What is Digg?54 Comments
- inactive, on 11/01/2007, -21/+50Hi, I am RussVirante. I posted and wrote this story. Here are my comments regarding this from Reddit.
Hey guys, this is "russvirante" (Russ Jones), the maker of the contest.
Some quick highlights before I get into this... 1. I submitted the story from my russvirante Digg account. I clearly was not trying to hide my identity. 2. I revealed my identity in the comments on reddit. 3. This test was fair and unbiased. Period. 4. Will someone please run the test again and vindicate me!
Point by point...
1. ## This wasn’t a very realistic experiment: The test was simply a paragraph of “Lorem ipsum” text on a colored background. If they really wanted to test real-world hosting capabilities they should have included post-1995 web features such as images, dynamic content through a database connection, and scripting of some sort.##
The purpose of this test was not to determine how well the servers handled mysql queries. The question was to simply determine if these hosting companies throttled their bandwidth before the quota was reached due to overuse of resources. While he may have problems with my methodology, it does not show any level of bias. In fact, the simplicity of the study makes it very easy to test for inaccuracies.
1. ##It wasn’t a controlled experiment: The crux of the project relied on seeing which hosts choked when flooded with traffic. The problem is that the site needs to be highly publicized to get that traffic in the first place. What’s to prevent any of the featured hosts from surreptitiously allocating more resources to the sites? Nothing, that’s what.##
I admit, any of the other hosts could have caught wind of the experiment and switched things out. I would imagine, however, that they would have been unable to accomplish this feat in the matter of hours it took for the story to go from 0 visitors to 50000+
1. ##Where are the better known hosting services?: Where’s the geek favorite, Dreamhost? And for that matter, where’s Bluehost, Lunarpages, Godaddy, or any other semi-popular hosting service? -- Take note that the HostGator test subject is actually listed as a HostGator Reseller. Any potential problems with that listing could be attributed to the reseller allocating their allotted resources badly.##
I mention the Reseller issue with HostGator for that very reason. I know and use HostGator for most of my hosting, by the way.
I could only personally afford to do 9. Bear in mind, I HAD TO PERSONALLY PAY FOR ALL OF THESE SERVICES. Many of them required a full year in advance as well.
1. ###Burton is the least popular by far of all of the providers being tested: A quick Alexa comparison showed us that Burton receives drastically less traffic than the competitors. Burton is the blue line trailing the bottom of the graph.##
Yep, it is small as far as I can see. Maybe that is why they did well - fewer accounts per server. I am not the first one to discover that these 10000-accounts-per-server hosts are not very reliable.
1. ##Digging Deeper##
Yep, thats me. Good work Devindra. It is too bad that I submitted the story to digg with the russvirante account. I clearly was not trying to hide my identity.
1. ##Hes a CTO - the affordable thing doesn't make sense##.
How many of you Redditors have titles that don't match your pay grade? Any of you work for an entrepreneurial firm with fewer than 10 employees? You know what Im talking about. I drive a Hyundai Elantra 2004 with a dent in the side. Sorry folks, but no money here to fork out for 20+ accounts.
1. Ronald Jaffre is for RJ. A lot of people use this now for whois info instead of forking out for Domain Privacy, like did. I randomly chose that address, I had no idea Burton was even in the UK (the website itself is a .com) and apparently they have US servers. Virante is located in Durham North Carolina. I have never traveled to Europe.
====
So, let's get a few things straight out of this... 1. I didn't try to hide my identity, I posted and commented in ways that clearly stated who I was. 2. No direct link has been established nor ever could be. 3. Gimme a call if you want to chat about it - 919-459-1035. my phone number is on the Virante web site anyway!
Listen, I understand that because I am a web marketer people don't trust me. This is neither the time nor the place to defend my industry, so I will not.
