Rant, part 2

Original rant is here.

Here's a comment I received:

"Was I too mean?" Of course you were! ;-) My question could not have been more diplomatically worded, and was at pains to avoid any editorializing. And it's a question that has, understandably, been in the air. It wouldn't be an entirely unreasonable proposition if MSNTV2 had followed a PC rather than a WebTV model, and acknowledging it would be the first step to understanding it. Now if only I had written, as in fact has been the case, "Some people in the WebTV newsgroups have been wondering how familiar, if at all, the designers were with the original product," then you could have called *them* all asses, too! Just a bunch of asses and laggards... ;-)

Seriously, though, no insult was intended, and certainly not to you -- you've been our shining light, going out of your way to offer insight and information at a time when speculation was rampant and zero official communication was being provided by the corporation. And in your descriptions of the development process above, you've continued to put a welcome human face on a company that often seems to prefer to be seen as a faceless monolith. We're all lucky to have you.

Still, it's important to remember that this is a time when many WebTVers *have* felt "insulted," to say the least, by the company's prolonged lack of communication in the handling of TNB's launch, the often confusing, inadequate or even contradictory information ultimately provided, and the throwing around of those epithets like "laggards," all against the background of an apparent widespread breakdown of service for TOB subscribers which unfortunately began, coincidentally, just around the time TNB was introduced. (We've even seen reports that users complaining about this have been advised by customer service that their boxes are "old and worn out" and should be replaced with the new one!) So if my useless rhetorical question has at least opened up a little dialogue here, I hope that will prove beneficial at the present moment.

Posted by: whom e at October 25, 2004 11:42 PM

My response to the above:
I thank you for the careful consideration in your original question. I also understand the frustration that you must have as I have felt a siimilar frustration. It does suck not to know what is happening or why it is happening. It also sucks to be apathetic about it and to not care about the people who it affects most: the customer. This website came about because of my and your frustrations.

I wanted to do two things:
1. Give you the information you need to make an informed decision. I wanted to do it not in a way that "markets" the product to you, but just gives you the facts. Some of you have asked me about "why doesn't it do this" or "why doesn't it do that". I usually give you as much information as I have and end with a recommendation similar to: If WebTV serves your needs and MSN TV 2 doesn't have everything you want, then by all means stick with what meets your needs. I only ask that you let me know why MSN TV 2 doesn't meet your needs and I may be able to help get the ball rolling on getting your ideas implemented (as usually, there are no guarantees, but I ALWAYS try).

2. Listen. I don't know about you, but I like hearing things from the horse's mouth. And I don't like the horse to sweet talk me either...just tell me what you have to say. Think of me as sort of the horse's mouth (unofficially, of course). I think of those of you who ask questions, respond to my rants, ask for features as the horse mouth for MSN TV 2's customers. I like getting the feedback (good and bad) from you guys directly. Why? Because it's a blast to learn from you and try to see how you use the product. It's from you that we get some of the neatest ideas for features. It makes me excited to know that your ideas are being heard in all corners of the MSN TV 2 organization. It makes me excited to see "it" working.

I'm sorry for the terrible comments made by others...certainly not my point of view. I also did not really mean to call your comment useless as anything that opens up dialogue is generally a good thing. I'll try to keep this in mind.

In the end, I know we're on the same team. You want a world class Internet service that teaches your TV some new tricks. You want it to get the job done and be easy to use. I want to help build it for you.

Andy Sheldon (our Product Planning Manger) thought that I was a bit harsh too and has this to add:

We have made some trade-offs in the 1.0 version of the product in order to meet the input from our dial up customers and provide significant value to a broadband digital media enthusiast. Judging by early sales figures we’ve made the right choices. That said, we are always looking for feedback from our customers to improve the product and services. If you have specific suggestions on how we might make your MSN TV experience better we’d love to hear them. We are already planning the next release of the product for the spring.

I'll leave it to Andy's expertise to come up with more "positive" responses in the future :)