I just find this interesting, and wonder if anyone else notices...
For anyone that recieves Sports Illustrated, a few months back they did an issue just on the SI Cover curse, if you are on the cover you are destined to have a cursed season or even year. It seems that WHT has a new host every month that gets hyped hyped hyped... and then they are doomed to be closed or a bad reputation.

Gearhost,
Aletia,
Earhost,
Cyberwings,
Netacore (edit: They have recovered very well but seemed to have problems when they were the "flavor")
Availhosting... You know the list goes on and on.

It seems that the new company out gets somehow chosen and everyone jumps on the bandwagon creating monster growth for the company that they aren't ready for.. A couple customers get done wrong and then the whole company seems to fall down as people jump on that bandwagon as well.

Do ya'll see this as well?
I pose a question for the hosts. Several of us have been around for years, offering competitive prices and getting happy customers yet the growth of our companies is limited. Would you want to be the flavor of the month on WHT? Are you confident that you could please 100% of the customers, as well as the people who won't even try your service but will find something to flame you about?

That's exactly the reason that all of our accounts are hand-processed ... we only set up x number of accounts per month, it keeps high volume of sign-ups from sending us spinning.

but, then I'm comfortable with slow growth, while the hosts that have died recently seemed to be in there for just a quick buck.

I've definately noticed the flavor of the month trend, but for some of them, they arent really destined to bad forture. They're just in the spotlight for a month and then slowly fall out of the spotlight, not necessarily because they've done anything wrong.

Netacore for example -- I don't recall hearing anything bad about them. I remember hearing NOTHING but Netacore posts for around a month, but I don't remember them crashing and burning? Correct me if I'm wrong?


I would never want Front Drive to be a flavor of the month. Slow and steady is healthier long-term.

Good catch Rewdog. Ins't there something with Sesame Street and atheletes? Who ever does a guest apperance on Sesame Street they usally get hurt right after.

Being a big Denver Broncos fan I remember when Terrel Davis was on Sesame Street and there was a lot of talk about it.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=52335&highlight=netacore+down

They seem to have recovered now, but they went through some major troubles with some servers

This is definetly more than just a WHT based issue. I remember before I even came here when friends were hyping Burst for webhosting and ended up (IMO) that their outsourced dialup accounts were about the only worthwhile thing they offered at that time. How you handle your company during growth reflects on how organzied and sound your business plan is. You have to be flexible and time everything to the tune...

Aletia wasn't that bad if:
a) You didn't need support (see b.)
b) Were on a good server
c) No billing issues/cancelling

I've requested my account cancelled three times now (once under Aletia (original) and twice under JaguarPC) and it has yet to be done. Thankfully Pay Systems makes it easy to stop reocurring charges, but my account is still alive... [which I guess is 'okay' if they want to keep on hosting my account gratis]

Being a big Denver Broncos fan I remember when Terrel Davis was on Sesame Street and there was a lot of talk about it.

Are you sure it wasn't the opposite. You were watching Sesame Street and you saw Terrrel Davis on there? :D



They're just in the spotlight for a month and then slowly fall out of the spotlight, not necessarily because they've done anything wrong.

Why is that? Maybe because they get all their friends to come post here and say good things about them. After while it just dies off. Just like an fad.

We're perfectly happy growing at a slow, steady rate... each of our customers receives personalized service - we don't outsource to other countries, or even out of the office. If it takes customer service at 2am to retain a customer, or fix a mistake, we do it. We'll add new people as the business grows, and warrants.

That said, no, I would NOT want to be a "flavor of the month" - Interesting points you bring up however!!

Joe

------------------------
I pose a question for the hosts. Several of us have been around for years, offering competitive prices and getting happy customers yet the growth of our companies is limited. Would you want to be the flavor of the month on WHT? Are you confident that you could please 100% of the customers, as well as the people who won't even try your service but will find something to flame you about?

Can't agree more , but unitl these host who offer nickel and dime profit plans stop catering to the people who want nickel and dime services , this trend will continue.

Until people start making quality and reliablity the top priority in there search for a host , instead of price , price , price and quanity of what they get, this trend will continue.

The thing I notice with alot of request is people want for example BMW quality host with KIA pricing and over all it just won't happen in the long run the majority of the time.

Originally posted by Rewdog
. . . . . . . . . Would you want to be the flavor of the month on WHT? Are you confident that you could please 100% of the customers, as well as the people who won't even try your service but will find something to flame you about? "Flavor of the month?" That would be just too weird.

"Confident . . . .?" Well, yes; but 100% is not a very realistic number. So, no. :D

But, to expound on that; much of the problem has been that too many members recommend a host when they've never used them. They just go on what they've "heard." It has gotten so bad that it was included in the last revision of the rules that you can't recommend someone unless you've actually used their services. Yet, it still goes on at an alarming rate.

Are you sure it wasn't the opposite. You were watching Sesame Street and you saw Terrrel Davis on there?

Oh yeah! Your'e right! What are you suggesting?

I think alot of the problem is that people here expect the BMW for the Volkswagon price.

People need to think about how they would react if a customer called them at 3am screaming because gzip wasn't installed in thier shell account.

Believe me. You'd react alot differently depending on weather that customer was worth $3 or $100.

