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Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

37signals.com

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Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#11

Post by scott_s »

JoelSutherland wrote: post #7
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #3

For what it's worth, Thor Muller (Cofounder of Get Satisfaction) responded in the comments and said the wording was a mistake and would be changed immediately: "Gosh, we messed up on the wording of that badge and are changing it pronto. The wording on that badge was actually intended to explicitly state that the space was NOT OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED by the company, but that doesn’t come off at all. The idea is to encou…

The text in the badge is/was: 37signals has not yet committed to open conversation about its products and services. Encourage them to join and support the Company-Customer Pact. I really have a hard time believing that this was an oversight. It is at the top of almost every page. When you consider GetSatisfaction's strategy it is even well written.

I agree. The language was simple and clear. I have difficulty believing language that straight-forward was an accident.

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#12

Post by swombat »

I think it's quite bad form to publicly attack another company like this without discussing it in private first. I see no indication that there was any communication between 37Signals and GetSatisfaction prior to this very public post.

I've had this kind of thing done to me before, and I think it's really out of order. Essentially, 37Signals have decided, in this case, to trade politeness and "being good" for making a big noise and getting some page views and attention.

It's easy to criticise people publicly without trying to understand what's going on first. I'd love to say that I expected better from 37-Signals, but considering that their blog has been so focused on generating page views through negative disagreement, I'm not all that surprised that they do this as well.

Here's a challenge for 37-signals: Why not try to do positive things, rather than frame everything as a confrontational disagreement? Yes, being an arse generates page views, but so do other undesirable behaviour. Is that really the way you want to go in the long term?

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#13

Post by scott_s »

jseifer wrote: post #8

To prefix all this: I've never really looked in to Get Satisfaction for anything except a couple of random posts on other companies pages there. I can see where 37 Signals is coming from with the whole not being committed to an open conversation thing but I think the whole article is a bit sensational. A guy from Get Satisfaction even jumps in and says they messed up with that badge. They do need to make money some h…

I think having ads and being paid not to have ads is fundamentally different. The latter reminds me of protection payment.

As pointed out above, I have difficulty believing the badge wording is a mistake.

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#14

Post by warfangle »

jseifer wrote: post #8

To prefix all this: I've never really looked in to Get Satisfaction for anything except a couple of random posts on other companies pages there. I can see where 37 Signals is coming from with the whole not being committed to an open conversation thing but I think the whole article is a bit sensational. A guy from Get Satisfaction even jumps in and says they messed up with that badge. They do need to make money some h…

My issue with the whole thing would be the fact that they use branding, logos, and so forth from a company that they have no business relationship with. Doing so devalues the brand, and should cease immediately.

It would be like going into a storefront that has a UPS Package Store sign, and finding out it's just a counter with a guy that claims to be UPS customer support, but doesn't actually help you out with anything. And then find out it's a different company entirely.

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#15

Post by bobbyi »

tom_rath wrote: post #10

Is that really Get Satisfaction's doing, or was it a 37signals fanboy who put that together without permission? Snagging the look-and-feel (graphics, colours, etc.) of a target's site is particularly sleazy and it seems very odd if Get Satisfaction has chosen to go that route for their business. Unless Get Satisfaction provides a prominent "request this forum be deleted" link, and actually removes a forum on request,…

Why should companies be able to "delete" 3rd party forums where people discuss their products and help each other?

If someone asks a question on Stack Overflow about using Visual Studio, should Microsoft be able to delete it? Should they be able to sue SO? Should SO not be able to run ads for products that compete with VS?

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#16

Post by axod »

swombat wrote: post #12

I think it's quite bad form to publicly attack another company like this without discussing it in private first. I see no indication that there was any communication between 37Signals and GetSatisfaction prior to this very public post. I've had this kind of thing done to me before, and I think it's really out of order. Essentially, 37Signals have decided, in this case, to trade politeness and "being good" for making…

Agreed. Pretty bad form to not email first with concerns/questions etc.

But as you say, if they had resolved it privately, people wouldn't be reading about it on their blog.

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#19

Post by metachris »

thorax wrote: post #6

I don't have any strong feelings about Get Satisfaction (or any of the other sites like this), but we made http://featurelist.org available for free to anyone who wants a lighter approach to that sort of thing. It focuses a bit more on the feature request side than the technical support pieces, but it might be interesting to some of you. Once we catch our breath from our other sites, we're going to provide featurelis…

sorry to say, but featurelist.org has a horrible look and feel, although the idea is quite nice.

i'd guess you're a couple of coders -- get a graphic designer on board! (and keep up the work :)

Re: Jason Fried: Get Satisfaction is "awfully close to blackmail"

#20

Post by tom_rath »

bobbyi wrote: post #15
tom_rath wrote: post #10

Is that really Get Satisfaction's doing, or was it a 37signals fanboy who put that together without permission? Snagging the look-and-feel (graphics, colours, etc.) of a target's site is particularly sleazy and it seems very odd if Get Satisfaction has chosen to go that route for their business. Unless Get Satisfaction provides a prominent "request this forum be deleted" link, and actually removes a forum on request,…

Why should companies be able to "delete" 3rd party forums where people discuss their products and help each other? If someone asks a question on Stack Overflow about using Visual Studio, should Microsoft be able to delete it? Should they be able to sue SO? Should SO not be able to run ads for products that compete with VS?

I don't think there's any problem with third-parties putting together support forums, Q&A pages or the like. It's when they snatch the look-and-feel of a company's site to try and pass themselves off as an official part of that company (without permission!) which sends my alarm bells ringing.
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