Tagged: textdrive

Google and Urchin


I was talking to Asim yesterday and he seemed to be having a hard time understanding exactly what my problem was, vis-a-vis the Google/Urchin/Analytics fiasco. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would get pissed if they were paying for some product and now that product comes for free.

I guess I didn’t communicate well. Perhaps, the [[http://onotech.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_onotech_archive.html#113200904055483341|this story]] from [[http://zevents.com|Zevents]] will help — its a good example of what has happened to many Urchin customers. And this was just for Urchin 6. The older, Urchin 5 customers have had to deal with even worse customer support.

Here’s one quote from a Mr. Scott Crosby, supposedly at Urchin in response to [[http://simplicio.com/index.php?id=4|this post]]:

>Urchin certainly isn’t “killed” a la Keylime, quite the opposite – it’s going absolutely gangbusters. Perhaps the best analogy is that being part of Google is like trying to drink water from a fire hose – not easy to keep up with the volume. We are rapidly ramping up staff and resellers to accommodate the flood of inquiries, have massively expanded our infrastructure, and have cut the price in half (on demand). Not sure how that’s evil, but I can appreciate customer frustration. We’re doing our best to keep up, but there are only so many hours in the day. That said, please try sales@urchin.com or http://www.urchin.com/support/ – many improvements have been made and response times are much better.

To which, Nathan said:

> There’s one thing that continually surprises me, and what I think Mr. Crosby missed:

> Not only is TextDrive itself upset at Urchin’s poor response and customer service, TextDrive’s customers are taking the company to task for how Google has handled their acquisition!

> Pissing off your customers is one thing. But pissing off your customer’s customers? How many other hosting companies have been left in this kind of situation, and what do their users think about Urchin now?

I think that sums up the situation quite nicely. While everyone is going gaga over Google Analytics, clearly a lot of people are not very happy with how the entire transition has been dealt with.

14 pages of fame


Everyone has dreams of being famous, even if its the 15 minutes of fame.

Well, guess what. I happen to be one of the central characters in a [[http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?id=6713&p=1|historic post]] over at TxD [[http://forum.textdrive.com/|forums]]. If you have some time on your hands, just go through that thread. Its already **14 pages** and still counting.

Its another matter that the thread is about all things Jason and TxD. I’m just glad to be part of the post that started it all :)

Whats amazing is that Jason is still on top of that thread. He’s answering //each// question. And people have //so many// questions. Its just amazing.

Textdriver


Its such a small world.

I had mentioned the [[http://floatingsun.net/blog/2005/08/21/134/|TxD move to San Diego]] earlier. Not only is TxD in San Diego, it turns out that co-founder and COO, Jason Hoffman lives right here. Not only that, he literally lives //next door// to me. No really, if I really yell out loud, he can probably hear me!

So anyways, I was hanging out on the IRC channel 2 days back and I just mentioned that I might like to go down to the data center someday and get my picture taken with davie (the machine I’m hosted on). Much to my surprise, Jason said he was heading down right then and asked me if I wanted to join him.

And so, that was how I saw the building where Textdrive now resides. I’d never been in a data center before, so it was pretty cool being there. Of course I got my picture taken with davie :)

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The legend of TxD


History is being made (ok, maybe not as dramatic, but fabulous stuff is happening nonetheless) over at Textdrive. [[http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?pid=49930#p49930|This post]] by Ray puts it out best:

>This is the real internet boom, right here. This is what so many people ran after but never managed to catch. And the really funny thing is, I mean this is the truly remarkable but not so surprising reality of the situation…. Dean never planned this. Either did Jason. It’s been unfolding as they’ve moved forward. In the business world it’s called synergy. It doesn’t come around very often and most people don’t realize it when it’s happening because they’re too wrapped up in other things…. More often than not, the wrong things.

> I can’t remember who I was recently talking with about this but it dawned on me that this little enterprise is really no different than MacAfee, Jobs, Gates, Nolan Bushnell or a few other fortunate and passionate souls. Something, was built out of nothing because of a passion. It’s like children. You don’t just up and sell ‘em. Least wise, not in these parts. Life is simply too short to part with the things that make us happy. All of the history lessons say the same thing. Find something that you love to do and the rest will just fall into place. Unless I am very mistaken, I believe Dean and Jason love this.

Again, I’m //so// glad I’m with TxD, for life now :)

How Google killed Urchin


Just trying to do my bit in a movement here :)

Long story short, Google bought [[http://urchin.com|Urchin]] sometime back, and have not been responding to [[http://textdrive.com|Textdrive]]’s constant requests to //take their money// and renew their data-center license. You can find all the juicy details (courtesy Simplicio) at [[http://simplicio.com/|How Google killed Urchin]].

Please blog about this aggresively, bookmark it to del.icio.us — how can Google //not// notice this? Sheesh!

Meanwhile, Textdrivers have decided to take things into their own hands. Please help us all by filling out [[http://projects.shtuff.us/anemone/survey/|this survey]]. If you have a //lot// of time, check out [[http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?id=5843|these]] [[http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?id=5932|threads]]

TxD is //so// cool :)