Aaron

Well it should be on their shell damnit. :)

I don't think there is a difference between $1 clients and $100 clients. In both areas, you will always have different things.


You will have a $1 client demanding support, and not knowing the $1 wont get you the best support.

You will have the $100 demanding support, because they spent $100.


Face it, there will always be complainers, regardless of thier package.

Rewdog,

How dare you assume that Netacore is a crash and burn host.

Sure, we had our problems in the first month of operation, but that was attributed to the data center.

5 months down the road, service and quality has been exceptional and outstanding.

Slow and steady is deffinately the way to go. I couldn't be happier with our growth rate. :D :agree:

Yes there have deffinately been "flavor of the month hosts"

Earhost
Cyberwings
etc.....

But at the same time, I've noticed some quality hosts who are both popular and who have stood the test of time:

Dixiesys
Httpme
Voxtreme
Splashhost

All of the above appear to have their act together, with a profitable and stable growth rate and business plan.

Originally posted by netacore
Rewdog,

How dare you assume that Netacore is a crash and burn host.

Sure, we had our problems in the first month of operation, but that was attributed to the data center.

5 months down the road, service and quality has been exceptional and outstanding. I think Rew said basically the same thing.

Did you bother to read the thread? Or just the first post?Originally posted by Rewdog
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=52335&highlight=netacore+down

They seem to have recovered now, but they went through some major troubles with some servers

I didn't catch his comment, probably because I was initially infuriated :(

It would have been nice to receive an apology :)

Sorry, I took a leave from WHT and it seemed when Netacore was being talked about constantly is when it was the flavor of the month and then they started to have problems. The more recent posts seem that customers are very happy with Netacore, so bravo.

Originally posted by Rewdog
I pose a question for the hosts. Several of us have been around for years, offering competitive prices and getting happy customers yet the growth of our companies is limited. Would you want to be the flavor of the month on WHT?

No, I'd rather be known as a reasonable contributor on WHT and the flavor of the month by existing clients. :)

Gary

Originally posted by Rewdog
I just find this interesting, and wonder if anyone else notices...
For anyone that recieves Sports Illustrated, a few months back they did an issue just on the SI Cover curse, if you are on the cover you are destined to have a cursed season or even year. It seems that WHT has a new host every month that gets hyped hyped hyped... and then they are doomed to be closed or a bad reputation.

Gearhost,
Aletia,
Earhost,
Cyberwings,
Netacore (edit: They have recovered very well but seemed to have problems when they were the "flavor")
Availhosting... You know the list goes on and on.

It seems that the new company out gets somehow chosen and everyone jumps on the bandwagon creating monster growth for the company that they aren't ready for.. A couple customers get done wrong and then the whole company seems to fall down as people jump on that bandwagon as well.

Do ya'll see this as well?
I pose a question for the hosts. Several of us have been around for years, offering competitive prices and getting happy customers yet the growth of our companies is limited. Would you want to be the flavor of the month on WHT? Are you confident that you could please 100% of the customers, as well as the people who won't even try your service but will find something to flame you about?

Looking at some of the hosts you named, it's no big surprise. Note that I said "some", I'm not familiar with all of them listed, but enough of them to know that what I'm goingto say is accurate in my opinion. Be it hyped up or not, if a host doesn't know what they are doing, they are bound to fail when any technical problems happen. If they have no business sense, they are doomed for customer relations.

It's nothing special, it's not because of hype or they grew too fast, it's because you can only survive so long in this business when you don't have business and technical skills to back it up.

Any decent host will be able to handle the 'hype' and fast growth. It's a business where it makes or breaks you, and when you have people running them like the hosts mentioned above, I don't know what else could be expected.

It's true that hyped up hosts will have people jump on the bandwagon, but only because none of them checked out the operation or qualifications of the host in question well enough. Had they, they'd have either stayed clear or thought to themselves "Heck, I'm going to risk it". I don't think it has anything to do with too much to handle too fast.

I dont' agree

my own Company (Wizards), Jaguar PC, Site 5, hostrocket, have all been flavor of the month at one time, and manage the growt quite well

problem is not beeing a flavor of the month, problem is you have too many people doign this (webhosting) becuase they fell they need to be in the bandwagon to fortune (yeah right), people that are way out of their league and totally unprepared with a good business plan.

I am sorry, but growt is expected, if your a smart business man or woman you prepare and HOPE for it.

Exactly, it's the business in question that makes or breaks it, and that is based upon (sure it can be luck sometimes or that clients don't expect much or they have a control panel do all the stuff for them and some people will get on with any host, but) the ability to really do it and nothing else.

2host

I actually did not even read the second page before I posted .. otherwise I would have seen you had posted what I was thinking :)

Originally posted by theprimehost
Dixiesys
Httpme
Voxtreme
Splashhost

All of the above appear to have their act together, with a profitable and stable growth rate and business plan.

I'm not sure I would call our growth stable to be honest, it's stable some of the time and then shoots up for a while.
Anytime there is a good thread about us here, our sales rocket, which is probably true with most other hosts.

I don't mind fast growth, infact I quite enjoy it :)
As someone else said...as long as you are prepared for it, it won't really cause any problems.

I think we have been flavor of the month a couple of times on and off, but that doesn't really mean anything, but it's nice to be recommended :)