service plans that are competitive and yet leave room for profits. They study their own websites to make sure customers can sign up smoothly and quickly.

And then....?? If you can suggest that ALL of the people who have been upended by certain hosts are wrong, and that by doing what you mention above BUT failing to deliver it, is marketing genius, then I'm afraid you certainly belong to a school of thought that I for one could never subscribe to.


Marketing is an art and a science - it's a laborious process no easier for crooks than customer service perfectionists to master. By the same token, honesty does not prohibit anyone from trying to turn more of his or her website's visitors into paying customers.

I seriously believe you are maybe missing the point here. Please consider this, in a spirit of healthy debate...

There are many people here with *little* hosting companies, who you may think are spouting sour grapes because they don't have 80,000 clients and the attached cash flow.

This may be true in some circumstances.... however, I for one have been in marketing for a long time, and these guys who you are defending are NOT innovating. They are preying on the fact that people will trust them to provide all the fabulous things that they offer.

These things *seem* to be great value, and if they were ever provided, they would be great value.... the problem is that they don't happen.

The fact that a company can identify what customers want in hosting, promise it, and then not deliver is no genius at all.

Some of the smaller guys around here have brilliant ideas and are able to provide them within their own means.

The oldest trick in the book of seedy marketing concepts is *promise them the world and give them nothing*

Why is it that some of the bigger hosts who also advertise heavily and provide innovative products and services don't end up being pilloried for fraud and deception....??? Why? Because they DO deliver the goods.... they do have great marketing departments.

Believe me, bull****ting people to take their money is not the act of a genius, just a common everyday rogue.

By the way, in your defense, there are some excellent marketing campaigns revealed in your publication, by REAL marketing geniuses, and that makes excellent reading for smaller people like me who do watch where the innovators go.

I think I've said enough...

Felix - I do get your point: good marketing indeed does not excuse a company from poor service.

I'm not out to defend anyone in particular. Rather, my somewhat related point is that you can disapprove of someone's customer service record and yet appreciate that their marketing department might possibly be doing something right.

Going one step further, you can learn all your good and bad competitors' marketing tricks, combine it with your own solid business practices, and beat the hell out of each and every one of them in terms of customer count and revenue.

Why keep calling yourself a little hosting company? Why not learn, grow, make the bigger (for now) guys pale in comparison with what you can do for your customers? For those zillions of new website owners out there, Telaserv sounds no less impressive than Verio.

Look at pair Networks. They were a tiny company not so long ago. Kevin Martin, their CEO, is still a totally modest guy. He's certainly not guilty of the kind of seediness you rail against. He doesn't even spend any money advertising. pair got to be a hosting empire by beating the competition to 100,000+ customers' doors, one at a time. I'm firmly convinced that it's still possible to build a company like pair.

You're right. Pair is an excellent example of the kind of company I would like to run. And this is precisely what I was talking about. They have an excellent reputation not because they offered the latest and greatest trend, or because they offered unlimited everything (deceiving your customers) or flooded the market with advertising (buying themselves to the top of webhost rating sites. ***** anyone?), but because they are an honest company that provides excellent customer service. The remarkable thing about Pair is that they haven't lost site of the basics no matter how large they became.

Isabel, why in the world are you assuming that the hosts here are not learning, growing, etc.? Why are you assuming that anyone who posts here is a host? Why are you assuming that just because some company has good marketing and a lot of customers that is equivalent to them being a "good" host? Why? Because it's simpler to do that, and I know that it is, since I have to deal with that every day.

You're bringing up all these external issues, like marketing and "you should grow your business" when the issue at hand is why WHM feels compelled to reward hosts who have dubious reputation at best. It cannot have escaped the attention of WHM that ***** had a raft of complaints during their winter meltdown in 99, still has a flood of bad reviews, and even has (last I checked) a civil suit pending. You point to addr.com execs as having time to jet set to HI, but I don't care at all about that stuff. I don't want free plane tickets to various places. I don't want promises of "unlimited" anything. I want a good, decent host that treats their customers right, has good support (and documentation), doesn't arbitrarily cut off their clients' sites (like Communitech), isn't filled with a sense of their own importance (*****, Thinkhost), and doesn't have tons of complaints against it in newsgroups and forums like this (*****, addr.com, et al).

