Which is why Rutledge under his independent marketing and research firm Rutledge Consulting (rutledge-consulting.com) is putting together a new panel of Web hosting IT professionals called the Elite Hosting Panel (elitehostingpanel.com) to help create a direct channel of communication between Web hosts and hardware and software vendors developing future products.

Once assembled, the hosting panel will be available to provide insight into the Web hosting perspective on the development of software and hardware that targets the industry.

Selected members of the panel will be asked to participate in a five-minute online survey every six to eight weeks, says Rutledge. At the conclusion of each panel, participants will be rewarded with monetary prizes, t-shirts or gift certificates to popular stores and restaurants. Some members of the panel will be selected for a more in-depth one-on-one phone interview lasting about 15 minutes where they will be given an opportunity to elaborate on their insights and feedback and receive a larger gift valued between $40 and $100.

"So the idea is this panel is non-invasive," says Rutledge. "We want to make it very easy for Web hosting IT professionals to participate. The time commitment is very minimal and the idea is they're not going to be contacted monthly or weekly. In fact they probably won't hear from us very often until we have a survey to send out and get some feedback on."

Rutledge says the concept for a panel emerged as he was working on a market validation study. In speaking to several clients he realized there was a desire from many companies to have a voice in advancing and helping to guide future technologies.

"The appeal for many people who have joined or are interested in the panel, is to have a direct communication channel to tell these vendors: 'here's what I need, here's what I'm frustrated with, here are some ideas of things I would like, and here are my future challenges I expect and anticipate,'" says Rutledge. "And so with putting together this market validation study, I saw there was this gap in sort of having a succinct channel directly into these vendors, that are listening and are paying to listen, and understand better what their customers need. So on both sides I realized there was this missing piece and as I talked about it with people in the industry we thought, why not make this a permanent thing."

Ideally qualified panelists would be Web hosting professionals who are involved in making recommendations in the buying or deployment of hardware and software technologies. Vendors are also looking for feedback from a diverse variety of hosting companies, from small and medium-sized business to enterprise companies pulling in more than $10 million in revenue.

Rutledge says a lot of IT managers are frustrated that they're being offered technologies that aren't specifically customized or designed for the hosting industry and are getting the white box solution to everything. Rutledge says the panel will be able to change that.

"It's like they say with politics, you can complain all you want but until you do something about it, you're just complaining," says Rutledge. "This is a unique ongoing channel into those companies that want to build the best product for the industry and they're sort of begging for that feedback from the industry. If people want to enact change and talk directly to those companies that are going to be bringing out those next generation of products this is an excellent opportunity to do so."

Web hosts interested in getting involved in the Elite Hosting Panel can sign through its Web site. The panel's first survey will close August 18.