Oct
27
2005
SixApart’s Mena and Ben Trott explain current problems with TypePad
Posted in the Category of In the News and New New Things
Update (2 days later): SixApart's CEO Barak Berkowitz provides more details. He posted his Message from the CEO to the TypePad blog and also sent it in an HTML email to customers:
Dear Debbie,
As you might know, some of our users have been experiencing slow performance with the TypePad service over the past few weeks...
Pretty nice. To back up a minute... we (meaning a bunch of Business Blog Consulting contributors) are taking partial responsibility for these blogged responses from SixApart. We started complaining vociferously on Wednesday Oct. 26, 2005 (first me and then Tris Hussey, Rich Brooks, Toby Bloomberg and Paul Chaney) about the recent slowness and outages with TypePad, SixApart's popular hosted blogging service.
The result? Last night, SixApart co-founders Mena and Ben Trott posted a reponse, the first real explanation we've gotten from the company after several weeks of problems with TypePad. The number of TypePad blogs and the activity on them (the good news) has outstripped their server capacity (the bad news), they tell us. They're working to move TypePad to a new data center (which hasn't been going smoothly).
Moral of the story? The blogosphere works. You kvetch enough. You get everybody's attention. (Addendum: we're quite pleased with the effect of our buzz campaign.) Now let's hope they can fix the problems.
Backstory
I sent Anil Dash (a SixApart VP) several emails yesterday begging him to "listen up" and to make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak. Anil is a friend and colleague. I suggested he get the top dogs at 6A to acknowledge the recent problems and address them more transparently than the cryptic messages we get on 6A's Status Weblog about "temporary service degradation."
He listened.
Another takeaway... there are many channels of communication. You need to use a combination of public and private ones. The blogosphere is a very very public place. It's not right for everything.
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Comments
Ivan Pope said on October 27, 2005 at 12:12 PM
I’m a Typepad user. I’ve always thought that for a blogging company they ar not very communicative. There is NO information on their Help or Status pages. Even when Mena blogs a response, it’s written by Ben and posted by her. And, as she says in her intro, the problems have been going on for TWO WEEKS (more in my experience). So for her two weeks, she sat on the issues and didn’t blog them. And then when it finally dawned on them that the blogosphere was getting a bit antsy, they post some information. Which is really no information apart from ‘we aren’t handling this as well as we could be’ I think you guys need a bit less of the ‘Ben and Mena, we love them so much’ stuff and a bit more hard headed analysis ...
T Laskaris said on October 27, 2005 at 01:44 PM
I agree with Ivan. I have used TypePad since December 2003 and the explosive expansion of customer base does not seem to have elicited a parallel expansion of the support contingent. The overall “feel” of whatever support is there ain’t right either. I have personally persisted with TypePad because of ease of use and because I came to feel comfortable with its environment pretty quickly. But, we’re still “… waiting for http://www.typepad.com...” as I type these lines. The prospect of new features, as already announced by 6A, is inviting. Am I going to wait and see? I don’t really know… In the end, the proposition is simple: we either have speed/dependability 99.5 percent of the time, or we move on and try something else.
FMF said on October 27, 2005 at 07:35 PM
Debbie --
What do you call a company that only explains/apologizes when forced to by public opinion? You call them “not around very long”. Don’t congratulate 6A, tell them that they need to do more to please their PAYING customers.
FMF
David V. Lorenzo said on October 27, 2005 at 10:27 PM
TypePad Update – Everybody is Upset
Blogwrite for CEOs has a post that uncovers the depth of TypePad’s problems. This is obviously a major issue. Here’s the money quote: “By last night, SixApart co-founders Mena and Ben Trott posted a response, the first real explanation we’ve
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meryl said on October 28, 2005 at 11:59 AM
I guess I’ve been looking in all the wrong places because I always found the help I needed someplace on the Web site. But I’m a MT user not a TypePad user.
J.D. Iles said on October 30, 2005 at 05:44 AM
DEVILS ADVOCATE
OK, so had 6 apart REALLY been doing that badly? If something works 98% of the time flawlessly, I really don’t have alot of time to bitch and moan about the other 2%
I have had 2, count ‘em, 2 problems with Typepad in the last 6 months. Countless interactions where it was flawless
and yes, I wish they would blog more
Mike Smock said on October 30, 2005 at 12:48 PM
Hi Debbie,
The apology and explanation are not enough. In fact when I received Barak’s explanation it concerned me even more. It sounds like 6a is out of control and unable to scale either because of incompetency or lack of resources.
Either way, our blog has become an important part of our business model, and the outages costs us time and money. Mena needs to step up like a big girl and offer rock-solid assurances about future performance - as in discounts or refunds if performance lags or outages occur. At least then I’ll know they’re taking the issue seriously. Until then I’m looking for back-ups or alternatives.
T Laskaris said on October 30, 2005 at 03:51 PM
Whether your blog addresses a major audience or a “nano” one, the effect of slow perfomance / outages is the same: you, the blogger, have to find a way of explaining to your readers /customers why your blog was not up and running. Experience says people rarely pay too much attention to the usual “our host experienced technical problems” explanation. In the end, we, the bloggers, are left with a dent to our presence and reliability. 6A and TP should take this factor into serious consideration. And I agree with Mike. There should be a refund / discount policy to compensate for blackouts.
Debbie Weil said on October 30, 2005 at 04:23 PM
I agree about offering a refund, discount or extended service. Seems like obvious “good business” to me and I hope 6A is considering it. And not just for high-profile customers either!
