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Revision as of 18:30, 6 January 2006 by 68.254.181.82 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)DreamHost is a California-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. Founded in April, 1997 by four undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California (who originally used the name NewDream Network and the domain name newdream.net for their company), it now claims to host over 130,000 domain names (as of July, 2005) on a network of Linux-based servers.
DreamHost is also an ICANN-accredited domain registrar, and operates the official registrar site for the .la country code domain, the country code for Laos which is being marketed as a domain for Los Angeles.
Some users of DreamHost services promote them enthusiastically; the fact that they can profit from referrals through an affiliate rewards program (in which all customers are automatically enrolled) plays a part, but many customers are genuine fans of the service. However, it also has its critics, with some customers quitting and disparaging DreamHost because they experienced difficulties and failed to get them adequately resolved. They have had periodic "growing pains" where an influx of new customers exceeded their ability to provide good service immediately, and some instability resulted, though they usually were back to normal in a few weeks. One frequent criticism is the lack of direct telephone support; customers must submit support requests in a Web form and wait up to 24 hours for a response.
Another aspect of DreamHost that is subject to both praise and criticism is their control panel, which is a proprietary one devised by their own programmers. Fans like how it gives access to a wide variety of services provided by DreamHost, including allowing the setup of blogs and wikis using software installed on their servers. Critics dislike its "nonstandard" nature, preferring the commonly-used cPanel software used by many other hosting providers.
Inner Workings of the Company
As a former employee, I am very well-versed in the inner workings of DreamHost. We were-and still are, I imagine-almost literally rolling in the cash, which is why they're able to sell so much for so cheap. We bought shit like arcade machines, tons of food, big screen televisions, etc. Also about half the staff dropped acid at random intervals throughout the day. Just thought you guys would like to know what goes in behind the scenes!