# Webhostingtalk / Inet Interactive SOLD!



## drmike (Jan 30, 2015)

Deal done on January 16th.  Press announced then:

*PENTON ACQUIRES iNET INTERACTIVE, A LEADING EVENT AND DIGITAL INFORMATION COMPANY SERVING THE CLOUD, HOSTING AND DATA CENTER SEGMENTS*

 


*Acquisition continues strategy of growing leading event and digital/data-anchored positions*

*Over 80% of Penton EBITDA now generated by high growth events and digital/data capabilities*

*New York, NY, January 16, 2014* – Penton, North America’s largest privately held professional information services company, announced today that it has acquired iNET Interactive, a leading event and digital information company that focuses on the booming Cloud, Hosting and Data Center segments of the technology sector. Industry sources expect these segments to experience annual growth of 25-30% in the years ahead.

“A core element of our strategy is creating scaled positions in advantaged sectors. This acquisition doubles our tech sector footprint, and does so in exceptionally fast growing segments. The acquisition of this high quality business allows us to take immediate advantage of the rapid growth being experienced in this segment,” said David Kieselstein, Penton CEO. “Moreover, we’ll be able to accelerate iNET’s growth as we leverage our excellent shared service growth capabilities. This is a proven model at Penton, and we’re excited to have found a perfect fit in iNET.”

*EXCEPTIONAL ASSETS IN FAST GROWING CLOUD, HOSTING AND DATA CENTER SEGMENT*

The acquisition adds outstanding event and digital assets to the Penton Technology portfolio, including:

*Cloud and Hosting:*
– The premier hosting tradeshow series (HostingCon), including events in the US, China, India and Asia
– The largest online hosting and cloud community (Web Hosting Talk) and leading blog (The WHIR)
– The largest directory of resources for web developers
– One of the largest database administrator communities with over 550,000 members

*Data Centers*
– The leading data center tradeshow series (Data Center World)
– The leading position in the Data Center content industry (Data Center Knowledge)
– The largest data center industry association (AFCOM) with over 40 chapters and 4,500 data center members worldwide, including more than half of the Fortune 500

iNET also strengthens Penton’s fast growing marketing service business with access to data and insights from a combined 7.8 million highly targeted business and technology decision makers.

Full press release:  http://www.inetinteractive.com/blog/awards-and-recognition/penton-acquires-inet-interactive/


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## Francisco (Jan 30, 2015)

Pinned threads are going to go up in price for sure.

Francisco


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## AMDbuilder (Jan 30, 2015)

Well this should be interesting.


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## William (Jan 30, 2015)

Maybe they finally replace some of the idiotic mods/admins...


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## Hxxx (Jan 30, 2015)

old news...


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## DomainBop (Jan 30, 2015)

Penton 1,200 employees, $364 million annual revenues, and it listed $841 million in assets and $1.13 billion in liabilities when it filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010.   TL;DR WHT will get even more corporate



> Pinned threads are going to go up in price for sure.


They could always start charging people without paid memberships to post ads.


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## William (Jan 30, 2015)

More likely you have to get PREMIUM or CORPORATE membership to post ad threads.... not impossible but would probably also kill a lot of the userbase - We'll see.

I honestly  HAVE paid for both Corporate and Premium before, both are not worth it.


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## MannDude (Jan 30, 2015)

iNet is more than just WHT, but I'd imagine WHT is the big part of it.

HotScripts, that MySQL forum I'm too lazy to look up, etc. Plus the whole HostingCon is ran by iNet. It's a pretty big operation.

WHT has changed hands a few times over the years so not all too surprising really.


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## MannDude (Jan 30, 2015)

William said:


> More likely you have to get PREMIUM or CORPORATE membership to post ad threads.... not impossible but would probably also kill a lot of the userbase - We'll see.
> 
> I honestly  HAVE paid for both Corporate and Premium before, both are not worth it.


Premium Memberships weren't too bad a few years ago. The chat thread in the premium section was always fun and pretty laid back. They'd tolerate us making fun of (to a degree) some of the posts and what not made on the regular forums and general dicking around. But it was a nice community then, just private.


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## drmike (Jan 30, 2015)

I think iNet got out before the place fell down more.

I keep forecasting more destruction in the segment.  iNet should have seen the indications a long while ago. WHT being their flagship product has been on a slide for a long while.  Lots of one page and bail usage and low time on page indicators.  

Mergers and acquisitions are all the rage and have been for a number of years.  Big companies have income and no real way to get ROI on investments in standard vehicles.   So they go shopping in hopes of such.

