I drift back and forth from the real world to the hosting world all the time. I don’t think that is what Greg Pruitt had in mind when starting Drift 2 Hosting. I recently had a chance to talk to him about Drift 2 Hosting as a hosting experience, as well as a few topics about the hosting industry itself. There are a lot of players in the Web hosting game, but Greg always seems to go out of his way to help out others around him. If he brings this dedication to his customer base, I can see why Drift 2 Hosting has become so successful.
How hard is it to get your face out there and get your products known in the Web hosting industry today?
Greg: The web hosting industry is very competitive, there are many web hosting companies out there. Anymore anyone with some money to spend can start a web hosting company. With us alone you can get a private label reseller hosting account and start a hosting company for about $50 or less. Since most hosting companies have reseller hosting plans there are many web hosting companies out there, and we are all fighting for good keyword ranking and adverting spots in a highly saturated market.
Keyword bids are very high and advertising costs for the hosting industry are very high. Also with the competition of advertising is the competition of best value plans. All the big companies, aka the big boys, are increasing plan sizes to extreme amounts. This is a never-ending battle; no one is going to buy from host A if host B has more resources for the same price. This is why we are again increasing our plans at Drift2 Hosting. It’s the only way to compete with the larger companies. I would like to believe that superior support and service would out rule the vast amounts of resources, but on paper people want more bang for their buck.
What do you believe that Drift2 Hosting provides that customers can’t get anywhere else?
Greg: To be honest in this competitive market you should be able to find everything we offer from another host. However, you won’t find the dedication to provide you with the best possible hosting solution that we can offer. We are not a large company so we cherish every client like they are our only client. We can’t always compete with the big companies so we strive for customer satisfaction.
What are some of the daily stresses that you have to live through while running a Web hosting company?
Greg: The biggest stress I have is making sure that everything is running right and that there are no problems. My biggest fears are DOS attacks, spammers, phishing, site and possible server failures. These are all things that can hurt the overall hosting experience for our clients, and our number one concern is customer satisfaction. There is also the stressful process of getting our company noticed in the industry.
Do you see the Web hosting community as being one that interacts with everything or as one that lives in it’s own bubble?
Greg: I think the hosting industry has a hand in a lot of things. There are many aspects of the industry – there are the hardware vendors, software vendors, communication vendors, all the technical support, advertising marketing, and of course we have to be in touch with our clients, which consist of businesses, big or small, people, nonprofit organizations and more.
Do you have any new features or innovations planned for down the line as far as Drift2 Hosting goes?
Greg: Yes, we are currently waiting for the newest version of the Hsphere control panel to come out. This new version of Hsphere will make it easier to run the hosting company, which in return will give us more time to help our clients and to improve the overall hosting experience. Also, with the new version of Hsphere we will be able to offer MS Exchange Hosting, and the control panel will allow us to sell and manage dedicated servers. In addition to this new version of Hsphere we are planning on added Windows hosting, video and audio streaming, MS Exchange hosting, dedicated servers, cold fusion hosting, and VPS hosting.
What is your opinion of The Web Hosting Show and WHIR TV, as far as new mediums to get Web hosting content out to people?
Greg: I love the Web Hosting Show and WHIR TV, this is one of the best things to come about in the industry. This is a great way to learn the ins and outs of what’s going on in the web hosting industry. I really like the fact that a lot of resources and hosting companies are talked about; this allows us to find out about different products and news of the industry. I can’t tell you how many times that I have gone and looked up something mentioned on the Web Hosting Show. This is a great thing for the hosting industry and I recommend everyone to keep up on both of these great shows.
In what areas would you like to see the world of Web hosting change, and why?
Greg: Well I’m going to go on a personal idea and opinion for this one. I would love to see Apple create web hosting servers with its own control panel. If they made the control panel as well as they made their operating system they would have the best control panel in the industry. It would be very stable and very user friendly.
What are your thoughts about the hosting industry’s annual conference, HostingCon?
Greg: I really would love to attend this event. It is a must for all members of the hosting industry. This is where you can talk and meet all your competition, meet vendors, and make friends and possible new clients and/or partnerships. In the hosting industry we like to communicate over the web and we hardly ever see any of the people involved. With this event you will actually get to meet and shake the hand of the person.
What does the Web hosting industry need to make itself better?
Greg: The web hosting industry just needs us to continue our progress of improving the hosting experience by making hosting more user-friendlier hosting, and providing quality support.
Any final thoughts you might want to get across or share?
Greg: On a final note I just would like to thank Mitch for interviewing me and for the great show he provides.
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