Press Releases?

[mneylon]

As part of my "it's Saturday and my brain is throwing out odd ideas" ..

Would members find it of any benefit to be able to post press releases in a specific section of this site?

To be clear

Only established members who have been contributing good quality posts would be able to use the facility

The press releases would be able to have links etc.,

Thoughts?

Good idea?

Terrible idea?

 

[link8r]

I think its a really good idea BK. I hope it doesn't get abused but I think a web industry PR site is a good idea

 

[mneylon]

Well the idea is that it would be:

- readable by everyone
- only more senior members could post

I've been toying with rejigging the member group permissions a bit, as I'm really sick of the "drive by" rubbish

PLUS

I'd also like to make the site more useful for the people who do actually contribute

(Hope that makes sense)

 

[mneylon]

Section has been added

You'll also notice that you may have ended up in a new user group

 

[lighthouse]

As part of my "it's Saturday and my brain is throwing out odd ideas" ..

Would members find it of any benefit to be able to post press releases in a specific section of this site?

To be clear

Only established members who have been contributing good quality posts would be able to use the facility

The press releases would be able to have links etc.,

Thoughts?

Good idea?

Terrible idea?

As a website owner I also think the same or other separate thread could welcome hosting companies being able to advertise (which press releases also do)
I appreciate the difficulty in a forum run by a webhoster,
but Boards.ie etc seem paranoid about hoster publicity (though it doesnt seem to stop them allowing offers anyway... I don't quite understand boards.ie )

 

[jmcc]

As a website owner I also think the same or other separate thread could welcome hosting companies being able to advertise (which press releases also do)
I appreciate the difficulty in a forum run by a webhoster,
but Boards.ie etc seem paranoid about hoster publicity (though it doesnt seem to stop them allowing offers anyway... I don't quite understand boards.ie )

The boards.ie webhoster forum was shutdown due to a continual firefight between the Irish hosters. The webhosting business is one of the most competitive. There was a constant stream of newbies who all claimed to offer the lowest prices, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited HD space etc. Often they didn't like it when it was pointed out that they were one man multinationals reselling shared hosting. The moderators just couldn't handle it and all sorts of allegations and digs were being traded. I can understand why boards.ie wanted to shut it down and it is part of the reason why I never set up a webhosting forum. (I've got a God's eye view of the global hosting business and I don't often want to interfere in the affairs of mortals. )

There are only a few pure-play Irish hosters and they control the bulk of the market. Below them there are the web developers who have branched into webhosting. Then there are the web developers who provide web hosting services to their clients. Below that again there are the small players who often are just reselling shared hosting in their locality. The attrition rate for these small hosters is horrifying in that some often only last 18 months or so before folding or fall back to their core registrations.

Such a thread for web hosters to advertise would also attract the attention of spammers.

Regards...jmcc

 

[lighthouse]

The boards.ie webhoster forum was shutdown due to a continual firefight between the Irish hosters. The webhosting business is one of the most competitive. There was a constant stream of newbies who all claimed to offer the lowest prices, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited HD space etc. Often they didn't like it when it was pointed out that they were one man multinationals reselling shared hosting. The moderators just couldn't handle it and all sorts of allegations and digs were being traded. I can understand why boards.ie wanted to shut it down and it is part of the reason why I never set up a webhosting forum. (I've got a God's eye view of the global hosting business and I don't often want to interfere in the affairs of mortals. )

There are only a few pure-play Irish hosters and they control the bulk of the market. Below them there are the web developers who have branched into webhosting. Then there are the web developers who provide web hosting services to their clients. Below that again there are the small players who often are just reselling shared hosting in their locality. The attrition rate for these small hosters is horrifying in that some often only last 18 months or so before folding or fall back to their core registrations.

Such a thread for web hosters to advertise would also attract the attention of spammers.

Regards...jmcc

Thanks jmcc,
good points
probably best just to go to sites as linked in lists and make one's own mind up, after contact,
and of course from word-of-mouth and other advice

certainly there is a difference between cheapo resellers of US hosting and seriously service minded Irish players,
as there is between specialized hosters and either telcos, or IT tech service companies for businesses,
or website designers, all of which do hosting on the side
- all being differences that are not easily borne out by quick posts in blogs....

 

[mneylon]

As a website owner I also think the same or other separate thread could welcome hosting companies being able to advertise (which press releases also do)
I appreciate the difficulty in a forum run by a webhoster,
but Boards.ie etc seem paranoid about hoster publicity (though it doesnt seem to stop them allowing offers anyway... I don't quite understand boards.ie )

Hosting providers, like any company, can pay boards.ie for a forum on the site. I'm not 100% sure how they handle "offers".

As for this site.
There is no way that hosting advertising is going to be allowed.
As things stand the moderators and I are deleting and banning spammers enough - having to manage the mess that would come with allowing hosting offers is simply not worth it.
There is already a hosting forum on here but it is NOT for advertising.

 

[jmcc]

certainly there is a difference between cheapo resellers of US hosting and seriously service minded Irish players,
as there is between specialized hosters and either telcos, or IT tech service companies for businesses,
or website designers, all of which do hosting on the side
- all being differences that are not easily borne out by quick posts in blogs....

The only telco that I would consider to be a serious player in the Irish market is Digiweb.ie. The others (Eircom and Esat/BT) gave up their market share without a fight and they had over 50% of the Irish hosting market a few years ago. The reason for this was simple - they could not compete with second generation Hosting Service Providers (HSPs) who had control panels and made hosting and domain name registration easy. While Eircom still has a legacy share of the market (I think it is around the edge of the top 10 Irish hosters), Esat/BT does not even seem to care about retail hosting now.

Regards...jmcc

 

[lighthouse]

Jmcc
I agree about Digiweb
unfortunately they don't seemt to have weekend support, for shared hosting anyway
(don't all problems occur during weekends? )
I always find weekend support to be a good guide to service commitment
Blacknight has chat support 12-4 weekends as well as the ticketing like Irish rivals, which is good