The web these days is all about c o m m u n i c a t i o n; whether it be under fancy buzzwords like social media or social networking or the more old fashion form of things like web forums and newsgroups. Everyone has to communicate it seems in order to be a part of the new web that is developing around us. Companies are being told that they need to communicate – have conversations – whether they be Fortune 500 or the corner store.

It is all suppose to be about interaction with friends, strangers and customers. To level the playing fields so we can all feel empowered and that our thoughts and concerns are important. The problem is that one of the most and needed type of web company has to be one of the worst communicators around.

With the proliferation of things like blogs and other self hosted forms of communication the demand for homes for all this grows daily. As result web hosting companies have become the new corner store where we all go to plugin our newly minted domain names and install our hot off the press blogging software. Sure they are quick to take our money and set us up with those under $10.00 per month accounts that might be fine for the typical blog but God help you if you hit the blogging mainstream.

Yes you can upgrade if you have the funds but there is an underlying problem with these web hosting companies and you hear about all through the web – that is if blog accounts haven’t been suspended for excessive usage. Therein is the problem – these hosting companies don’t communicate unless of course it is you are lucky enough to get one of those dreaded excessive usage emails. Chances are though you won’t and you’ll be left there scratching your head until they decide to answer a trouble ticket cry for help – which will get you some cryptic reply about excessive usage and until you fix it no blogging for you.

Then there are the times when the host themselves crash and burn for whatever reason and you’re left staring at some 500 error page where your blog once lived. You are left at the mercy of them fixing it in the shortest time possible during which you have no explanation as to what is going on. It’s not like they are smart enough to put up an understandable Fail Whale page or anything – no you get a plain white page with some cryptic message on it that makes no sense to you at all.

Where is the communication here?

Where is the knowledgeable help that the majority of user are going to need to fix a problem?

Sure we could go with one of those big Fortune 500 web hosting companies but they don’t communicate any better – if anything they are even worse. That is one of the reason I prefer the smaller web hosting shops because there is the hope that they will communicate with their customers. It is hoped that they will be smart enough to have knowledgeable staff on hand that can really help their customers. It is hoped that instead of being left hanging not knowing what went wrong they will actually step up and help you through the process of fixing things that have gone wrong.

It is hoped that they would c o m m u n i c a t e.

But they don’t and that is a sad state of affairs for what is a cornerstone business of the Internet.