Hello Newsvine.com - Beta testers are not low class individuals with no self respect.
First the first disclaimer: This one is awfully long post. So don't say I didn't warn you. Do please feel free to skip it and continue doing whatever you were doing before. Thanks for stopping by.
Disclaimer # 2: I personally am not trying to get anything off from Newsvine folks and I realize that it is in beta but this post is just to share the experience I had while trying to beta test their site and especially the attitude of their so called CEO Mike Davidson. Please excuse me(or ignore the post) in case you feel I've gone a bit overboard.
But hey this is a free country and so if Mr. Mike got his rights then I've have my own.
To my recollection, I never ever encountered such a person with "zero" ethics trying to pull off a startup and without a saying this deserves a record in my blog under "Most Horrible Person/Company that I've come across" category, if only I had one. Congratulations Mr. Mike! Infact, I was so taken aback by this experience that I actually decided to dedicate a website for this whole episode. Since "[xyz]sucks.com" convention is so out of date I've decided to name it "NewsWhine.com" and tag it "Whine about Newsvine" and hey it also kind of rhymes ;-) and with such a CEO aboard I'm quite sure there might be more whining about this particular company going forward and what better place to share it other than "NewsWhine.com" (so, stay tuned).
Anyhow...coming back to the acual episode --
At some unfortunate moment in my life (and I mean it), I've decided to beta test Newsvine.com and signed up to receive a beta invite. Little did I know at that particular moment that I was trying to help a person and hence his company who has absolutely no respect for others and literally would disregard everything you tell him and that I'd just be wasting more & more of my time with all this.
Anyhow, I've received an invite yesterday and was very much excited to try it out even though I had other engagements.
Now..it was already past 2100 hrs and I was damn tired and was about to have dinner when I received the above reply from Mike Davidson. Thinking that he'd be waiting for my input, I've decided to skip my family at dinner and tried to get some data out for Mr. Mike and below is my reply to that effect.
I'm skipping the video capture & other attachments that I sent to Mr. Mike from this post. Will try to get that online later.
I've also followed up this reply with yet another post on his blog which got deleted as well and of which I do not have the copy. (Mr. Mike if you have a copy in your email can you please send it to me? Would appreciate your help) :)
As far as I can remember in that post, I mentioned to Mike that I still am encountering the problem with the newsvine site and also thanked him for including an email address to contact in case of a problem on their site's home page (you see, there wasn't a Problems: E-mail "help (at) newsvine.com" message on their home page until I alerted these guys to include one). Further, I did also mention that a contact form would have been much easier and helpful for beta testers to contact Newsvine and though he proclaims in bold on his blog that "Newsvines is not a Web2.0" company (see image above), not having a basic contact form is still like Web0.0 ;-) for which he replied back saying --
...and then I followed up with yet another email with more details to help them recreate the problem --
However, when I visited his blog to my utter disbelief I've found that the CEO Mike has deleted all my previous comments about not having an email address or contact form to send feedback on their site. Honestly, I quite didn't understand as to why they have been deleted.
Assuming that there has been a mistake somewhere I sent the following email to Mr. Mike --
To this moment I still have no clue as to why my posts got deleted and how can a so proclaimed CEO of a company behave so cheaply..is Mr. Mike Davidson so cheap or has he got an attitude problem? Why Mr. Mike..why?
Would love to get an answer for all the time I spent on this worthless beta. (note: there application might not be worthless..but a company led by a characterless person is worthless..atleast in my view.)
Also, I'd like to know what do these companies soliciting feedback think about the beta testers? Do they value their opinion at all or is it just a publicity stunt?
Finally, how ethical is the practice of deleting the opinions of beta testers expressed on their public forums or blogs?
...and an advice to Mr. Mike & such people/companies in closing -- if you are not dare enough to hear public opinion...then fricking close down your sites and go into your rat holes.
First the first disclaimer: This one is awfully long post. So don't say I didn't warn you. Do please feel free to skip it and continue doing whatever you were doing before. Thanks for stopping by.
Disclaimer # 2: I personally am not trying to get anything off from Newsvine folks and I realize that it is in beta but this post is just to share the experience I had while trying to beta test their site and especially the attitude of their so called CEO Mike Davidson. Please excuse me(or ignore the post) in case you feel I've gone a bit overboard.
But hey this is a free country and so if Mr. Mike got his rights then I've have my own.
