MetaTale bashing
So yes, I guess we were a little over-ambitious when we first launched MetaTale. We felt like we were close to something ready to market, but things turned out to be a little bit more difficult. That's alright really, and we continued working and improving (and investing our very own money). Surely not as fast as we wanted, but we all have multiple jobs and a limited amount of time and energy to spend.
We're still testing and finetuning the algorithm though, resulting in a pretty weird Top 100 list last week. We noticed (obviously) and discussed the causes. Others noticed as well, pointed to dubious results and mailed for explanation. The usual naggers shared their ideas as well, calling for the end of the company and talking about irreversible damage to the other professional activities we're involved in.
Now what the f*ck? What's wrong with struggling or even failing? As if you shouldn't get involved in projects that are somewhat likely not to succeed. Really, it's so damn easy to judge from the outside.
13 comments so far
de meest interessante mensen die ik ken hebben meer gefaald dan succes gekend.
Misschien zeer cliché maar het is gemakkelijker om iets af te breken dan op te bouwen ;)
Posted on 3 February 2009 at 15.47 h by Bert Timmermans - Permalink
When you ask me this has nothing to do with failure or success. This has nothing to do with rank 1,7, 43, ... or whatever (at least not for me, seriously). But given the type of business you're in with Metatale and maybe given the audience you have, a little official explanation on what's going on is not too much to ask, is it? Especially given your the business you're in. It was all I was looking for anyway.
Posted on 3 February 2009 at 15.56 h by Kris Hoet - Permalink
There were several tweets on the crappy top 100 list of Metatale yesterday. There was not a single public reaction from the Metatale team yesterday. Even now the crappy list is still online. Is this the right way to manage the online reputation of Metatale ?
On the PR part: I think I haven't missed a single post or tweet on MetaTale ;-) They weren't too many (neither were the website hits), so we figured it would be better to make sure we felt safe about the "new" top 100 before "officially" launching our blog.
Truth really is that we can only tell that the service is a (whole lot of) "work in progress". Apart from the bug last week, results got better every week but there wasn't anything "spectacular" to announce.
I can understand online reputation management is hard to measure and indeed there is nothing wrong with optimizing the algorithm. I think people only expect a reaction from MetaTale, a message on top of the top 100 list to warn visitors may be a start. MetaTale is selling an online reputation tool and is doing a bad job right now. When Flickr deleted a picture they apologized and everyone accepted that things can go wrong, just explain why and what MetaTale plans to do about it.
Posted on 3 February 2009 at 16.26 h by Peter - Permalink
Bad form, this post, my friend :)
Take criticism like a man, and don't ever target those who are calling you out, especially when it's perfectly justifiable.
Posted on 3 February 2009 at 17.19 h by Robin Wauters - Permalink
@Robin: deliberately didn't link/name anyone in person (wrote this after a Google alert pointing to multiple posts). I agree the problem indeed is ours (and ours to solve). Although it may not be social-media-correct, this post basically just expressed my personal frustrations (which I'll probably later regret).
I'm with Robin on this one. Metatale obviously isn't a bunch of nitwits so I'm sure it will be ok :)
I find it very strange that a product coming from a number of "heavyweights" in the online communcation business is so lacking in communicating about itself.
In this case, a "you might see strange results, because we're experimenting with our algorithm" would have sufficed. But you didn't, and that's a FAIL. There's nothing wrong with struggling or trying, but you should at least indicate that you are.
Actually, that's been a FAIL since the beginning of Metatale, something that has been repeatedly pointed out (and has been acknowledged too).
I stopped taking Metatale serious, mostly because there's no communication. You don't even get to know when a new top100 is published.
I'm wonder when we'll hear more about the Metatale product. The list and whitepaper were nice teasers. The ranking has been used to re-tease and re-tease. But what will come after the teasing?
I'm still interested in what Metatale promised to tackle: offer an overview of online influenceres for different topics.
I do agree wit some previous comments: all the teasing, the long delay of the launch and the strange rankings are eating away your credit with the audience.
Give us more info, offer a service/product. If it's not finished yet, put some extra words on the website about the project and you might want to suspend the ranking for a while.
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So what do you think about MetaTale bashing? Leave a comment and let me know. Make sure to fill out all fields marked with an asterisk (*). Your email address is not shown (and I won't abuse it to spam you either).
You're being overly touchy about this. The point is, even a cursory glance at the most recent top 100 should have made it abundantly clear this should never have been published.
There have been stretches of months & months when no top 100 was published. What conclusions should potential clients / invester reach when they see the one that *did* get published?
Just put the thing on hold until you work out the issues.
Better still: be open about the problems you encounter.
Getting this defensive is not helping your case. Calling it "bashing" implies I'm being unfair about this. I'm not.
*You* are either making money with this or trying to do so, not me.
Posted on 3 February 2009 at 15.33 h by Michel Vuijlsteke - Permalink