WDTalk

Featuring the largest gathering of hosted services professionals in the world.

Join us at HostingCon 2010, the premier conference and trade show for the hosted services industry. The best and brightest from the industry will be in attendance to learn about the latest news, ideas and technology affecting their businesses. Whether you are showcasing your new services, or you are simply checking the pulse of the industry, this is your opportunity to meet and network with your business partners, in a fun and educational atmosphere.

HostingCon is celebrating its Sixth Anniversary, and with a projected attendance of over 1,500 Internet professionals from over 30 countries, the 2010 show promises to be the best yet. We’re looking forward to meeting you in Austin, Texas!

I just read an interesting article written by Key Erb titled, “Change Is Inevitable … But Growth Is Optional.” Her theme was that change happens, but not necessarily growth, and she hit on a few related topics like performance management, wealth management and business growth.

Her Questions

One of her questions struck home to a lot of threads I read every day on different forums, and that was, “Are we properly capitalized to achieve our strategy? Followed by, “Are we properly organized to achieve our strategy?”

My Perception

My perception is that an awful lot of start ups, cross industry, are not properly capitalized or organized. This is especially true in web hosting, where for pennies on the dollar, you can throw a website up against the wall – but will it stick? In reality, many don’t, so we hear horror stories of start up providers (and some well known hosts) on web hosting forums pertaining to lost data and clients – over and over and over. Countless threads begin with rants about this or that provider being deceptive, poorly managed or having excessive down time. Are these all verifiable? Of course not – some are simply sour grapes, but other real issues are brought up. One of my favorites relates to plans that include unlimited space and bandwidth. Do me a favor and purchase one of their plans, then try to upload a 2TB website to their server. Let me know if your site ever goes online – I think probably NOT. Why not? Because unlimited space and bandwidth simply isn’t a reality – it’s a marketing strategy.

If You’re an End User

If you’re an end user searching for a host, select a host based on the value of your own business, and on the value of your time. Not everyone needs 10TB of bandwidth, or servers with 16GB of RAM. Your solution should match your requirements, and be cost effective.

If You’re a ProviderIf you’re a provider, stuff like performance management, wealth management and business growth needs to be addressed. Paraphrased, Kay Erb says this equates to opportunities to run your business more effectively, efficiently and profitably.

Steve-Hostirian was once again selected as the Most Valuable Member of the Month (September 2009) by the web hosting forum, Hosting Discussion. This marks the fifth time Steve has received this Award since last March, with one Honorable Mention in July.

Web hosting forums are online communities devoted to sharing knowledgebase, where members openly discuss issues, requests and opportunities with other providers and prospects in a variety of topics such as promotion & marketing, business & legal issues, VPS plans, dedicated servers, colocation, domain names, website design, hardware & server configuration, software & control panels, billing & accounting, customer service & support and legal issues.

Hostirian participates in these forums to stay abreast of the industry, and to provide leadership by example in sharing the wealth of knowledge we’ve obtained over our years in helping businesses just like yours, with hosting solutions for small and medium sized businesses.

From Hosting Discussion, “The month of September was indeed a very strange month for the contest with all new users finishing the month in the Top 10, except for Steve-Hostirian who held his reign as numbero uno. However, its a nice statistic and its great to see new faces joining and participating.

Steve was hard to beat this month, or even compare to. He was on a roll, and after two months Steve-Hostirian is back as a winner of the Most Valuable Member contest for the month of September 2009! Congrats, Steve, well deserved!”

Steve-Hostirian contributes to the Hostirian blog under the username of Steve’s Insight. He brings to Hostirian’s blog and web hosting forums – industry experience dating back to the days of 300 baud acoustic couplers and BBS’s.

Some of the topics Steve-Hostirian addressed in September were Value Strategies, Controlling Security Breaches, Weighted Comparisons for Data Centers and many others.