To my recollection, I never ever encountered such a person with "zero" ethics trying to pull off a startup and without a saying this deserves a record in my blog under "Most Horrible Person/Company that I've come across" category, if only I had one. Congratulations Mr. Mike! Infact, I was so taken aback by this experience that I actually decided to dedicate a website for this whole episode. Since "[xyz]sucks.com" convention is so out of date I've decided to name it "NewsWhine.com" and tag it "Whine about Newsvine" and hey it also kind of rhymes ;-) and with such a CEO aboard I'm quite sure there might be more whining about this particular company going forward and what better place to share it other than "NewsWhine.com" (so, stay tuned).
Anyhow...coming back to the acual episode --
At some unfortunate moment in my life (and I mean it), I've decided to beta test Newsvine.com and signed up to receive a beta invite. Little did I know at that particular moment that I was trying to help a person and hence his company who has absolutely no respect for others and literally would disregard everything you tell him and that I'd just be wasting more & more of my time with all this.
Anyhow, I've received an invite yesterday and was very much excited to try it out even though I had other engagements.
-------- Original Message --------OK..all excited, I quickly switched into test-mode and begun testing out their application and encountered quite a few issues which I pointed to Mr. Mike on his blog. Please see below for the exact messages I posted on his blog. (b.t.w which alongwith others are now deleted.)
Subject: Welcome to the Newsvine Private Beta...
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 18:16:28 -0800 (PST)
From: The Newsvine Team
Reply-To: The Newsvine Team
To: JDoe
You have been invited to join the Newsvine private beta by The Newsvine Team.
Click the link below (or paste it into your browser) to get set up:
http://www.newsvine.com/_login/proxy?path=/servista/respond?key=
1861E341-318F-9CE3-E251-4C1C7024DDFB&u=cV5TQUU=&rd=
http://www.newsvine.com/?rf=KgIXGAEANRwWVwQTBQ0KQwZOLg==
(Note: If this link above no longer works, this will enable you to try again
http://www.newsvine.com/_login/proxy?path=/servista/reset?email=mail@jdoe.net
&rd=http://www.newsvine.com/ )
--------x-------x--------
--------To which Mr. Mike responded --
I've received the invite today and was quite excited at the chance to start a column at Newsvine.
I've followed the invite link to signup and it was pretty simple. However, when I logged out and tried to relogin, all I get is a blank page. I've retried a few times with no success.
I could not find anything on the home page of Newsvine except for the login form and a lost password link. It is quite "stupid" (sorry, couldn't find a better word) to not provide a "Contact/Feedback" form on the homepage of a site that is expecting to receive feedback from its users.
--------x-------x--------
-------- Original Message --------Lesson : Thou hast ignored the family and Thou shall repent. :)
Subject: Re: [Mike Davidson] New Comment Posted to 'Unstealth! Get Ready For Newsvine...'
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 21:11:01 -0800
From: Mike Davidson
To: JDoe
Hmm... interesting. What browser are you using Jane? So you're just
typing in your email and password and it takes you to a blank page?
What is the url of the blank page ? just www.newsvine.com ?
--------x-------x--------
Now..it was already past 2100 hrs and I was damn tired and was about to have dinner when I received the above reply from Mike Davidson. Thinking that he'd be waiting for my input, I've decided to skip my family at dinner and tried to get some data out for Mr. Mike and below is my reply to that effect.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Mike Davidson] New Comment Posted to 'Unstealth! Get Ready For Newsvine...'
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:33:14 -0800
From: Kav
To: Mike Davidson
CC: help@newsvine.com
Hello Mike --
I was using Firefox but it is the same even with IE as well as Opera.
Attached is the capture.
BTW..I just noticed the "Problems: E-mail "help (at) newsvine.com" note :)
Regards,
j
--------x-------x--------
I'm skipping the video capture & other attachments that I sent to Mr. Mike from this post. Will try to get that online later.
I've also followed up this reply with yet another post on his blog which got deleted as well and of which I do not have the copy. (Mr. Mike if you have a copy in your email can you please send it to me? Would appreciate your help) :)
As far as I can remember in that post, I mentioned to Mike that I still am encountering the problem with the newsvine site and also thanked him for including an email address to contact in case of a problem on their site's home page (you see, there wasn't a Problems: E-mail "help (at) newsvine.com" message on their home page until I alerted these guys to include one). Further, I did also mention that a contact form would have been much easier and helpful for beta testers to contact Newsvine and though he proclaims in bold on his blog that "Newsvines is not a Web2.0" company (see image above), not having a basic contact form is still like Web0.0 ;-) for which he replied back saying --
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Mike Davidson] New Comment Posted to 'Unstealth! Get Ready For Newsvine...'
