The Day is Darkest Before the Dawn

A small Internet company you might be familiar with raced to address a mammoth crisis. The relatively young firm took its system down for scheduled routine maintenance as it tried to install the technology it desparately needed for future growth. Unfortunately, the maintenance was anything but routine.

Shortly after the procedure started, the young Internet company's service came crashing down due to a hardware failure. It didn't return for some 14 hours. When the situation was finally corrected and the system rebooted, the site experienced “network anomalies” that kept it hiccuping for hours.

This company's paying customers were a social bunch; part of an online community. They naturally felt they were entitled to good service. And, understandably, they were outraged.  This latest outage was the most serious incident in a long series of gaffes over the prior several months. Naturally, even as the young company scrambled to get back online, it apologized profusely as it faced its largest PR crisis to date.

But then, something remarkable happened. The entrepreneurial firm spent large gobs of cash to invest in new infrastructure. It sured up its service and worked hard to make it up somehow to its loyal customers. The dark tunnel became lighter.

This story I am recounting above is not about Six Apart, the company behind the popular TypePad blogging program that powers this blog. You can read all about what happened to their loyal customers today elsewhere. Even Brian Williams mentioned it. I am in the mood instead to let history be my guide. I am referring above to eBay on August 6, 1999.

Between 1998 and 2000 CNET published at least 15 articles documenting one eBay outage after another as the Internet auction giant struggled to scale. Several of the articles focused on stories of countless customers threatening to bolt. It was the auction site's darkest hour. Sound familiar? If you spent any time in the blogosphere today, It should. Go search for TypePad on Technorati.

You know what happened? eBay not only learned from this experience, they survived and they thrived. I am sure that five years from now lots of people will forget about today's incident and TypePad will not be called GripePad anymore.  Six Apart will get it right and I am proud to remain loyal to their service as one of their more prominent bloggers. History repeats itself all the time and that's what's happening here. Now back to the regular blogging.

Technorati Tags: eBay, TypePad

Comments

[Dennis Howlett]

You're the lucky one Steve. I'm still out on an up to date post/comment live page (as at the time of this comment.)

I congratulate you on your optimism. By the time you got out of bed in NY - we in Europe had been off the air some 8-9 hours. No communication. No reporting. Nowhere. Nada. Zippo. Lord knows how long the Japanese had been out.

I don't know for whom I speak but let's constrain it to myself.

When I pay for service I expect a deliverable. If I don't get it I want to know why. If I don't get it agin only this time it threatens my business - you're toast.

This is that day for 6A and me. Sorry. And I'm genuinely sad because I know Loic and his team have worked their proverbial backsides off trying to get this 'stuff' going in Europe. He must be shattered.

But as they say - business is business. It has no sentiment, no hard feelings.

Good luck 6A. You'll need it this time.

[Fred]

Very interesting post.
This is a point of view that is getting all this stuff in a "new perspective".

People with the new technologies became more and more hard to convince. They let no chance in case of a failure but never notice a well working service.

Happily Ebay had this chance.

[Bren]

I dunno, man.

Today was just icing on the cake in terms of my experience with Typepad. I've been pretty optimistic too, but it just can't go on. I even declined the offer of free months earlier this year, because I wasn't all that bothered by their slowness. My more recent customer service experience with them has been underwhelming. That's my biggest gripe. When I combine that with the slowness thing, and this outage, I see the writing on the wall.

Anil does a great job of keeping up with the vibe on the blogosphere. He contacted me shortly after I bookmarked their support blog with a snarky comment. He's sharp and they're lucky to have him. I don't know how lucky he is to be there, though.

Unless something remarkable happens, I'm probably going to begin moving Slacker Manager over to a WordPress blog. I'm done.

[Dennis Howlett]

The whole point of a good service infrastructure is that you don't notice it. It isn't something you actively praise though increasingly I'm being asked 'Which service provider do you use/how have you found them?'

I'm so pleased I've said: 'It depends if you're playing behind the firewall or planning on going in the wild.'

There's a difference between this and eBay - this is corporates as well as consumers. Has the difference in tolerance escaped you on that one Steve?

A lot of folk are betting on this stuff for all manner of consulting opportunities. Steve's one. I'm another. I've not seen a single consumer engage the services of a consultant.

[Russell Buckley]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote about eBay:

"it apologized profusely as it faced its largest PR crisis to date."

It was when I read that part, that I knew you couldn't be talking about 6A. I haven't received any kind of apology.

Russell

[Bidera]

Immediately I knew the story would be about eBay's famous outages. Since I am in the auction industry, that story was of special significance to me.
Our site Bidera Auctions experienced similar (though on a much smaller scale) growing pains a year ago. Still, management can easily overcompensate, and buy too much server space and ended up paying too much for unneeded perfomance (if there is such a thing)
Best wishes to Typepad.

[Laura Bennett]

I'm with you Steve. As a struggling entrepreneur myself, I can really relate to Typepad's woes on a personal level. Somehow it makes Typepad seem so much more human than being just a business service. I'll be sticking with them through this because I know they will come through it.

And to the person who didn't see the apologies, you're right in that they didn't send out anything individually, but you could feel their pain and sincerest sorry in their blog and on their webpage.

