Godaddy Acquiring ManageWP
It came as a shock to me to learn about Godaddy acquiring ManageWP. If you’re not familiar with ManageWP, it’s a tool that I use to back up and clone WordPress sites from one domain to another. It’s quick, seamless, and really handy. Now, I can’t vouch for Godaddy’s hosting, because I left them to go to Bluehost, because they couldn’t keep my website up. There’s no telling how many readers I lost due to Godaddy and countless 500 Internal service errors, but I digress.
The Truth About Godaddy’s Additional Services
My first initial reaction was a couple of 4-letter expletives, but after I calmed down and thought about it a bit, I realized that their acquisition of Manage WP isn’t a bad thing. After all, they own and run the Mad Mimi email marketing service, which I use. Not only are they really cost effective, but their customer service is impeccable.
They have live chat support, and their staff is really helpful. I’ve contacted them before to squash people from my list who hadn’t opened my emails in 6 months, giving me much more room on my plan, and getting rid of subscribers who just weren’t interested in my blog any more.
On top of that, Mad Mimi has autoresponders, and anything you need to set up a series of emails for new subscribers.
If and Only If…
If Godaddy runs ManageWP like they do Mad Mimi, then they’ll be in great shape. My only fear is if they go in the opposite direction and try to put their own stamp on it, ruining the service. As long as they focus on strengthening their core features, and rely on fantastic customer service, WordPress users will come in droves.
They’ll be in great shape as long as ManageWP will still:
- Give users a dashboard for every WordPress site they manage.
- Enable automatic backups of their sites.
- Give users the ability to clone their WordPress sites.
- Keep the service affordable for anyone.
- Keep SMS notifications of when a site goes down.
Time will only tell if everything that has made ManageWP successful will stay in place. If they start dropping features or jacking prices up, they’ll be in trouble, and they’ll definitely lose my business.
What do you think? Are you excited about the acquisition or are you worried that you’ll have to look for a similar solution elsewhere? I’d love to hear what you think!