However, I do ask you to judge the experiment on your own. Hell, choose the 2nd or 3rd place, they did damn well too! I don't care who you choose, we still don't host with burton. We host thegooglecache with Peer 1, Virante with HostMonster, and several clients with HostGator. If you really want to know. - Dhalgren, on 10/11/2007, -1/+23Phone conversation:
"Hi, this is Russel, CTO of Virante, How may I help you"
"umm, I guess I believe you"
In the background: "Russ, did you take out the trash like I asked? God Damn it, how many times to I have to tell you to not leave your Legos lying around!!"
Russel: "Moooommm! I'm on the phone with a client!" - le0pard, on 10/11/2007, -5/+22"He successfully fooled the vast majority of the online community, save for a few insightful Reddit and Digg users."
I was fooled :( - lftl, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15Hey Russ,
The most confusing piece of the puzzle is the post on The Google Cache. It pretty clearly implies that someone else was responsible for web2.0effect.org. So if you were happy to reveal your identity on reddit and digg, why didn't you claim the experiment on your blog?? - mmmooo, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13all this research, and for what...
Russ, you forgot to have bruton change the apache server sig for your 'test'.
Apache/1.3.37 Server at www.viranteviral.burtondns.org Port 80
(just hit http://207.210.100.214/foobar)
ooops!
sounds marketing-ish. - trying2hide, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11Are you sure that you are a CTO and not in the marketing department? That was a lot of reply for free....
- guchdog, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Well briefly looking into his blog, http://googlecache.com, he seem like he had digg and the users figured out. From how to be a reputable digg user http://www.thegooglecache.com/multichannel-marketing/how-to-build-your-digg-reputation/ . He made a tool in how many people he influenced. Can someone be that calculating yet do something as stupid leave a trail to his identity. Marketing guys are very strange cats. All this seems way too fishy still I probably shouldn't waste my time.
- pinetree, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8This leaves me wondering if this article (where Burton scores best) was some sort of marketing stunt too:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Guy_Fed_UP_with_bad_support_takes_matters_into_own_hands - rationalist, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6The one thing you haven't done, Russ, is deny that you were retained by Burton to run this promotion.
- eviljim, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Since it was burried below in the nested comments, I wanted to repost this - the hostname for the Burton Hosting page is
www.ViranteViral.burtondns.org
You can check it yourself by getting a 404 error:
http://207.210.100.214/e - thephotoman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I still say meh. The experiment was still badly designed, and honestly, serving up a bit of Loreum Ipsum would not have that much of an effect on a properly configured Apache server. Now, if that Loreum Ipsum was in a WordPress blogfile, I'd believe it.
In fact, I feel like recreating the experiment, but with two changes: 1. link not to static dummy text, but to a WordPress blog (1), and 2. use only people that everybody's heard of--and no reseller accounts, either. I cannot count the number of times I've seen people wondering why their reseller account is showing that their disk space is full and bandwidth maxed out for the month because they've set up their account with an obscenely small package--10 MB of disk space and 10 MB of bandwidth per month is probably not going to cut it for any purpose.
(1.) And that would be a stock WordPress install, not set up through Fantastico, for providers that offer the option. Sure, it's easy, but let's face it, I can't ensure version parity or code integrity with Fantastico. I can if I download it once to my own personal disk space and then unzip it across the multiple servers.
Hmm...this sounds like an experiment to take to my boss. Wonder what he'd think. - jontheman, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6The web hosting market is filled with thousands of teenagers reselling hosting. I'm not surprised they had to resort to this to get some business.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Yep, I am the CTO - you can give me a call, 919-459-1035 and verify if you like. :)
- l0ne, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3If Google caught him he'd be delisted instantly :(
- Dhalgren, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Since I've posted this he's removed the links and is making the track.php dynamic. It wasn't before...
- SuperJason, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Maybe they should switch to Burton hosting. I heard they're good.
- marc2242, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Good research.
- gh0st3000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11
- puddi, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Busted.
No reason in trying to defend yourself, all your excuses were pretty lame. - Bigflexy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I'm wondering why midphase failed so fast. I got hosting on midphase!
- drgruney, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5Um... I never heard of Web2.0Effect until this right here. Am I too smart to be fooled?