You perpetuate the problem endemic in hosting by offering up ***** as something to which other hosts should aspire (based solely on the number of clients/accounts they claim to have) and as a company that would be suitable for just about anyone (not true). You are presenting WHM as someplace where valid, relevant information can be seen by hosts, who presumably use it to keep track of trends and goings-ons (even though magazines have lead times of anywhere from 3-6 months). If you are going to present yourself in this manner, then you should realize that you will be held to a higher standard and that people will expect more than glossy cheerleading.

Hey Iz, i just realized you posted here, sorry I didn't get back to you today, we will catch up tomorrow, Also I can't find the latest issue of WHMag, that im in, can you resend me a copy.

Woof!

Originally posted by jayglate
Hey Iz, i just realized you posted here, sorry I didn't get back to you today, we will catch up tomorrow, Also I can't find the latest issue of WHMag, that im in, can you resend me a copy.

Woof!

It's nice to see pwebtech.com around these forums. I almost went with them about 2 years ago. It's always nice to see a host stick around longer than a few months. that's a sign of doing something right!!

We've been around since 1997, and still going strong, I am pleased to say.

Well I waded into this thread a little late by the looks of it.

felix,
funny about Oz huh? I got a copy of the Mag today actually *first one*. Interesting read so far (been scanning through).

Isabel,
I hope you can understand the points made by the previous posts. Before I got started in this game I was actually hosted at addr for just under a week. I needed a support issue resolved first day in to get set up right and never got a response from them. In fact the next few days were spent emailing them constantly to hear something back - 3 days of support request, the next three asking for confirmation of a refund for their poor service. Eventually I got a reply (one line), only a few hours after I suggested I may have to call a lawyer. Coincidence? I think not.

Now if these guys are tripping off to Hawaii as you say I find that a little disgusting considering the support issues I had with them. Maybe they should put the money in the bank and man the support center for a little longer each day? It's only the false claims about their 'superior' service and quality that keeps these guys in the black. If the hosting review sites systematically banned advertising and they real level of their service was reported they's be back to flipping burgers in no time.

Is akashik.net big? Have we got 80 000 clients? No.
Will we ever? Maybe...

Our growth is steady, with no client having ever left us so far. Without blowing my own horn too hard, many of our clients we've spent any amount of time helping out have thanked us a lot for the level of support we offer, and some we even now consider friends. They bring extra business to us through recommendations, and sign up extra accounts themselves for different projects.

Maybe the magazine could take a leaf out of our book (wenhostingtalk.com I mean), and try their best to provide a standout service to the community. Maybe it's time to leave the big boys to their own devices. Do Intel, Microsoft and HP really need any more exposure? How about a magazine for the rest of us? Sure, you need some financial gain from it (I understand that completely), but a little bit more of a slant to the actual day to day, busting our asses, real workers in the industry might be nice.

If anything, taking some of the glamour out of this business would go a long way to cleaning it up from being over run by the cowboys out there...

Greg Moore

Anyone else spot VDI mentioned elsewhere in the mag? Like the letters section?

Yes I did :)

A VDI Network Engineer taking a pretty large chunk out of Globix for some umm, well, less than honest answers.

Almost as funny as the guy writing in ALL CAPITALS looking for car parts for his 1991 Ford Fiesta *lol*

Greg Moore

Hey SickofAds - That Web Hosting Magazine wrote one single paragraph about ***** does not make them your role model. (Jay from Pegasus would make a much better role model. Jay's my hero. He knows *everything*!) By insisting on making their blurb in the mag "the issue at hand", you are only prolonging their 15 seconds of fame.

Marketing and growing your company are not "external" issues, as you put it. You're good, they're not - so do something about it!! If you let the countless new customers out there know that you're a better alternative, perhaps in time you'll put the big bad guys out of business. Bashing them doesn't hurt them any; instead, it takes up your valuable time.

Why do I think you're not learning and growing? Maybe you are, but not enough. Many of you are stuck on seeing yourselves as small web hosts - but why? There is enough business out there for each and every one of you to build a hosting empire.

