Tyme Said

“I don’t spend time on Blogs because there rarely any useful information on them, like this one. It’s just people spinning fabrication out of idle imaginations.”

That is a portion of a post that the owner of Talk A Good Game left on The Microsoft Show. Shortly after that post, he said after the chaos was over, he was going to close the doors on his business. Essentially, I’m watching a business go out the door backwards on my web site. Not that I didn’t warn people what was going to happen. The irony is…if Bob Andrews paid attention to blogs, he wouldn’t be in the position he is in now. That’s karma for you. Let’s back up and see what happened…

The short version: He took pre-orders on Xbox 360 he cannot fill. Instead of keeping his clients informed, he picked the path of silence. This caused his clients to start searching. The end result? He’s being called a scammer, he is going to have a huge chargeback bill (if this happens his merchant account will be in jeopardy), this clients are not going to get their orders…and all his clients wanted was to be kept informed.

This is why companies need blogs. Yes, he could have begun updating his site earlier but that does not give the reader the opportunity to comment. He said in his comments he received 16,000 emails. Do you think there would have been that many comments on a company blog? Highly unlikely because the questions would have been addressed and answered.

I took a lot of flack about my thoughts on the difference between blogs and web sites. Blogs (in my opinion) is a type of web site that allows comments. Both have their place, both are needed. Blogs do not work in all types of situations. This is why companies need to have a plan before they launch a blog.

In this case, Bob Andrews needs a blog.

These lose/lose situations don’t have to happen. It takes more than a good idea to successfully run a business.

Related posts:

1. Can we talk about better aggregation now?
2. Where has the professionalism gone?
3. My Thoughts: Robert’s statement on embarrassing yourself
4. Game developers losing money on Xbox 360 shortage
5. Tyme’s Thoughts: Turning off comments