Upgrades from Hell

Tech companies are in a never-ending process of upgrading and improving. The problem, for me, is that the upgrades often lead to loss of quality. So often, these companies upgrade their wares, and take away features that users have become very fond of.

The outcry is often very loud. But I think it’s a problem that can be solved rather easily. Public relations is a lost art with tech and media companies.

Social media, and in particular, Facebook, seem to be upgrading at a frenzied pace these days. The downside is, there are enormous downtimes when the updates take place and the upgrades often leave users of their API’s out in the cold. As I write this, HootSuite and Tweetdeck seem to be unable to access  Facebook .  I can’t claim to be an expert on every app out there, but I can assume there are others sitting on the sidelines.

Some of the changes at Facebook over the past year have been met with the usual backlash. Of course that comes from the people who are unhappy, and it can seem like there is a major outcry, but we have to remember there are a lot of people who don’t complain because they are happy. Silence isn’t always golden.

The major key with these upgrades is that when they fail, which is quite often, the companies involved should simply let the users know. Seems simple enough to me.

Facebook was able to overtake MySpace simply because the folks at MySpace didn’t seem to care about their users. The MySpace interface became a total mess which seemed primarily interested in shoving ads in every nook and cranny. When there were problems, no one at MySpace ever seemed to care about updating progress with the users. Twitter is fairly unique in that it at least tries to communicate with users about problems. One cannot realistically expect any company to communicate directly with every user, so Twitter’s efforts are exemplary. Facebook is a money-making machine for the time being, so they can afford to be a little cavalier. Their primary focus will be the advertisers, and that’s a fact.

I believe things would go a lot more smoothly if companies simply advised clients of the impending upgrades. Tell them what the upgrade is intended to do. Tell the clients what is happening when there are inevitable problems.

Life with internet infrastructure is never going to be easy. Communication in times of trouble would be.