Greg - a magazine for "the rest of us", you want? Consider this: my fellow WH Mag editor Dmitri Eroshenko once worked at digitalNATION. It was a "rest of us" kind of place, with maybe 10 people and not so many customers. Then suddenly, everything took off - they hired 50 more employee, filled up some 1,500 servers, and sold to Verio for $100 million. Verio in turn sold to NTT for $5 billion.

Or this: When Dmitri and I started ISPcheck in 1998, DynamicWeb.net was a small shared hosting company like many many others. The next year, they changed their name to Webhosting.com. The year after that, they sold half of the company to SBC for $100 million.

"The rest of us" is a moving target; web hosting is a high growth, high stakes game. Do Dell and Intel need more exposure - no. But the reason why we write about them is to bring it to your attention that web hosting is soooo hot that even they want to be your competition. And they ain't going away even if Web Hosting Magazine ignored them.

What I hope akashik.net and others will get out of WH Mag is this - see the entire web hosting landscape, all the way from Dell and Intel to the newest reseller with just two customers, get ideas on how to compete on all levels, and be inspired to become one of the industry's next big names.

In exchange, I would love to focus more attention on "real workers", as Greg puts it. The only catch is, you've got to tell me about yourselves. How else would our writers know what to write about?

Isabel,

You make a good point and the examples you gave are exactly what I'm talking about - in a way. What I'd like to see in a mag is these friends, and co-workers, and other people who are in that position before the golden egg appears. Before the Verio's and DellHosts of the world offer them the big bucks to sell off the company.

Here's an idea. What about a few case historys of guys (and girls) who started off as the little guy and made it big. How they did it. What mistakes they made along the way. Maybe their thoughts on the future in an increasingly competitive industry with increasingly knowledgeable clients. Something we can learn from, or even just laugh about. Something we can pick up at 3am in the morning after cracking our heads against our keyboards in frustration and flick through for a bit of time out.

Maybe you've done this? I got my first issue today actually, so I suppose it's very timely to meet you on the same day :)

Hmm. how about some interviews with the people from VDI and Alabanza. Many of us rely on their services so to be able to put a human face (if they have them) to the secretive and illustrious 'upstream'.

I do agree with you on the position of showing the industry as a whole. I does give you that 'kick in the pants' when you hear of those 500 million dollar deals, however far away they might be from here. I also subscribe to E-Company for much the same reason, and am using their magazine as an example somewhat. They focus more towards the corporate sector obviously but you see my point I hope. A good example of their writing was going into depth on why Toys-R-Us failed so badly when they first went online. And of course no-one can forget the catastrophe of Boo.com

The whole, "Even big companies screw up and here's how they did it" kind of thing.

Well I hope there was something in that. Don't get me wrong, I get a magazine from you about an industry I live and love and I appreciate that. I just look at what it could be. :)

Greg Moore

Originally posted by IsabelW
Hey SickofAds - That Web Hosting Magazine wrote one single paragraph about ***** does not make them your role model. (Jay from Pegasus would make a much better role model. Jay's my hero. He knows *everything*!) By insisting on making their blurb in the mag "the issue at hand", you are only prolonging their 15 seconds of fame.

I'm trying to decide if you are deliberately being obtuse or if this really is the limit of both your conversational and journalistic abilities. The issue at hand is indeed why you would give ***** any type of award, period, and call yourself a magazine that adequately reflects trending in hosting or intelligent commentary on the state of the industry. I'll note that you still continue to evade questions about what exactly the number of clients claimed has to do with how good a host really is. Are you willing to answer Deb's question about GX Hosting and their claimed 75K/year? Does that make them a good host, in your book?

Marketing and growing your company are not "external" issues, as you put it. You're good, they're not - so do something about it!! If you let the countless new customers out there know that you're a better alternative, perhaps in time you'll put the big bad guys out of business. Bashing them doesn't hurt them any; instead, it takes up your valuable time.

More questions that you won't answer, and probably because you simply aren't attentive enough to do so: why are you assuming that anyone who posts here is a host? Once upon a time, this was actually a forum for users and has devolved into what amounts to a political viper pit, with all the hosts only interested in what other hosts are doing, instead of what they can do better. So let me clear it up for you, since you're not too keen apparently: I AM NOT A HOST. I am, however, a commentator on the industry, and (some would say) a real pain in the ass around here.

