STH Turns 14 Thank You for the Journey

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ASUS RS720QN E11 RS24U Node In Hand 3
ASUS RS720QN E11 RS24U Node In Hand 3

Most folks know I suck at article titles. Today is June 8, marking STH’s 14th birthday. What started as a hobby while I was doing consulting has turned into a growing publishing house. Unlike many who build publications intentionally, STH’s journey was largely accidental. It has taken a lot of work just to get to this point and a lot of folks in the process.

STH Turns 14 What Has Changed This Year

For the first time in a long time, I felt like we largely kept the same formula on the STH main site. Longtime readers will probably not have noticed much of a difference, but behind the scenes, we changed quite a bit. We started focusing a bit more on the YouTube side and that led to embedding more videos than we had previously.

Supermicro NVIDIA Delta Next Air Cooled ISC 2023
Supermicro NVIDIA Delta Next Air Cooled ISC 2023

In our Q1 Letter from the Editor, I focused on some of the behind-the-scenes happenings at STH. Even since then, some may have noticed that the STH YouTube channel has taken off like a rocket ship. While in Taipei, we had a few folks ask about this, and here is a simple visual:

STH YT Growth June 2019 To 2023
STH YT Growth June 2019 To 2023

While the STH YouTube is still small, it is growing very fast. The STH main site had a bit slower growth this year, but that makes sense from an industry perspective. Luckily, unlike many tech publishers, we just slowed growth, we did not have a 25%-50% reduction in page views.

Silicom P4CG2BPi81 100GbE Bypass NIC Front
Silicom P4CG2BPi81 100GbE Bypass NIC Front

Something folks may have noticed is that we standardized the white table/ blue background for our photos and B-roll in the main studio. I am confident this will change over time, but it has been very easy to work with. Perhaps it will change when we move into the new and much larger studio in a few months. Bryan #2 has been doing a great job on the photos this year to the point that I have taken photos of only 4 products or so in the last 6 months. Doing product photography for STH is actually one of my favorite things to do, but I had to give that up to help STH scale. That has been a big help.

On the data center side, we decommissioned another data center at the end of 2022. In early 2023 we found a few small/ old apps that we needed to migrate so that has happened this year, but our readers will likely not have noticed that happening.

One of the other big changes is just travel. Travel picked up for STH last year, but it is nearing its normal rate for STH and others.

Above there is an embedded tweet as I was in the Gigabyte booth in Taipei and the team was taking photos while I was talking to folks. Then a tide of people rolled in as NVIDIA’s CEO came in to sign a server. There is no more distancing, every event is packed now.

Thank Yous

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to the extended STH team and specifically, Alex, Bryan, Bryan #2, Cliff, Eric, Joe, John, John #2, Kris, Rohit, Steve, William, and Will for stepping up big time over this past year. Also to Virginia’s team at Mala Marketing for selling ads and getting us some revenue to grow our team and capabilities. Just so STH readers are aware, I am a total pain to these folks because I say “no” to probably 75% of the offers that we get under the assumption that I want to keep STH a site I would be happy to read.

I also wanted to thank our forum moderators for helping sustain the STH forums. Many of the moderators have been around for the vast majority of these 14 years and have truly shaped what STH is today.

Lastly, I just wanted to thank all of our awesome readers and our small but growing audience on YouTube for supporting STH.

Final Words

As a team, we probably do not get to pause and say thank you enough. Maybe as I grow older, this becomes the most important aspect of marking each anniversary. Making STH happen takes so many people including our team, our readers, sponsors, and those that support what we do not just today, but also who have come before and will support STH in the future. It takes a big community of folks to keep STH going, and so on the 14th birthday of STH, the message is one of thanks.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Nice. Been a lurker since the WHS v1 days (still miss that thing). Glad it’s all worked out so well for you.

  2. Congrats to you Patrick, and also to your team as you continue to grow into literally the best server/network/datacenter news and review site in the world. Your commitment to keeping the site something that you would want to visit every day just to see what’s new, and not because some click-bait headline was plastered across the aggregators is what keeps me visiting every day, watching the videos, and subscribing to the YT membership to help out.

  3. Thanks for all the great content this year Patrick and STH Team. STH is the only propper industry news that I follow fanaticly. I would love to see more indepth server reviews from DELL, HP & Lenovo as that is what we use at work.

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