Liam Eagle: LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

After quite a bit of figuring-out and tinkering-with, we’ve produced the special issue you’re holding now. A new project for us, it’s the first of what we intend to be an annual exercise at the Web Host Industry Review – our Hottest Hosts guide to Web hosting services.

Of course, it’s not unheard of for Web hosts or similar service providers to be collected in a directory. There were more than a few of those online when last I checked, at least one of which resides within the boundaries of the WHIR empire. That is to say that there is plenty of evidence of a Web hosting directory’s value to users.

To my knowledge, however, this is the only such directory in print – an extension by format that far from being redundant, has the potential to extend the reach of this sort of information considerably, putting it into the hands of folks who might otherwise not know where best to set out in search of hosting services.

We’re going to great lengths to put this issue in the hands of people who aren’t necessarily familiar with our work. We’re giving this one our largest run ever, and we’ll be distributing copies all year at trade shows and other events to put it in front of a the broadest possible selection of potential hosting customers.

This guide contains a varied selection of information that we expect will make it a useful tool to a similarly varied group of users.

Web hosting consumers will find a long list of hosting providers, arranged according to a broad set of categories that will make finding the solution to a specific need a simple, methodical process.

For hosting providers, the guide provides the obvious tool of a vehicle for reaching those readers through their listings. But it also puts them on the other side of that transaction, providing listings for many categories of vendor services for Web hosting providers. Along with that, the directory inherently provides a thorough, if not completely exhaustive, portrait of the competition in some of the key areas of the hosting business.

Vendors targeting Web hosts have similar access to a venue for reaching customers in the hosting space, as well as a lengthy listing of possible partners.

Finally, people seeking to develop business relationships with hosting providers can look to this guide for cues on where and how to contact important players in the business.

In essence, we see this guide as an extension in format of an ecosystem that already exists – and thrives – elsewhere. Most of all, we’re out to extend that system of interactions and transactions a little further, while providing people with a tool that will be useful in making an important business decision.