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What's wrong with DireVPS.com? - Page 2
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What's wrong with DireVPS.com?

24

Comments

  • MauriceMaurice Member
    edited February 2013

    Needs a lot more variety, I don't want to click "sign up" and have no choice other than an already high-end non-scalable option (edit - regardless of price).

    Aside from the content, full-width fluid sites are just not good looking unless there is a specific reason they should take up the full browser width. Also the header looks rather strange and your FAQ is a bit condescending (consider a separate AUP page).

  • You need a big shiny call to action in the middle of the page.

    "Sick of being undersold? Sign up to be oversold!"

  • Question: Can I use my VPS FOR......?
    Answer: If you have to ask, most likely not.

    We may terminate service without refund as we see fit if we feel you are abusing it.

    2-3G RAM WITH more HD is better

    ONLY UK,no US?

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited February 2013

    Oversold can mean two things in our industry, in my opinion. It can mean overcommitted, which we all do, or it can mean sold beyond a reasonable point.

    Here's how I like to word what I do. It's my opinion based on what I observe to be the way the two words register in people's minds.

    I do not oversell. I do overcommit. To overcommit is to be smart, to make best of usage that is so accurate and consistent that it might as well be a scientific fact that no more than X% resources are going to be used if sold to 100% capacity and you do not overcommit.

    To oversell is to sell more than you can deliver. We know for a fact that we can deliver more than we have, because this "what if everyone uses what they buy" scenario is a myth. I know for a fact that I can overcommit without overselling. This fact doesn't need a physical absolute truth, it merely needs a consistent answer to the same question, never varying. That, in practical application, is as useful as a physical absolute.

    Just my thoughts. Overselling implies a bit of a gamble. We know that to a certain degree overcommitting is not a gamble in actual application, only in theory. When theory never meets reality, you eventually have to discount it for what it is. One cannot forever be bound by a theoretical situation that never takes place.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    @ynzheng said: We may terminate service without refund as we see fit if we feel you are abusing it.

    Pretty much any host will terminate you for abuse, they just dont write it on the first page.

    @jarland overselling and openvz can be a hot potato, you are right if you are over 100% capacity you are doing the worst thing in overcommitting however if you sell packages that claim to have dedicated ram + burst for example and you do not make the total ram+ burst sold equal to the total ram of the node at the most then you are overselling and miss selling through miss-leading customers, I dont care if only 16GB out of 32GB is used if you have sold more than 32GB worth of ram + burst packages your overselling.

    I am not saying it is a bad thing though, it allows a great diversity and consolidation of resources, I just hate it when people guarantee ram or claim dedicated ram + burst/vswap when it obviously is not and claiming otherwise at e.g. 2.5GB for $7 is just miss-leading

    Think of it in terms of fleet car rental, if company A gets a fleet car rental the dedicates 10 cars to them at any given time 'on request' and the rental company has 100 cars in total but knows the avg use is 5 cars out per company at any given time but still make the same deal with 20 company they would need 200 cars to get away with that and with tangible items like that there are laws against it, if you could only provide company A with 5 cars in september because everyone wanted cars at the same time they could take you to court

    my wall of text is over :)

  • SpiritSpirit Member
    edited February 2013

    @jarland I would rather use simple oversell vs overload terms difference.

    @raindog308 said: One nice thing is that my comments here will go to the top of Google PageRank. Let's make sure...

    Your point being? :) Maybe it would be also fair to say that in almost 5 years of being their client I've had nothing but stellar experience. If just some other LEB hosts I use would be as good as XenVZ/OpenITC you linked above.

  • I nearly signed up, took me a while to decide you weren't just messing around. I still might but I'm in the middle of rationalising some other VPSs to get my VPS count down :)

    1 - Right up front, clarify this is a real service with a silly name - 'Q: is this a joke? A: No (blah)...'
    2 - I know its asking for trouble, but if you offer a free trial people might be a bit less worried about it being a joke and/or the performance so low as to make it completely unusable. Someone round here (I think EDIS?) activates your VPS before sending out a bill to facilitate this, its pretty classy but no doubt a source of much trouble for them...
    3 - DireVPS is a stupid choice of name name, would you buy a tin of 'dire beans?' I wouldn't, but I might buy 'value beans' (I don't... but I might) you need to brand it as cheap and cheerful, not 'deliberately poor'
    4 - Give some away and get people to test/benchmark/recommend you - I guess that's what you're doing with this thread...
    5 - Consider relaxing your termination policy, or at least offer to give people an OpenVZ dump
    6 - Business 101 - I don't see you using this to up-sell people to your premium offerings, this is a missed opportunity.

