"Hosted" Talk

[Mason]

Uhh, mate… I get your concern, but none of this should have been a surprise to you. Maybe there could have been a “hey, we’re switching to hostedtalk in a few days instead of hostballs, get some new underwear” type of message, but it was just a name change after all. We scrapped the idea to move forums which would undoubtedly have caused even more uproar.

I’ll refer to this entire post (HostBalls 2.0) and a few quotes as explanation for the rebranding was always given up front without any secrecy –

@Jarland

So the idea was sort of a play on r/selfhosted. I wanted that mental association. It’s kind of the perfect example of a place that I’d like to see more people join from. It’s easy for us to get industry insiders, I’d like to get more people who are interested in moving away from the major SaaS players to self-hosted or alternatives, of course that’d be great for someone like you as a strong SaaS player but not one of “the big names.”

@Jarland

but are perhaps concerned the site is “missing out” on potential visitors due to name and/or platform?

That is my concern, how to get over the next hill.

@Mason

I think the name of the community (and to a lesser extent the forum software) have stunted our growth a bit. HostBalls doesn’t have a ton of name recognition and those that do recognize it is really only a byproduct of seeing it mentioned in other hosting forums. LowEndTalk, LowEndSpirit, WebHostingTalk, hell even VPSBoard all have names that an outsider would see and somewhat know what the community is all about. Someone not familiar with HB will take a look at the name and not know if they’re strolling into a porn hosting palace, a biggest balls competition, or a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit.

@Jarland

I do believe you’ve spoken. Thanks for indulging me and commenting on my wild thoughts. We’ll rebrand, but we won’t change. We’ll just be a little more approachable by those not already here, and we’ll retain the rest.