Subject: Walla repeated the same mistake when swallowing IOL (was: Testing? What Testing? The Story of WebRing)

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 01:33:50 +0200 (IST)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 21:20:08 -0500
From: "James S. Huggins (dot com)" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Ring Manager List <[email-masked]>
Subject: Testing? What Testing? The Story of WebRing

There is this company called, Yahoo!

A while back they bought a company called GeoCities that had previously
bought a company called StarSeed that had previously bought a company called
WebRing.

On Labor Day weekend, Yahoo began installing the "new, improved" version of
WebRing in an attempt to integrate that system with the whole Yahoo concept.

To summarize it briefly, it has not gone well.

Today it has finally begun to mostly work. Except that the "design bugs" are
rampant.

Users (called RingMasters) are bolting. RingMasters create and manage the
Rings, which are communities of Websites.

The are leaving Partly because of the incredibly poor functional design,
partly because of a loss of confidence over the past week, and partly,
perhaps more than I had imagined possible, because of the Ring Members (the
owners of the websites that join rings) intense dislike of Yahoo.

If you want to read a saga of how to piss of your user base, drive away
customers and create lots of bad PR, it is all documented in one of the
Yahoo Clubs called WebRingNews at
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/webringnews
(full archives available without a need to join)

It is also documented at an email list for Ring Managers at
http://www.egroups.com/group/ringmgr
(full archives available if you join)

It has been an incredible saga.

For example, throughout the entire ordeal, there has not been one official
statement in email or on the web by any Yahoo or WebRing personnel. The most
they have done is communicate extremely infrequently thru a "friend" who
runs the WebRingNews club.

If any of you need material for a book, this is it.

James S. Huggins
Professional Speaker, Author & Technologist

http://www.JamesSHuggins.com  (website)
mailto:[email-masked]  (email)