[Ivan Pope]

I think it is an issue that Mena doesn't blog this sort of stuff at Mena's Corner. I mean, they are a blogging company. The CEO doesn't blog, and Mena's blog is still stuck on events in Paris earlier in the month. I'd like to see the founders talking about how they see the situation.

[Kevin Dugan]

It's interesting to see a myriad of reactions across Typepad users and non-Typepad users. From smug to pissed off, Typepad pleasantly surprised us last time and I can bet they will again (maybe Mena will curse again!).

Personally I think we should always try and get a historic perspective...when technology comes out of the box all shiny and new and when it goes awry due to growth issues.

I'm on Typepad and will stay, if only to keep the Google juice flowing.

Moving now out of angst, spite or a lemming-like reaction would simply increase the confusion.

That said, for the immediate future I cannot recommend any corporate blogs sit here. I'm sure it won't be a problem soon, but it is a problem now.

[Dave Lorenzo]

Steve,

It is not the technology that concerns me with TypePad as much as it is the people who are at the core of the organization.

Their lack of responsiveness and lack of understanding of quality customer service are more like the dot com companies that didn’t make it than they are like e-bay.

E-bay realized that they needed good people to run their organization so they hired experienced business people. TypePad’s demise will not come from technology it will come from their failure to realize that technology can be replicated but customer relationships cannot. Once their lost, they’re gone for good.

While Anil, Doug Bryan (TypePad customer service guru) and company have great relationships with “a-list” bloggers like you, they are arrogant and condescending to many, many “non-A listers”.

Unfortunately, people like us influence many others and none of us is recommending a TypePad solution to our clients.

Congratulations on whatever TypePad is doing to keep you happy. I truly believe that you are in the minority.

That’s just my opinion.

Dave

[Jeremy Pepper]

You've become quite the 6A apologist, Steve. You've had posts about how great their PR and CRM have been in these situations (because they had contacted ... you), and now you compare their problems to eBay, and that it's a non-issue.

But, one little thing - this is not 1999. Things have change quite a bit in six years, including the boom and bust, and companies supposedly being smarter.

BTW, remember what happened when eBay decided it was time to grow up? They did. Can the Web 2.0 companies face the same harsh realities, and cede control?

[Denise Wakeman]

I'm with you Steve, and yes it's annoying to have the service down for as long as it was. I publish 9 blogs on Typepad and set them up for clients. However, in the long run I think Typepad is a good solution for the clients I work with and I appreciate what they offer.

I'm also not sure why people are expecting an email alerting them to the problem. As soon as one tried to log in you were directed straight to their updates. That's how I stayed informed and knew as soon as the service was back up.

My current plan is to stay with Typepad. Ironically, the day before this happened I received an email inviting me to be part of a Typepad focus group in Los Angeles in January. I hope I'm chosen to participate.

[Robert French]

Gotta love the "silver lining" spin crowd. But still, comparing eBay (6 years ago) to Six Apart is like comparing apples and prunes.

There really weren't then (and essentially not now, either) any options to eBay in 1999. There are 'lots' of options in blog world.

Six Apart has had six years (since 1999) to learn that lesson. And, they had their previous gaffes within the last month to learn from, as well.

Tell us, Steve, did you get any preferential treatment this time around - like before? Or, were mass email alerts to customers employed by 6A this time? Will they offer more refunds, like the last episode, for this down time?

Hey, just asking. You seem to be on the inside "as one of their more prominent bloggers." Can't believe you really wrote that. Does any 'bling' come with that apologist theme?

Forbes, MSNBC and numerous other reputable sites and blogs have fairly noted their failures. Can this be a good thing?

[Dennis Howlett]

I can't help but feel the 6A apologists are saying what could be summed up in a single sentence: "Let's just sit and gaze at our navels for a moment, wondering in the beauty we have brought to the world and still remained cute. Karma."

People like myself on the other hand are - in effect - saying: "Grow up now you stupid child. Otherwise, you're toast."

Interseting perspectives. Which wins out in the world of business..where it matters. I wonder for instance what August Capital has to say right now?

[david parmet]

Why anyone would stay with TP after all the problems they've had over the past months - when there are far better options out there - is beyond me.

It seems that the whole notion of the customer being in charge in the age of the Web applies to anything but certain sacred cows.

Steve - you can have this whole blog - old posts and all - up and running on WordPress in the time it took me to write this comment. I've been there since the original license fee snafu MT found itself in two years ago, and I've never looked back.

[Nik Cubrilovic]

You can't compare the eBay incidents and 6A - eBay were out in force when their servers went down completely explaining the situation down to the finest detail and being out infront of the media (even on live television).

6A have almost tried to keep it a secret, as if nobody would notice..

Forecasting growth, servers and infrastructure for a web company should be as important as forecasting cashflow.

Poor customer service, poor setup, poor planning and poor management. No excuses - they called you and spoke to you exactly so that you can post this an help quell the anger. Nobody else is being contacted. Nobody.

[Joe Clark]

A specious comparison at best. eBay wasn't entrusted with the maintenance and continued serving to the public of valuable, sometimes irreplaceable writing created by paying customers.

eBay merely listed, and to this day merely lists, your crapola for a certain period of time till you unload it.

[Honor]

Don't you think this can be a hit or miss? But, when it works, you can come away with real results.

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