Web hosting is a commodity marketplace...

Before I run off on a discourse, I should disclose that I work at OurBox.com, and on ServeSite.net, which are hosting companies... THIS ISN'T SPAM though...

Be careful who you pick.

Web hosting has reached a commodity stage, where the provider is kind of secondary. That's why so much business is done by reccomendation-- there really isnt' a whole lot of reason for people to run off and select another host.

Really, it's like there are 3 different classes of users out there, on a bell curve.

First, you have the "I love AOL" users (hi mom!). A lot of companies have made a fortune selling to these guys because the market is huge. These people are looking for web services, not web hosting. Homestead.com comes to mind...

The second is really a technical audience -- users who need a large number of tools and actually care about pipe and disk, and who might actually need more network transfer. These people are churning around all the time as the find good deals, and usually control multiple websites, so they have the buying power of several consumers behind them... I think this might describe 1/2 of devshed's users.

The third is the business class user, who are also looking for value added services, more often in the form of software to build their businesses on... I'm not talking about small businesses like jobshops -- that's back in the second category.

Am I missing anyone?

As a hosting provider, you're no longer competing on price, your competing on your ability to distinguish yourself from your competition. A lot of companies get by with mediocre support, lack-luster service, etc, because their customer *believe* in them. That goes SO far in the hosting business it's nuts!

What do people really look for in the business? Are you looking for a relationship with a hosting company, or just a really good appliance to put your stuff on with lots of features?

Hehe. I've got to get back to webmaster.aol.com. Seems theres a spike coming...

Uptime is real important i think... then it would be support.

I am acutally a host myself so if you think i'm wrong in this please correct me... Your the customer remember :-)

I was at www.free-online.co.uk for ages under a free service, but paying for calls and only with simple HTML. I wanted to get PHP in there, so I went to somewhere that was cheaper than their paid service... was that a mistake? Yes, is the answer. Free online are incredibly quick at dealing with problems, and are also very good at explaining when problems are likely to occur due to server moves etc...

So I'm back with them, on a paid service, and am happy about it.