Possibly the Worst Sales Tactic Ever
Here's a story that defies explanation. A candidate for governor in my home state of NE, has a web site developed by a friend of mine. It was hosted at "readyhosting.net" - a popular hosting company. It's pretty standard brochureware with a couple of PHP scripts. The candidate recently received an email from a web hosting company here in NE (I won't mention their name but it starts with an "Meg" followed by a "avision" and ends with ".com"). The email indicated that the candidate was lying when he said he supported Nebraska business because he was hosting his site with readyhosting (a Texas company). It insisted that he bring his site to them or they would email their Nebraska customers about the issue. Now I'm no sales genie, but it seems to me that this sort of tactic is one step away from hiring a kneecap breaking guy named Guido. Of course the candidate will bring his site into the state of Nebraska - to a competitor (ha).
Note: There's a follow up to this post - Part II.
3 Comments
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I agree. It seems a bit stupid for the local company to attempt to extort the politician into using their product, great marketing. However, it was pretty stupid for the politician to use an outside the state host.
If you are a politican wouldn't it make sense to have your webhost, bank, home lone, etc. in state if possible. He could have probably gotten a local company to host for free in exchange for a tag line or banner on the site. Keep it in state and minimize the risk of looking bad for going out of state. -
Maybe... but he used an "inside the state" developer who directed him on hosting. How many people know (physically) exactly where their site is hosted? It's not a common piece of knowledge to the non-technical. -
I don't think a local business could host a candidate's website for free without running afoul of the Federal Election Commission and I'm sure the offending provider could certainly be targeted by the FEC if they started emailing all the their customers about the candidate using an out of state hosting provider.
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