Why do I think you're not learning and growing? Maybe you are, but not enough. Many of you are stuck on seeing yourselves as small web hosts - but why? There is enough business out there for each and every one of you to build a hosting empire.

More homilies. Why do I think you're not learning anything from your foray here?

(snipped more of the rah-rah, you can be a big guy, too, we're a motivational/inspirational pub crap)

In exchange, I would love to focus more attention on "real workers", as Greg puts it. The only catch is, you've got to tell me about yourselves. How else would our writers know what to write about?


Gosh, by actually doing some basic reporting and digging up something on which to write? Are the writers so unimaginative that they require hand-holding for them to go and capture a story somewhere? Or are the editors so uninspired that they can't think of any other assignments to give them beyond writing about the big guys?

Originally posted by IsabelW
In exchange, I would love to focus more attention on "real workers", as Greg puts it. The only catch is, you've got to tell me about yourselves. How else would our writers know what to write about? Ah, OK, now I get it: ***** and the like deserve awards because they put out press releases telling "journalists" how deserving of awards they are.

OK, I am reading all of this and kept my mouth shut.

I now have something to ask.

Why are we in business? I doubt it is in anyone's mind that we are here to make a better world and give the ultimate customer experience. Let's face it. We are in business to make money. Plain and simple. Nobody is doing charity work out there (and if you are, my apologies!)

Yes, we are in business to make money. And bottom line, if you make a lot of money, you are considered a good company. If you fail to provide customer support and the like, that can only hurt your reputation, but remember - your customers are still paying you and that is what is making your business grow.

***** is making money, as is ADDR and many others. There is no question about it. If they were publicly traded companies, most investors would be looking at their balance sheets, not their customer support logs.

Even though I totally agree that a company should provide good customer service and not lose their customers do to lack of support, I also applaud any of them that can bring in the business that they do. They are probably reading these posts and laughing...all the way to the bank.

Fact is, they must be doing something right.

Weinbar,

That's what I was just about to post too :)

Having just come upon this thread and reading through, what I mostly see is sour grapes. Which is OK because that's what Bulletin Boards are all about: the sharing of ideas - good & bad.

People in business sometimes blur the line between reality and what could be. In Man's world (and yes that includes the ladies, it's just a figure of speech) the success or failure of a business in measured in dollars. There is also the relativity factor.

My personal business philosophy is to do good business with people of like minds. If I provide a good service/product at a good price, in an honest manner, which is pleasing and beneficial to both parties, what do I care what other people think. Regardless of how successful, honest, and caring a business is - they are going to have unhappy clients. Fact of life is that you can't please everyone. Another fact is that the more clients you have, the more unhappy clients you will have.

If we apply the relativity factor to a company like ***** and assume, for example, they have 40,000 clients, a ratio of just 1% (of unhappy clients) equals 400 people. Now if all 400 people end up posting about their unhappiness, here on WebHosting Talk, there would be an overwhelming feeling that ***** is a bad company. Even 50 people posting at 8 different places would still give that feeling. Maybe even moreso, because now unhappiness with ***** is seen at 8 places instead of one, by a seemingly large number of people.

The majority of business owners would be ecstatic with a ratio of 1% unhappy clients. The majority of business owners usually work on a 10% to 15% unhappiness ratio. They know that if their markup is decent, they are going to survive and grow. Bad debits are also a part of doing business but that's where the Company gets screwed by the client and we don't read to many Articles about that, do we?

I too have seen companies written up in a good light or heard good things about them. Yet if I have personal knowledge or experience with them, you can bet that is going to come ahead of what anyone says. Same I'm sure with most people. In fact, a recently glowing mention in WHM, about a certain company, is definitely contrary to my personal experience with them. Guess who I'm going to believe?

Advertisements are one thing, any publication to consistently show any company in positive and glowing Articles, would in my opinion, have a different agenda then their readers. This also would apply to consistent Articles in the negative.

And as they also say, "Bad Publicity" is better than "No Publicity" as today WHM got another Subscriber, because of this thread. Just to see what all the fuss is about. ;)

Just a note IsabelW is out of the country she wont' be back till march. :)