Inc 500 list in 2014 put iNET Interactive at 2013 revenue of $14 million.

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]I suspect Penton paid a silly high premium on the acquisition (i.e. purchased for quite a bit more than annual revenue).[/SIZE]


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## Francisco (Jan 30, 2015)

William said:


> More likely you have to get PREMIUM or CORPORATE membership to post ad threads.... not impossible but would probably also kill a lot of the userbase - We'll see.
> 
> I honestly  HAVE paid for both Corporate and Premium before, both are not worth it.


Honestly that would purge their section pretty hard.

There's already a lot of Corporate membership users that are upset about how overstuffed the sales threads are. I did some rough counts a year or so ago and on certain days there would be 40 - 50 sales posts on a day, meaning if you posted in the morning there was a good chance you'd be on page 3+ by the end of the day.

This is more or less how digitalpoint does it. If you're not a premium user, you can post/bump your thread once a month. If you're premium you can post every week.

It's capitalism at its finest but given how many sales posts go in there, it'd probably curb the amount of pump/dumps we all see.

Francisco


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## iWF-Jacob (Jan 30, 2015)

Francisco said:


> Honestly that would purge their section pretty hard.
> 
> 
> There's already a lot of Corporate membership users that are upset about how overstuffed the sales threads are. I did some rough counts a year or so ago and on certain days there would be 40 - 50 sales posts on a day, meaning if you posted in the morning there was a good chance you'd be on page 3+ by the end of the day.
> ...


Oh... Dont even get me started on DigitalPoint. I've all but given up there, it's just a total shithole. I try bumping a sales thread and it doesn't work, cant rename the thread. Many years ago you posted as you would at WHT, there was no bumping. A couple months ago I got something like seven warnings for posts probably back in 2009 or so. Just pure craziness over there.


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## Steven F (Jan 30, 2015)

Thought I'd pop in here and just say a few things. iNet, for the time being, will remain an independent organization. The only change is that Dennis is leaving us and we will have a new person between iNet and the moderators/administrators. At this time, I can tell you that I know of not a single change to pricing or the way WHT functions.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?p=9350605&postcount=5

Please remember that advertising is something that iNet sells. They are currently almost always sold out. Their goal is, and always will be, to maximize profits. You may see sticky threads go up, but Dennis has stated that there are no plans on the table. As there is a large demand for a small supply, I expected the pricing to go up long ago.

Personally, I think they should do it on a bidding basis. Every week or two weeks, you can bid starting from a minimum amount. The top six bidders get the stickies. Plain and simple. [This won't happen ever, though]



William said:


> Maybe they finally replace some of the idiotic mods/admins...


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## Francisco (Jan 30, 2015)

So do the mods/admins see the current sales sections as a problem due to the amount of volume they push? Or has any discussion like that not made it to your ranks yet?

Francisco


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## KuJoe (Jan 30, 2015)

I still wear my iNet jacket regularly and get people who ask me if it's the same iNet that owns XYZ website. Hopefully this doesn't sully their rep and I need to start dodging rotten vegetables or something.


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## drmike (Jan 30, 2015)

The volume of ads - in WHT offers section is deafening.

Me, my little old self, think the frequent posting is far too gracious and should be reduced to twice a month tops.  This way people make their offers original, something worth it, etc.  Lots of what gets posted is autodump of same ad and that, meh, not so great.  Like talking in a noisy room just to appear you are there and included.

Those stickies, perhaps they work for someone.   Based on cost, bahaha.  Yeah,  not going there with folks money.


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## Francisco (Jan 30, 2015)

drmike said:


> The volume of ads - in WHT offers section is deafening.
> 
> Me, my little old self, think the frequent posting is far too gracious and should be reduced to twice a month tops.  This way people make their offers original, something worth it, etc.  Lots of what gets posted is autodump of same ad and that, meh, not so great.  Like talking in a noisy room just to appear you are there and included.
> 
> Those stickies, perhaps they work for someone.   Based on cost, bahaha.  Yeah,  not going there with folks money.


Remember, WHT is a business and is going to push for the highest profit w/o pissing everyne off.

Removing the quick posting privs. of the corp memberships would make no one bother buying it.

If they changed it so non prem/corp people wouldn't be able to post all they'd lose is hosts that aren't committed to them enough to pay for a subscription, etc.

They'll likely leave it as it is for now but every few months there's a resurgence of corporate members being upset.