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 22:26:52 -0800
From: Mike Davidson
To: JDoe
Cmon, I'm a designer Jane! Not one to muddy pages up with forms. :)
Are you still not able to log in, by the way? Your account seems to
be fine on our end.
--------x-------x--------
...and then I followed up with yet another email with more details to help them recreate the problem --
-------- Original Message --------It was already close to 11:00 in the night and I just wanted to drop a line at his blog indicating that I sent another email with more details and that I'd be retiring for the day.
Subject: Re: [Mike Davidson] New Comment Posted to 'Unstealth! Get Ready For Newsvine...'
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:45:06 -0800
From: Kav
To: Kav
CC: Mike Davidson, help@newsvine.com
The following should help recreate the problem --
But a note before I get into those details. To experience what I'm encountering just go to newsvine.com and enter some random emailid/password combination. I'd assume you'd see a blank page as well.
Now, it is not that I was entering invalid credentials but that exactly is kind of response that I'm seeing upon trying to login.
To recreate:
Using Firefox: (but as I said earlier that doesn't really matter)
1. Click the "respond" URL in the invite.
2. Click the URL again to open a new window with the signup form.
3. Signup for different channels using the different windows.
4. In my case I signed up for web.newsvine(web@jdoe) / read.newsvine(mail@jdoe) / write.newsvine(johndoe@jdoe) / myweb.newsvine(myweb@jdoe) / business.newsvine(business@jdoe)
5. For some channels, I guess I just used the browser back button to sign up for a new channel.
6. Please note that all these channel names now show up as "Not Available" just in case you are thinking that the registration did not go through. So, I presume the registration did complete successfully.
7. I'm quite not sure if what I did is not allowed (i.e., signing up for multiple channels using multiple windows/or by going back) but if that is the case then it should be disallowed. But in my case it seemed that all the channels did get registered successfully as showed up as unavailable when I checked immediately.
8. Finally, I've tried to retrieve a password using the "Lost Password" link but to this point I have not received any emails. Is that feature working?
Also, I attached a screencapture showing the cookies.
Regards,
j
--------x-------x--------
However, when I visited his blog to my utter disbelief I've found that the CEO Mike has deleted all my previous comments about not having an email address or contact form to send feedback on their site. Honestly, I quite didn't understand as to why they have been deleted.
Assuming that there has been a mistake somewhere I sent the following email to Mr. Mike --
-------- Original Message --------I later checked this morning expecting a response but didn't see any. Enraged..(just a reflexive reaction ;-)) after having spent my time trying to help out these guys & just to find that all the comments got deleted, I shot a post on his blog (ofcourse, I know it'd get deleted as well and yes it did get deleted ;-)) but this time I made sure I retained a copy... posted below --
Subject: Re: [Mike Davidson] New Comment Posted to 'Unstealth! Get Ready For Newsvine...'
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:07:57 -0800
From: Kav
To: Mike Davidson
Yep..I still cannot login and have sent a mail to help@newsvine as well
with more details.
BTW..are my eyes just tired or have you removed the comments? I cannot
seem to find them now or did I post at some other place ...for sure I
know I posted on your site :)
..and well..form is the minimum that could be added to help solicit
feedback ;-)
j
Mike Davidson wrote:
>
> Cmon, I'm a designer Jane! Not one to muddy pages up with forms. :)
>
> Are you still not able to log in, by the way? Your account seems to
> be fine on our end.
>
--------x-------x--------
Well..there comes an end to my story unless Mr. Mike has anything to add or amend.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Mike Davidson] New Comment from 'BlogContestSite.com' on 'Unstealth! Get Ready For Newsvine...'
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 11:05:25 -0800 (PST)
From: comment-notifier@mikeindustries.com
To: web@jdoe.net
Hmmn....so my comment got deleted just for trying to help you guys out with the beta.
This is so undemocratic..may be time for NewsWhine.com
Geez..
j
Website: http://www.BlogContestSite.com
--------x-------x--------
To this moment I still have no clue as to why my posts got deleted and how can a so proclaimed CEO of a company behave so cheaply..is Mr. Mike Davidson so cheap or has he got an attitude problem? Why Mr. Mike..why?
Would love to get an answer for all the time I spent on this worthless beta. (note: there application might not be worthless..but a company led by a characterless person is worthless..atleast in my view.)
Also, I'd like to know what do these companies soliciting feedback think about the beta testers? Do they value their opinion at all or is it just a publicity stunt?
Finally, how ethical is the practice of deleting the opinions of beta testers expressed on their public forums or blogs?
...and an advice to Mr. Mike & such people/companies in closing -- if you are not dare enough to hear public opinion...then fricking close down your sites and go into your rat holes.
