November 2009

Dear TinyChat,

You Suck.

Last night I was checking my Facebook and Twitter accounts and saw that Pete Cashmore (@mashable) and Gary Vaynerchuk  (@garyvee) were having a conversation together hosted by some PR lady (sorry, I forgot her name!) and I had the most excruciatingly bad time with your product.

Whenever Gary or Pete would try to speak, the video would freeze up.  People were in the chatroom making jokes about robot movements and Tourette’s.  It was not amusing to deal with such choppy video.  I have a few recommendations for you and your video-happy buddies:

1. A video and chat product does no one any good if it does not work smoothly.
2. Annoyed participants, both speakers and chatroom attendees, tend to get irritable, and fast.  Bad for you.  Really bad for you if they have a soapbox, like a blog, and decide to use it.  Like me
3. Do NOT release a product from BETA unless it works WELL 99.9% of the time.  When it doesn’t work, show us a “fail whale” type thing.  Something humorous to distract us from hating your guts for wasting our time.  (Haha, look, those little birds are trying to hold up that big ‘ole whale, haha.)
4. If I have to put up with choppy video streaming because you say, “this is a free service” then I say, “I’ll pay to NOT deal with choppy streams!”
5. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but uStream is kicking your butt.  I know, that’s a low blow, but, hey, you need to fix your stuff, fast, or you will lose fans – and fast.
6. If video interactive systems are not flawless, slap BETA back on it and fix the problems.  If a video takes more time to load than the length of the video or makes the speakers sound like robots (“Origato Mr. Vay-ner-chuk?”) then you have a serious problem.  Market share is gained or lost by the responsiveness of the company to correct an error.
7. Think like an entrepreneur:  fix it fast, or die trying.  Hustle matters, now more than ever, and you can’t afford to miss out on influencers, like me, who get ticked enough with you to write about you.  Bad press is bad press is bad press.  Don’t be inflexible, fix the problem. Make me sing your praises.  Really, I want to.  You’re just making it impossible right now.  Understand?

Thanks for listening.

Your Pal,

Ryan.

Until next time.

Peace.

-Ryan.

Tagged as: Customer Service, Facebook, Gary Vaynerchuk, Irritating, Pete Cashmore, TinyChat, Twitter, uStream

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