Francisco


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## raindog308 (Jan 30, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> I still wear my iNet jacket regularly and get people who ask me if it's the same iNet that owns XYZ website. Hopefully this doesn't sully their rep and I need to start dodging rotten vegetables or something.


Did you get that for being a FreeWHT admin/mod/whatever?

That place is such a sad ghost town now.


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## KuJoe (Jan 31, 2015)

raindog308 said:


> Did you get that for being a FreeWHT admin/mod/whatever?
> 
> That place is such a sad ghost town now.


Yeah, they flew me out to Ohio/Kentucky one year and it was awesome and having lived in Florida my whole life I didn't know the definition of cold so when I got off the plane I was not prepared. Luckily they provided iNet jackets (and ice cream).  All of the iNet people were great and I was super impressed by everything I learned about their infrastructure and revenue streams (sadly FreeWHT being the lowest). While their goal at the end of the day is to make money, they spent a lot of time and effort into building communities with the main focus being the users, even users who weren't spending a dime.


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## Steven F (Jan 31, 2015)

Francisco said:


> So do the mods/admins see the current sales sections as a problem due to the amount of volume they push? Or has any discussion like that not made it to your ranks yet?
> 
> 
> Francisco


I don't recall any discussions between us moderators about advertising volume. If you have any ideas, I'd be glad to bring them up and get a discussion going. Sadly, it's not so simple as just changing posting times as everyone would get pissed off.



KuJoe said:


> I still wear my iNet jacket regularly and get people who ask me if it's the same iNet that owns XYZ website. Hopefully this doesn't sully their rep and I need to start dodging rotten vegetables or something.


I have an iNet/WebHostingTalk shirt, but I've never worn it. Good quality, but I don't wear golf shirts.


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## jarland (Jan 31, 2015)

William said:


> Maybe they finally replace some of the idiotic mods/admins...


This, please. WHT is nearing the point of being irrelevant in the industry that it once stood as a powerful voice for. It's nothing but self serving advertisements, even when masked as discussions, and a staff that selectively enforces rules based on their feelings about members (report a review by a premium member about a company they've admitted to not being a client of if you don't believe me). It's a joke. I can't even find a reason to log in anymore. I'm in the industry and I go weeks without even remembering it exists. Sad, considering it's potential.


Maybe the new owners will clean house eventually.


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## drmike (Feb 1, 2015)

jarland said:


> It's nothing but self serving advertisements, even when masked as discussions, and a staff that selectively enforces rules based on their feelings about members ....


The need to make money is apparent all over.

Sometimes I think about what would be left on WHT if they did away with the offers areas   30 days, no offers...

People continue to make offers there and pay crazy fees to the place.   I can't see the big cash chip in being worth it.  Hopefully someone says how they make a mint with 3 day postings and Stickies.

Like @jarland (good to see you) I visit WHT not as much as I use to.


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## blergh (Feb 1, 2015)

As we say in Sweden; Mycket vill ha mer (He who has plenty always craves more).


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## tmzVPS-Daniel (Feb 1, 2015)

After monitoring our VPS sticky for 3-4 months, the ROI is much lower than it used to be. I don't think a lot of them will keep it if the prices do go up... 



Francisco said:


> Pinned threads are going to go up in price for sure.
> 
> 
> Francisco


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## Francisco (Feb 2, 2015)

tmzVPS-Daniel said:


> After monitoring our VPS sticky for 3-4 months, the ROI is much lower than it used to be. I don't think a lot of them will keep it if the prices do go up...


You aren't the first I've heard say that.

There's more than a few i've talked to that were pretty sure that regular Corporate membership postings would've done the same amount of business but were afraid to cancel their thread out of fear of being wrong and not having a way to get it again.

I know someone who had a pinned thread in the shared/reseller area that had literally 0 signups in the week they ran their ad, even though their pricing was very budget.

I think fully managed plans ($30/month range stuff) is about the only thing that can make those pins do OK. You'd have to move some serious inventory as an unmanaged VPS brand to make up what the rumored costs of thread ownership are.

Francisco


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## rds100 (Feb 2, 2015)

I don't know about you guys, but if i go to WHT to browse the offers section i always skip the pinned threads and only look at the normal non-pinned ones.


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## HalfEatenPie (Feb 2, 2015)

rds100 said:


> I don't know about you guys, but if i go to WHT to browse the offers section i always skip the pinned threads and only look at the normal non-pinned ones.


I agree.

Honestly the most appealing to me are the numbers.  I've stopped really reading the letters.  Also the bigger font sizes are probably the most effective part of their advertising thing.  Pinned threads do absolutely nothing for me.


