Instablogs and Why I Hate Hype
October 6, 2005 by Mary Jo Manzanares
Filed under Leadership
I promised not talk about blog networks for some time, but again I am disappointed in some people’s reaction to what happened today and no I am not talking about WIN getting their souls sucked dry by AOL. Yesterday was supposed to be the day that the great juggernaut known as Instablogs launched. It didn’t. I checked a couple times today and still nothing and then finally when I got home at 9pm EST I saw that they launched. Okay no big deal right? Wrong, this is a huge deal in our itty-bitty community.
Instablogs did a genius job of drawing hype, not necessarily in the Western Hemisphere, but actually getting the people of India excited to see their own entry in the blogging arena. If you can get a small percentage of a country with over 1 billion people in it excited, you know you have something good going on.
Then came the cartoons with other blogging “superstars” (no Scrivs, *sob sob*), which some might consider “potshots”, but they did a good job of getting people talking about them. Finally to top it off they were going to launch with 50 blogs. I don’t care who you are, if you can come out and say you are going to launch with 50 blogs right off the bat then you are going to get some press.
Anyways, back to the non-launch. In the original entry many people started dropping comments about the disappointment of not seeing the launch. You could read the frustration of some of the Indian people. This was their time to shine in the spotlight for a day and that’s what made me so happy about Instablogs. So with that in mind how could you possibly hype something like this up and not deliver? Somebody had to be talking about this and found that Martin wrote a bit on it.
In all honesty I would’ve been fine and just simply moved on without even turning back, but Nandini (the person behind Instablogs) left a comment on Martin’s site that just didn’t rub me the right way:
We were 8 hours late.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?
According to who’s watch? They never updated the site mentioning they were having problems, never dropped an update and all they can say is they were a couple hours late like it’s no big deal? At Business Logs this would make a great case study in reputation management and how not to maintain it. This is why I have a problem with blog networks hyping themselves up. How many times has one launched and you were amazed at the results?
And to add insult to injury a lot of their blogs don’t have a single entry on them. They didn’t launch with 50 blogs, they launched with 50 domain names. Sad.
It would probably be best not to even publish this entry because I am more than likely making people aware of Instablogs that didn’t even know they existed. I just get frustrated that the people who try to legitimately make this a business have to overcome the image problems that other networks bring upon the industry.
I wanted Instablogs to be big. I wanted them to succeed. I admit to succumbing to some of the hype. I promise not to let that happen again with any other blog networks accept for that “other” one I plan on launching.
This pretty much summarizes my thoughts on the launch to the T. (And also, I’m sorry.. but using “OMG” in the title of the post saying you were late? *Shudders*..)
Perhaps I’m also spoiled by the transparency of so many other hyped products/blogs/networks these days.. (rarely so in the blog arena network, but you know what I mean).. saying “we’re late, and we’re sorry” seems like a meaningless apology. Why aren’t we hearing about what caused the delay? (Did someone sleep in too late?) Always (ALWAYS!) better to an honest apology than none at all.
I realize the network is “free”, and I shouldn’t act like I’m entitled to anything (which, I honestly don’t feel that I am).. but how can they expect to be taken seriously? If this is how they treat the launch, *why should I expect anything more from the network and its sites in the future?*
It WAS a disappointment. I admit I was excited too. When will everyone realize that content is key?! Without content in this business, you have nothing.
>>Then came the cartoons with other blogging “superstars†(no Scrivs, *sob sob*),
You are too tall to fit in a window. :)
>> You could read the frustration of some of the Indian people.
I think now Internet is a Global Community, we delayed our launch - that was a bad PR on our part, and everyone was disappointed.
are you seriously whining because it launched 8 hours late?
Yep, you caught me Jesse. I am definitely whining because lord knows I was waiting for another blog network to launch.
It would probably be best not to even publish this entry because I am more than likely making people aware of Instablogs that didn’t even know they existed.
True. I came to know of Instablogs only through another blognetwork writing such a review about it.