Update on and compensation for TypePad performance
November 14, 2005
Two weeks ago I posted about the problems that some of our users experienced last month and what we were doing to fix them. Today I want to tell you about the work we've done and our plans to compensate our customers for the inconvenience and frustration we may have caused.
The progress we've made
Over the last two weeks we have made great strides. As we recently posted on Mena's Corner, we have made a number of significant technical changes. We have upgraded hardware throughout the service, we are about to finish installation of a new enterprise-grade data storage device and the move to our new data center is nearly complete. All of this has led to improved performance.
We are not yet perfect. One incident on Tuesday November 8th between approximately 9:00 am and noon Pacific Time caused limited access to the TypePad application. Even with that problem the performance of TypePad, as reported by our customers, our internal systems and the independent Keynote monitoring service, has improved greatly over the last 12 days.
While we are not done with our work, and there is always the chance of outages on any web service, we believe that the worst performance is behind us, and it is now time to focus on how we can make these problems up to our customers.
Compensation for this less than stellar performance
Our customers pay for TypePad and expect to receive superior service and performance in return. At times last month, we did not provide that type of experience to all our customers and apologies are not good enough.
We also know that some customers have been more heavily impacted than others. Those who use the service on weekdays between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm Pacific Time may have experienced one or even many periods when they had problems with TypePad's speed and responsiveness. Those who use the service at other times may not have experienced any problems at all. After wrestling with these facts and wanting to be fair to all our users we have decided that the only option is to allow you to choose how Six Apart should compensate you.
By default, all currently active TypePad customers will receive a credit for 15 free days of TypePad service. To get this credit you don't have to do anything; we will just credit your account.
That said, we recognize that customers have had different experiences with the service, so earlier today we emailed all of our active customers on TypePad, and gave you the opportunity to choose from the following options:
While the performance issues caused me some inconvenience I mainly found the service acceptable last month.
Give me 15 free days of TypePad.The performance issues made it very difficult for me to use the service on multiple occasions during the month.
Give me 30 free days of TypePad.The performance issues affected me greatly, making my experience unacceptable for most of the month.
Give me 45 free days of TypePad.I really wasn't affected and feel I got the great service I paid for last month.
Thank you for the offer, but please don't credit my account.
If you are a current, active TypePad customer and you did not receive this email, or you had problems selecting your preferred choice, please email us at [email protected]. Please include your username, your TypePad domain name (e.g. myblog.typepad.com or myblog.blogs.com) and your preferred amount of compensation.
The future
I must say that one of the most rewarding aspects of these last three frustrating weeks have been the emails I have received from many of you. A large number of the messages I received were very kind and supportive, and some of you were understandably angry, but you all expressed that you just wanted the service you loved back. Rest assured that we are working night and day to do just that and more.
We are committed to making the service faster and more reliable than it has ever been. With our new data center we now have room to add the capacity we will need to continue our growth while improving performance and adding often requested features.
We will soon roll out a new release of TypePad that will include more controls for comment and TrackBack spam as well more performance improvements. By year end we will do even more to improve TypePad and add the features you have asked for. We are excited to get back to building a great product for you.
Thank you for your patience over the past several weeks and I hope you accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience we may have caused you.