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## drmike (Feb 2, 2015)

rds100 said:


> I don't know about you guys, but if i go to WHT to browse the offers section i always skip the pinned threads and only look at the normal non-pinned ones.



(raises hand for inclusion)


Too many of the brands stuck to top of categories have been lingering there forever 


I don't buy managed anything.... and I don't buy cPanel....  so it's at least in VPS offers, entirely ignored by me.


... and that damn LiquidWeb VPS section ad:

Liquid Web: Storm SSD | Xeon E3-1240 SSD $269/mo; Dual AMD Opteron 6128 $499/mo


Why doesn't someone prune that?  Wrong title for that category.

Does someone have a current rate chart for the stickies?


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## Steven F (Feb 2, 2015)

drmike said:


> (raises hand for inclusion)
> 
> 
> Too many of the brands stuck to top of categories have been lingering there forever
> ...


It ranges from $300 for the shared section to $999 a month for the dedicated section (weekly). It might be cheaper in a few other sections, but those are what I recall.


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## Hxxx (Feb 2, 2015)

Steven F said:


> It ranges from $300 for the shared section to $999 a month for the dedicated section (weekly).


999 a week DAMN WTF...


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## Steven F (Feb 2, 2015)

Hxxx said:


> 999 a week DAMN WTF...


That's actually very affordable if it brings in one or two clients a week.


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## DomainBop (Feb 2, 2015)

Steven F said:


> That's actually very affordable if it brings in one or two clients a week.


A customer acquisition cost of $500-$999 per new client isn't really what I would call a good deal

I'm assuming the budget dedicated hosts like i3d who have stickies are pulling in more than 1-2 new clients per week from their sticky which is why they continue to renew the ads, otherwise that $500-$999 per new customer would be the equivalent of the revenues they'd receive from a new customer for an entire year's server rental.


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## blergh (Feb 2, 2015)

Steven F said:


> That's actually very affordable if it brings in one or two clients a week.


Except it doesn´t. I would love to know how many hits they get, as most people skip the paid (often more expensive) stickies.


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## tmzVPS-Daniel (Feb 3, 2015)

Francisco said:


> You aren't the first I've heard say that.
> 
> 
> There's more than a few i've talked to that were pretty sure that regular Corporate membership postings would've done the same amount of business but were afraid to cancel their thread out of fear of being wrong and not having a way to get it again.
> ...




As suspected, prices are going up for corp members. I see them going up for  stickies also fairly soon.



> As a Web Hosting Talk Corporate Member, you know the value that a WHT Corporate Membership can bring to your company. Since we launched Corporate Memberships in 2008, we have added a number of new benefits to Corporate Memberships including:
> *·* Reduced Ad Forum Post Waiting Time
> 
> *·* Free Industry Announcements Forum Posts
> ...


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## Nick_A (Feb 3, 2015)

Steven F said:


> At this time, I can tell you that I know of not a single change to pricing or the way WHT functions.


Heh


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## gordonrp (Feb 3, 2015)

Increasing prices might get rid of some of the fly by night hosts, and I'm a-ok with that. Bring it on.


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## Criot (Feb 3, 2015)

gordonrp said:


> Increasing prices might get rid of some of the fly by night hosts, and I'm a-ok with that. Bring it on.


Unlikely the fly by night hosts would of bought corporate membership in the first place really.


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## MannDude (Feb 3, 2015)

gordonrp said:


> Increasing prices might get rid of some of the fly by night hosts, and I'm a-ok with that. Bring it on.


It'd be better if the restricted the ability to post offers to only providers who are capable of providing valid legal documentation that would suggest they're a legitimate business or proof that they've been operating/trading for X number of years. It's what we do here for the VPS offers. Of course, there are the non-verified offers forum but that's not indexed by Google and not seen to guests.

That'd get rid of the plethora of resellers who are trying to sound like they own a DC and have tons of servers when in fact they have 12 clients on a $20/mo reseller account, and if they don't make two more sales that month they'll have to go out of business...


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## blergh (Feb 3, 2015)

MannDude said:


> resellers who are trying to sound like they own a DC and have tons of servers when in fact they have 12 clients on a $20/mo reseller account, and if they don't make two more sales that month they'll have to go out of business...


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## robbyhicks (Feb 3, 2015)

I've been in almost constant contact with the inet guys so I'm guessing this is going to be a very gradual transition.

I've found the 1yr corp membership to be the most bang for the buck so to speak.


