ASCII by Jason Scott

Jason Scott's Weblog

Midphase’s New Goat Herders —

This letter came in, in response to this weblog entry.

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:00:06 -0500
From: Nick Nelson 
To: mailbox@textfiles.com
Subject: Maybe Midphase used to blow goats..

Hi Jason.

First, name's Nick Nelson, I'm part of the UK2 Group who recently
(within the last 7 months) purchased Midphase.com, as well as the rest of the family,
and made various other acquistions throughout the hosting industry.

It bothers me  - that your review, is listed so highly in google..
while I have no doubt in 06, your review was likely justified. No doubt.

It's 08 now..and I'd like to ask that you reconsider, or at least, give us another shot?

Maybe even amend the review informing clients that Midphase was
purchased, and that as far as you know, we could be the best hosting provider in the
world.

Yes - we purchased a brand, with a few bad reviews associated with it,
and we have to live with that. But it definitely can't hurt to kick off an email
maybe attempting to mend ties a bit.

What do you say? Give midphase another chance..or at least inform
your visitors that the blog post is 2 years old and Midphase is now under completely
new management?

I'd be willing to extend a free year's hosting for you to give us
another shot, anywhere in the UK2 Group family.

Categorised as: Uncategorized

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14 Comments

  1. Wintermute says:
    June 17, 2008 at 11:18 am

    Funny, I no problem finding “Posted by Jason Scott on January 2, 2006 07:41 PM ” at the bottom of the entry.

    ‘mute
  2. Josef Kenny says:
    June 17, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    They could seriously have come up with a better message subject than “Maybe Midphase used to blow goats..”
  3. Chuckles says:
    June 17, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    That letter is pretty well-done. There’s no attempt to deny the shabby service from two years ago, just an apparently earnest attempt to make amends, and a plausible reason to imagine that things might be better now.

    I’d be sorely tempted to look for a way to give them another shot. Then again, I’m a naturally forgiving and trusting sort.
  4. Shell says:
    June 17, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    While it’s unfortunate (for them) that the initial post ranks so highly on Google, I see no reason to amend the initial entry – things sucked back in 2006, period. Posting this letter is about as much as Jason needs to do – possibly even more than he should.
    There’s always hope that things might be better or different this time around, but why would you take your business away from someone who hasn’t caused you grief, just to see if the grass is greener in a pasture you left years ago?
  5. Chuckles says:
    June 17, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    “but why would you take your business away from someone who hasn’t caused you grief, just to see if the grass is greener in a pasture you left years ago?”

    Why, indeed. To do that would be silly.

    That said, if the new owner of the old pasture came to me, hat in hand, humbly asking that I give his outfit another chance, and I had a very large herd of cattle, I’d look around to see if I didn’t have an animal or two that I could send his way to check out the new grass.
  6. Adam says:
    June 17, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Here in Puerto Rico browsing google “ASCII by Jason Scott: Midphase Blows Goats” is the 3rd listed site. They are just on damage control.
  7. demie says:
    June 17, 2008 at 9:24 pm

    he knew what he was gettint into
  8. Kizzle says:
    June 17, 2008 at 11:28 pm

    He should have sent you an angry letter threatening legal action. That would have worked far better.
  9. Shii says:
    June 18, 2008 at 12:33 am

    Ooh, I forgot to Googlebomb “Midphase”! Thanks for reminding me, Nick Nelson.
  10. Nick Nelson says:
    June 18, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    I’d like to thank Jason for posting my
    email. While I didn’t write the email with the intent of it being posted verbatim, I
    believe it was a better reaction to the email than if Jason had simply posted that
    Midphase.com had changed hands, or he could’ve easily ignored it. I wrote Jason in an
    attempt to amend ties on a 2+ year old feud that the UK2 Group and the new Midphase.com
    management had adopted. Everyone’s been informed that Midphase.com is now in different
    hands, that’s all I requested..I’m 100% satisfied.

    I knew what I was getting into by even bringing this issue up, I went as far as to extend
    Jason a free year’s hosting *knowing* how vocal he would be if we weren’t what I let out
    to be. How bad would it look for us if he gave us a second chance and we failed?

    Are we perfect? No. But we’re working towards it.

    Thanks Jason. Might even have to add this blog to my blogroll 😉

    – Nick Nelson
    nickn [at] midphase [d0t] com
  11. Church says:
    June 18, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    Well of course he’s on damage control. That’s the point.

    This appears to be a textbook example of how to do said damage control. Admit that you (or your predecessor) screwed up and attempt to make amends, publicly.
  12. Imnotabot says:
    June 19, 2008 at 8:43 am

    Thats why I stick with a good host like hostgator (hostgator.com)

    Seriously instead of standing all those stupid fees seriously get a dedi or something.
  13. David says:
    June 30, 2008 at 10:33 pm

    Just to clarify my recent comments on the original post: My experience with Midphase, which has been..um…less than stellar, occurred before UK2 took it over. My criticism of Midphase for trying to “bribe” Jason into removing his post was directed at Zak from 2006, not Nick. I think Nick’s offer is a reasonable move, though I wouldn’t accept it if I were Jason.
  14. Stephen says:
    April 27, 2010 at 7:51 am

    However, my problems with Midphase totally took place after UK2 took over. My problems took place just after this post was made. I personally don’t believe a word of it. I can recognise damage control when I see it.

    I would be suspicious of any company that would buy such a fetid mass of bad PR as Midphase hosting. Midphase tells you things that aren’t true and bills you for things you don’t need (my site was down for 9 months following a “bandwidth spike” that our stats completely missed – probably because there was no bandwidth spike, we were later told we’d need to upgrade our CPU time instead). There are still, in 2010, bits and pieces of the site that Midphase is presumably hanging onto that we’ve paid to get mailed to us on CD and we’re still waiting for them.

    It’s a disaster for PR, why would anyone buy into that?