  • AmarielleAmarielle Member
    edited February 2013

    @tehdan said: 6 - Business 101 - I don't see you using this to up-sell people to your premium offerings, this is a missed opportunity.

    Very good point. When they click "Buy Now" why not send them to a page that offers them the opportunity to pay a little more for a premium service? You could word it something like this in big text: "Do you require basic support, a guaranteed level of service, or need your VPS for business use? Why not consider our premium services" and then below have a table comparing DireVPS and an equivalent premium offering, making sure to keep it simple, showing clear benefits such as support, a guaranteed level of service etc? Similar to to how AVG (for example) displays the benefits of their paid service before giving you the option to take the free one. Then at the bottom you can have two options. One saying "No thanks, I am happy with this" and the other saying "Yes, I'd like to go premium".

    Upselling is key!

  • InfinityInfinity Member, Host Rep

    @AnthonySmith said: FluffyVPS

    I quite like that name.

    My 2C on this is that, it's really not entirely clear which parts are serious etc. Usually people aren't exposed to honesty like this, so will find it unusual and immediately turn off. The design also makes it look like a 'scam', it's more of a control panel design and I think that is actually used for the OpenITC billing system.

    Something about "sign-up" makes me feel it's a useless service, just those two words. Order now would instill a little more confidence y'know. It's also not clear that, if a problem arises that is not the fault of the client if it will be attended to or if it will be ignored.

    Otherwise, to be honest, it's that there aren't really many uses for a 4GB VPS, especially with the limitations e.g. game servers, which is what a lot of people tend to do with high RAM VM's.

    Personally, there's nothing stopping me from buying it apart from the fact that I don't need to waste my money on something I really don't have a use for or nedd.

  • For someone whos not really "down" with the VPS market as such your website doesnt really promote confidence.

    I can see how its a joke but the only people who would understand the joke is people who are down with the VPS market - hence alienating a large group of potential customers as average Joe just see's it as some sort of unreliable host that likes to tell people its flaws...

    Also as previously mentioned "Dire" isnt a good name as the first think you think of is Dire = shit.

    My opinion is, redo your website - make it clearer what you actually get. Rethink what your happy for people to host as others have said its basically shared hosting at the moment. Take out the IPv4 stuff - just change your website when you run out of addresses. Change the name.

    Other than that I think people will buy just cos its got a lot of RAM. I would probably buy if it wasn't for the vague website and lack of things you allow.

  • With all the restrictions in place how could you possibly use 4 GB + 1 GB swap of ram? even if you wanted to use it as a back up VPS @ $7 there are couple of companies that give more than 100GB of disk space.. you have essentially made your services useless. Also it was pretty unclear as whether you even get to keep you IPv4 and the unwelcoming and unfriendly feel of you website probably contributed to the lack of interest in your offer.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @earl said: With all the restrictions in place how could you possibly use 4 GB + 1 GB swap of ram?

    Apparently you can run any kind of gameserver you want, just not Minecraft.

    You can also run Bitcoin.

    You could run SETI@Home or Folding@Home.

    Well, that's how I read the FAQ...

    http://direvps.com/faq.html

  • earlearl Member
    edited February 2013

    @raindog308 said: Apparently you can run any kind of gameserver you want, just not Minecraft.

    Hmm really? yeah I guess I misinterpreted that as to no game servers..

    @raindog308 said: You could run SETI@Home or Folding@Home.

    Yeah I mentioned that before but it's not really a fun way of using your VPS

  • @tehdan said: 3 - DireVPS is a stupid choice of name name, would you buy a tin of 'dire beans?' I wouldn't, but I might buy 'value beans' (I don't... but I might) you need to brand it as cheap and cheerful, not 'deliberately poor'

    This. tragedyhosting.com unsafevps.com insecurededi.com coffinvm.com…

  • +1 @FFFlip.

    The name is horrendous joke or mistake.

    Lack of everything support wise makes it seem like you buy and get ignored.

    There is a proper way to say we don't do or offer this or that. The way this ad and the site spell it out, just isn't appetizing to nearly anyone.