- jman8888, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2wheres that blog theme from
- arTech, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I'm rolling here:) hahahaha
- guchdog, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3That confirms it. Burton Host is the best! Where do I sign up?
- demonstar55, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I would think hosts would at least give him some sort of cut in prices if he asked for them..
- Dhalgren, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Damn, good catch...
- finista, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Oh, I thought this is about Steorn...
- Dhalgren, on 10/11/2007, -6/+6let me try that again (damn digg removed my pasted code). I added spaces this time.
What's with the hidden links on the 0effect.org site?
From the HTML:
< div style='display:none;' >
< a href="http://concertmaps.wetpaint.com">concertmaps< /a >
< a href="http://concertmaps.wikispaces.com">concertmaps< /a >
< a href="http://digg.com/users/concertmaps/news/dugg" >concertmaps< /a >
< a href="http://www.myspace.com/concertmaps">concertmaps< /a >
< a href="http://concertmaps.wordpress.com">concertmaps< /a >
< a href="http://concertmaps.icontact.com/" >concertmaps< /a >
< /div >
< div style='display:none' >< a href='http://www.leisurelandscapes.com' >Leisure Landscapes< /a >< /div >
Also, it looks like he had a tracker with Burton:
< img src='track.php?host=burton&url=http://207.210.100.214' height=1 width=1 style='visibility:hidden;' >
Why only have a tracker with Burton? Looks suspicious to me. Like he wanted his client to know how much traffic was generated for their viral advertising... - Dhalgren, on 10/11/2007, -6/+6What's with the hidden links on the 0effect.org site?
From the HTML:
concertmaps
concertmaps
concertmaps
concertmaps
concertmaps
concertmaps
Leisure Landscapes
Also, it looks like he had a tracker with Burton:
< img src='track.php?host=burton&url=http://207.210.100.214' height=1 width=1 style='visibility:hidden;' >
Why only have a tracker with Burton? Looks suspicious to me. Like he wanted his client to know how much traffic was generated for their viral advertising... - diizy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Maybe you should READ the comments before commenting.
- dymaxiun, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2What an extremely difficult to read webpage....
- ianac88, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I got no 404... It's a damn green page with a bunch of Spanish. I can't read Spanish XD
- GabrielS, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Sock puppetry, meet Glenn Greenwald.
- IvanB, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Same here. :(
- srodolff, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1How can it be a hoax if no one cares?
- springo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Wow, you type fast! Third reply and yet very long...
- nevesis, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I figured it was BS.
Most of these things are. Read it all but take it with a grain of salt. - Thorox, on 10/11/2007, -3/+239 diggs and "It's Dead Jim"
- inactive, on 11/01/2007, -5/+4The tracker changes every time you refresh the page. I use that to determine when we check. Hit refresh, it will be something different.
I dont know about the other stuff, but I have now removed that sh**. - guchdog, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Good catch!
- diafel, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Digg users gullible morons? You don't say!
- guchdog, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3I'm not too surprised. I never saw a web 2.0 one but their are a million so called "review sites or articles" for hosting with the illusion of a ton users. Marketing swine!
- Piyh, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1http://www.duggmirror.com/
- Winters, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Well that's what you guys get for being trendy. Man, so many stupid trends come up on the web, last for 3 days, and then vanish. I'm more blown away that anyone can keep up with them at all, much less be fooled by one that wasn't what it seemed.
- fdelucio, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1right... I never believe about a trendy Web2.0 company named Googla or Gogle or something like that...
- stronglikedan, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1So?! You got owned...so what?
I know! Why not write a long story about it and post it on Digg so you can confirm that no one really cares!
Buried for lame. - Chunken, on 10/11/2007, -7/+1Busted
- S1L3NTC, on 10/11/2007, -8/+2Tell Burton Hosting how you feel about this *****.
http://support.burtonhosting.com
Fill in the comments. You don't need an active account to submit a ticket.
Don't forget to mark it as critical! :P - etx313, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2LOL. D-Bag.
- numbered, on 10/11/2007, -12/+3n00b
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is