Andy Wibbels

TypePad Answers Outage Problems

Mena and Ben have posted responses to the frustration over recent TypePad outages:

Because of the growth of the service, we’ve been increasing our capacity steadily, but a few months ago the data center we are in ran out of space and power, limiting the amount of equipment we could add. After some shopping, we found a great new data center and have been building it out for over a month. We’re currently in the middle of that move, and that’s when the trouble started.

Ugh, guys. A few months ago you knew and you didn’t start working on it in time?
Some users got star treatment with an email from the Six Apart CEO. I got an email from one of their techs. Other clients haven’t been as lucky – and the best comment so far has been:

Why doesn’t Mena demonstrate some good old fashioned accountability and offer a refund or discount on future services? … I don’t want apologies. Just results please.

I have always been a huge Ben/Mena fan ever since Movable Type 2.x and it has been great to watch them grow into their new roles – it is just painful to see basic services go foul. And I have a certain amount of sickness because I’ve been in IT departments during outages and it just makes ya ill.
Transparency is all well and good, but you have to back it up with results. Yeek.

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Sharon Sarmiento

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6 responses to “TypePad Answers Outage Problems”

  1. Tinus Avatar
    Tinus

    Are you allways negative or something? Lighten up!

    Reply
  2. Andy Wibbels Avatar
    Andy Wibbels

    Tell that to the pissed off users.

    Reply
  3. Pierre Cutler Avatar
    Pierre Cutler

    Andy,
    Bottom line question – should I use Six Apart’s Movable Type 3.2? I am about to launch my first weblog – SacramentoExecutive.com – and am leaning towards a hosted solution using Movable Type. Is this a smart move? If not, what should I use?
    Thanks for your wisdom.
    Regards,
    Pierre
    Sacramento,CA
    Home Of The Kings!!!

    Reply
  4. FMF Avatar
    FMF

    Lighten up? I PAY Typepad to have a servive up and running all the time. Do they? No. Do they offer a discount/refund? No. Do they even apologize? Only when pressured. Who’s running marketing/customer service for them?????????
    The capacity issue is not a valid one for me. This isn’t like Blogger where people sign up for FREE and a gazillion people can be added in a day. All Typepad customers are paying customers — so they HAVE to know when demand is growing. To say they were growing too fast is simply a cop-out.
    And to top it off, they do email the high profile bloggers like Micro Persuasion so they can attempt damage control, but ignore the rest of us. Is it that they don’t have our email addresses? (Should I start laughing now?) C’mon guys, get your act together and operate like a REAL business.
    I always liked the fact that 6A was an independent company, but now I’m hoping someone bigger buys them. The innovation may slacken a bit, but at least a big company will run it like a business and value their customers.

    Reply
  5. Tinus Avatar
    Tinus

    I’m sure they ran it like a business. I’m sure they tried as hard as they could to make the transfer go swift. But some problems you simply can’t forsee! With datacenters of that size a little problem suddenly becomes a big problem.
    They must have seen this coming, you’re right about that. But this transfer had to happen at some point, so what’s the difference?
    They’re probably pulling their hairs out at the moment. Don’t say they’re not valueing their customers, simply because something went wrong!
    You must be the single one person in the world who lives without mistakes.

    Reply
  6. Pierre Cutler Avatar
    Pierre Cutler

    I took the plunge and built my first blog with MovableType. I am very pleased with the results so far. The system is easy to use, even for a non-geek, computer numbskull like me. I have an operational site with paying Fortune 500 clients. If I can do it and not have to call or complain, then Six Apart must be doing something right. Kudos to 6A!!!!
    Pierre Cutler
    The Sacramento Executive

    Reply

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