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## drmike (Feb 3, 2015)

MannDude said:


> It'd be better if the restricted the ability to post offers to only providers who are capable of providing valid legal documentation that would suggest they're a legitimate business or proof that they've been operating/trading for X number of years. It's what we do here for the VPS offers. Of course, there are the non-verified offers forum but that's not indexed by Google and not seen to guests.


Well, that would require actual work, standards, etc.  All the sites, all the communities, everyone that has come and gone, only vpsBoard has had some real standards on providers coughing up their legitimacy documents and passing a baseline review.  This is why I love vpsBoard and think it's special.   Does the background stuff prevent a bad experience for customers, no, not entirely.  But it cuts down on children posing as a Fortune 500, rips through common provider abuse, etc.



tmzVPS-Daniel said:


> As suspected, prices are going up for corp members. I see them going up for  stickies also fairly soon.


Folks are spending huge money on the stickies.   Do yourself a favor and me too, calculate your inbound purchases from WHT  stickies and/or WHT normal offer posts.   Take your chip in (membership + stickie if buying one = total month donation to WHT)  and then compare that to actual sales from such.  Be sure to deduct card fees and other costs outlays, like licenses you bundle in pricing --- compare your spend vs. you actual profit per item combined in one WHT lead total.

Calling WHT at this point price gouging is being nice.  I was looking at WHT last night.  If you look at new threads and filter the offers, it's pretty skinny.  Some pages over 50% of the new posts are offers.  Every page though is a big chunk of offers, which is bad for businesses (sea of offers blindness) and bad for site in general (everything looks like an ad).  WHT's bulletpoints for membership uptick justification are laughable.  It's all about ads:

*·* Reduced *Ad* Forum Post Waiting Time

*·* Free Industry Announcements Forum Posts <--- more advertising 

*·* Additional Keyword Alerts <--- Google Offers Superior keyword alerts for free

*·* Occasional *Ad* Forum Upgrade Discounts

*·* Discounts on HostingCatalog.com *Ad*vertising

*·* The Brand New Company Account feature. <--- ????

*·* New Benefits Coming Later This Year! <--- Fluff for we need to hurry up and create something worth 5 cents

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]People want to hand over big bucks to WHT for lack of ROI, pfft.  Time for me to officially get to launching a new company that is results oriented and services the hosting industry with marketing, public relations, etc. and does so at rates people can afford and actually show ROI.[/SIZE]


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## lowesthost (Feb 3, 2015)

> *·* Occasional *Ad* Forum Upgrade Discounts


has anyone actually ever seen this benefit ??? I think it may be a unicorn



> *·* The Brand New Company Account feature. <--- ????


Is that that magical button that says you do not have permission to use this feature (great benefit)

We are going to just let our corporate membership lapse

I thought $375 was to high of price to attract  spammers,crooks, and customers who want everything for nothing. $450 defiantly is

We only got a corporate membership with the sound reasoning  that the few good clients we do occasionally  get that should double right ??? wrong!!  ROI for a paid membership has been lower than FREE . $450 can be better spent. I'm  thinking BEER


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## Jasson.Pass (Feb 4, 2015)

Does no one advertise locally anymore? It seems like you would get paid way more with less costs on advertising


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## drmike (Feb 4, 2015)

Jasson.Pass said:


> Does no one advertise locally anymore? It seems like you would get paid way more with less costs on advertising



There seems to be a honest lack of local advertising from hosting and data companies.

My explanation for that lack and the propensity of industry folks to power dump ads on the usual sites is that people tend to be imitators.   They figure their competitors are doing it, so it must work (in relation to the community offer forums).  Likewise, they don't see their competitors on local TV, billboards, etc. so they don't go pioneering, cause it must not work.

Some subset of hosting and data companies just don't believe there are clients in their local area or that the dollars such would yield doesn't justify the ad spend.

All advertising needs to be part of a very detailed plan top to bottom.  You need good messaging, catchy visuals and strong calls to action.  This is regardless of the medium.  You also need to make such a percentage of sales/income and fund such properly within your business plan / financial tracking.  Every product has some costs built in and advertising and marketing should be accounted for.

Sadly in hosting world, advertising and marketing are what people seem to do usually when things are broken as a reaction.  Short on cash flow this month, go run offers with special pricing.  Companies that want to exist next year need to get out of that mindset and approach and convert to planned, intentional, calendar based logical offers / promotionals.

One word: PLANNING.


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## Chatahooch (Feb 26, 2015)

WHT is overrated and the undercurrents and activity funded by extra $$ is ridiculous. Hope that will stop now.


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