  • jcalebjcaleb Member
    edited February 2013

    How you wrote things on the website is scary. If you could rephrase "Management decision is final. We may terminate service without refund as we see fit if we feel you are abusing it." to "Don't be a dick" that would so much palatable.

    This "Answer: If you have to ask, most likely not." is aloof. It gives a sense that you are too proud of yourselves, an that it's a favor to us that you are providing this service.

    But of course, knowing that you are xenvz makes me consider buying this plan, when the need arise. But maybe not many people know that you are xenvz.

    I think it would be better if direction is something like http://tinyvz.com. a sub-brand, simple, to the point, but still professional sounding.

  • I known xen openvz kvm vmware
    but whatis xenvz?

  • @ynzheng said: but whatis xenvz?

    name of company.

  • edited February 2013

    @sean said: Someone already e-mailed in asking if the 1 IPv4 is permanent. Just to make it clear YES it is.

    So this is the main thing avoiding me from ordering one, I, and I believe many others, could think your original "One IPv4 for a limited time" means a IPv4 is only available for a short time at the beginning, then delete it from the vps.

    And while many other providers offering similar support (that is to say, almost none) for unmanned plans and saying a client can ticket them anytime, announcing you do not answer ticket on homepage just makes DireVPS looks like a full joke. No one would pay for such a joke.

    Anyway, since you said this is a serious product many times and it seems I can get a IPv4 permanently, I'll pay for one month to have a try.

  • Unfortunately your selection is currently out of stock. We are aware of this and hope to have additional stock available in the next few days.

  • skssks Member
    edited February 2013

    Use a font that doesn't depend on hardware acceleration to be readable.

    The restrictions are too tight for my own use. The harshness of the FAQ is a bit off-putting ("nope" instead of "no"), although the up-front nature of the site is okay.

    @earl said: Hmm really? yeah I guess I misinterpreted that as to no game servers..

    I'm pretty sure he is kidding.

  • My thinking, it would have been better if dire was promoted as a serious, professional budget brand of openitc.

  • kampungkampung Member
    edited February 2013

    @jcaleb said: My thinking, it would have been better if dire was promoted as a serious, professional budget brand of openitc.

    No need for the promotion, less user/buyer mean less crowded node. It means better performance ;)

    Good performance so far

  • curtisgcurtisg Banned
    edited February 2013

    Heres your issue. Stop being honest on your website, people wouldn't like it as it says oversold.

    Do something like @DewlanceVPS does:
    1) Pay someone to write a review
    2) Oversell nodes, but put never oversold
    3 - this is optional) Claim everyone is fraud and take their money
    4 - this is optional) Write fake reviews about real legitimate companies

  • unusedunused Member
    edited February 2013

    @sean said: We want to know what it is putting people off. Is it the fact it's oversold? Is it the name? That we forbid so many services? We want to hear it all... be brutally honest.

    Are you kidding?

    1. Stupid name - all I can think about is how dire using your service is.
    2. "Joke" website (your words)
    3. Unbelievable "to good to be true - must be 12 year old selling unrealistic $4/mo offer on p3 hardware with 10mbps uplink".

    4. Didn't even get to the terms, but seriously? If you want to make money go get a nice themeforest template, promise 100% uptime, your own network, blah blah blah (just lie through your teeth) and you will probably do loads more business.

  • @unused said: Stupid name - all I can think about is how dire using your service is.

    fix that

    "Joke" website (your words)

    I think the site is perfect being so brutally honest and upfront.

    Unbelievable "to good to be true - must be 12 year old selling unrealistic $4/mo offer on p3 hardware with 10mbps uplink".

    Believable when they even state they oversell.

  • Will sean still continue Dire? What will happen to people who did sign up? It's not yet April 1 right?

  • If you want to base your product marketing around humor ("farce"), then it needs to actually be funny. DireVPS (the name, the website, the FAQ) isn't funny. It sounds like a joke, yes, but a really bad one.

  • Ninja Hawk is humorous and ok. DireVPS is not humorous. Its scary

  • When you can get real pro oversold performance from @CVPS_Chris for the same price why would you even consider this pathetic "farce"

    "N.B. Whilst this website is farce it sells a serious product.
    We cannot guarantee a Dire experience."

    ... Just can't be taken seriously. Strongly suggest creating a new brand, sell as low priced quality xenvz services with 0 support at a discounted price. Put details about overselling in FAQ and TOS etc.

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