The Web Host Industry Week in Review

By Liam Eagle, theWHIR.com
December 7, 2007 -- (WEB HOST IDNUSTRY REVIEW) -- It's not quite that this week's Web hosting news was bereft of real stories. There were quite a few important announcements, in fact. But it is certainly a sign of the times that this week's news was dominated, volume-wise, by hosting providers announcing their holiday specials.

Probably more significantly, however, this week also saw UK Web hosting provider Fasthosts offering some explanation for last week's decision to change login passwords for some of its customers. The decision, a reaction to a previously reported security breach, had some customers puzzled and some upset. In its announcement, the company stood by the decision, saying it had to take care of the problem. Fasthosts also said it intends to reset the email passwords next week of customers who haven't done so.
But the great common thread in this week's was certainly the revealing of holiday offerings, with quite a few Web hosts seeming determined to position their products as possible gifts.
On Monday, Netfirms announced it is offering a holiday promotion for new customers. Through December 27, new customers that sign up for its Business Plan will receive $60 off a yearly subscription. The plan includes 300GB disk space and 3,000GB of bandwidth, 1,000 email accounts, five domain names and the ability to host unlimited websites on one account.
On Wednesday, hosting provider SuperbHosting announced it, too, had launched a holiday promotion. Customers who sign up for a hosting package between December 1 and 21 will be eligible to win a Nintendo Wii game system, which the company says was the must-have gift for 2006 and one of the most sought after gadgets in 2007.
In its own effort to create a holiday offering, SiteGround announced that it would again distribute gift certificates to customers, a promotion the company says was quite successful last year. Each gift certificate is worth a $20 discount on the company's hosting services. While some customers are giving the certificates to friends, says the company, others are giving them away on their Web sites.
On Thursday, HostMySite announced that it would offer a similar holiday promotion, giving customers who purchase an annual hosting plan a gift card from a popular online retailer, ranging in value from $10 to $25, depending on the plan. The company says it also extended its ?Double Your Processing Power? promotion from November.
And on Thursday again, FastNext announced that it is running a holiday promotion for new and existing customers until January 7. The company is giving away six months of free hosting to any customer who signs up for a shared hosting plan and one month free hosting for anyone who signs up for its reseller package. The company is providing existing customers and resellers with new software.
While it's never been 100 percent clear that there exists a strong base of people who consider Web hosting an excellent Christmas gift, it's certainly an acceptable excuse for many hosting companies to run promotions. And the volume of companies that do so would seem to suggest that it's at least somewhat successful.