Though it appears that the world is entering the age of the web app, I personally have an aversion to them in general. Why? I’m not really that sure to be honest. Maybe I don’t like relying on on something that could go away tomorrow, taking my data along with it. Or perhaps I prefer the ’solidness’ that (most of the time) defines one’s experience when using a Mac.

I’m inclined to think that it’s the later. I like the idea of opening an app to do task X, the concept of opening Safari, navigation to website Y to do task X doesn’t resinate with me.

I’m very much aware of the distinct advantages of of a cloud based application but right now, owning both a notebook and iPhone I’m very happy sticking, for the most part (because there are a couple of exceptions), with desktop applications.

This morning I checked out my RSS feed subscriber count to see that it had increased dramatically. So I delved a little deeper and found that I had gained fifty-one new subscribers from ‘friendfeedagg’. Very odd, considering during my entire usage of using FeedBurner, that aggregator or feed reader had never been used.

After doing a quick Twitter search I found that I was not the only case. Many other people were reporting similar increases in subscribers.

What is ‘friendfeedagg’? It turns out that yesterday, FriendFeed, enabled a new feature that adds your blog’s FriendFeed subscribers to your FeedBurner stats, as explained here:

So if you have 200 people subscribed to you on FriendFeed, and you’ve added your blog as a service on FriendFeed, now you can see those subscribers right alongside the subscriber counts from Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo, and anyone else subscribed to your blog’s feed.

Here is the issue. Are your FriendFeed subscribers really ’subscribed’ to your weblog? They might not have actually taken interest in your weblog, but instead want to read your comments or see your Flickr images. I’d, personally, be more interested in the subscribers who have gone out and directly subscribed to my weblog, for its content. Not as a side effect of wanting to see another one of my ‘content streams’.

So, the real question is, are subscriber numbers now inaccurate? Will we get to the stage when people ask for our subscriber count, that we automatically subtract the, perhaps disinterested, readers from FriendFeed.

What I’d be interested in seeing is an opt-in for the FeedBurner subscribers. Perhaps a preference that enables me to ignore the subscriber numbers. The problem remains however, for those who may decide to opt-in to glorify their subscriber numbers.

Can we trust that FeedBurner’s stats are accurate? Because, let’s face it, they haven’t been in the past.

When the conversation turns to web hosts, everyone has something to say. Be it positive or negative, it’s one of those (geek) subjects that people love to query each other on. I received an email recently that pretty much asked: “Who is the best web host?“. Not an easy question at all. Because you’ll find, that no matter what company you ask someone on – there will always be some sort of horror story.

Unfortunately, the majority of the comments people get about web hosts are always negative.

Why? Due to a vocal minority; in which people, simply due to human nature find it a lot easier and interesting to complain about things that don’t work instead of praising great things. After all, our newspapers are covered with scandals and bad news.

Furthermore, if someone has a problem, they’re going to post on a few forums asking for help, so just by doing that they’re adding to the negative swell of comments. While, on the other hand, if they’re content – they don’t need to say anything.

Because of this I’ve decided to ignore the majority of bad hosting complaints. Everyone, as I mentioned previously, has some problems with a web host. Instead, I would see how many positive responses you get from people without mentioning names.

So, you’ve got to try and reach out to people and ask them for their hosting experiences.

Testing The Water

Twitter can be a very useful tool when looking for advice with hosting in two ways. Firstly, direct responses to you. If you put it out there that you are looking for a good, reliable, and easy to use hosting service. I can guarantee that you’ll probably get a response. It’s a little harder when you mention specific companies, and by not doing so you’ll find that people will suggest hosts that have been good to them rather than slamming those which have not offered a great service.

The second method I would employ would be to use Twitter’s search functionality. By doing this you can search for both positive and negative points and see if you think that they are going to affect you. For instance; you could search for “Media Temple“. At the time of writing, all you will see is negative responses in the Twitter search as they recently had a major outage.

That said, they’re meant to be one of the best hosts, especially if you want great support.

Beware

I’m not saying everyone would do this, far from it. But when asking for recommendations, you should check if they link to a web host with an affiliate link without telling you. Because if they don’t notify you – they could be lying through their teeth and just want a little bit of cash.

As I stated previously, I am not saying everyone would do this, but it’s certainly something to look out for.

My Way

When I chose my hosting company, I simply decided to ask a friend, as to his experiences and if he would recommend them. I took his advice and since then have been trucking along happily with Siteground (don’t worry, it’s not an affiliate link!). Sure there have been a few issues and their website does look pretty terrible. But they’re reasonably reliable and have very fast customer support.

At the end of the day, hosting is a bit of a risk, and I challenge you to find a hosting provider who has never had an outage at some point in their history.