On Amazon's boneheaded moves
Apr. 13th, 2009 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiFour notes on Amazon:
(Quick aside: xxxxFail is about as useful as xxxxxGate. Really, unless you're using nothing but Twitter, it's okay to actually use a term like, "Amazon's massive homophobic screwup," or something else that's actually meaningful.)
1. I got this email in my inbox at about 3AM:
And yes, the story's up. As always with The Consumerist, don't read comment threads if you don't want to encounter morons (that said, with Firefox and NoScript, I can't read comments even if I want to). I suspect I wasn't the only one who emailed them; I'm also pretty sure that it was the mention there that finally caused Cnet to notice, which is a good thing.
2. As most of you know, I'm an Amazon Associate, meaning that I get a tiny bit of credit there with each referred sale. "Tiny" is the operative word; we get enough a month for maybe three or four paperbacks (more around the holidays). That said, I won't be posting any Amazon links until they've fixed things. It's not much, but it's what I can do. There are a few associates griping about this on the internal associate forums, too.
3. I don't for a second believe the official Amazon statement that this is a "glitch." It was a stupid error by a stupid human that was not caught by people who should know better. That's not a glitch; it's bad management. Someone will lose their job because of this, and (much as I'm disinclined to wish unemployment on anyone in this economy), that's probably a good thing (assuming the right person loses their job, of course).
3.5 I also don't believe for a second that Amazon, as a company, is homophobic; aside from the fact that few companies (barring those with specific political agendas) even have any sort of corporate mindset, it also doesn't seem like good business on their part to alienate a strong consumer base. This, incidentally, is why I think they'll have "fixed" the "glitch" within a few hours.
4. Speaking of bad management, the fact that Amazon corporate takes the weekend off bit them in the ass here. The internet is 24/7; ordering from Amazon also is. So how come they were unable to get on this right away? If the story had first started today, they'd have five public statements and a fixed "glitch" in a matter of hours. Livejournal and Twitter carried the story here (and News.com gets to sit in the same failure box as Amazon for their lack of weekend activity).
ETA:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sbisson has a good analysis of what likely happened here.
(Quick aside: xxxxFail is about as useful as xxxxxGate. Really, unless you're using nothing but Twitter, it's okay to actually use a term like, "Amazon's massive homophobic screwup," or something else that's actually meaningful.)
1. I got this email in my inbox at about 3AM:
Just wanted to let you know that this story has been published. Thanks
for sending in your tip!
http://consumerist.com/5209209
LAURA
ASSISTANT EDITOR
THE CONSUMERIST
CONSUMERIST.COM
tips@consumerist.com
And yes, the story's up. As always with The Consumerist, don't read comment threads if you don't want to encounter morons (that said, with Firefox and NoScript, I can't read comments even if I want to). I suspect I wasn't the only one who emailed them; I'm also pretty sure that it was the mention there that finally caused Cnet to notice, which is a good thing.
2. As most of you know, I'm an Amazon Associate, meaning that I get a tiny bit of credit there with each referred sale. "Tiny" is the operative word; we get enough a month for maybe three or four paperbacks (more around the holidays). That said, I won't be posting any Amazon links until they've fixed things. It's not much, but it's what I can do. There are a few associates griping about this on the internal associate forums, too.
3. I don't for a second believe the official Amazon statement that this is a "glitch." It was a stupid error by a stupid human that was not caught by people who should know better. That's not a glitch; it's bad management. Someone will lose their job because of this, and (much as I'm disinclined to wish unemployment on anyone in this economy), that's probably a good thing (assuming the right person loses their job, of course).
3.5 I also don't believe for a second that Amazon, as a company, is homophobic; aside from the fact that few companies (barring those with specific political agendas) even have any sort of corporate mindset, it also doesn't seem like good business on their part to alienate a strong consumer base. This, incidentally, is why I think they'll have "fixed" the "glitch" within a few hours.
4. Speaking of bad management, the fact that Amazon corporate takes the weekend off bit them in the ass here. The internet is 24/7; ordering from Amazon also is. So how come they were unable to get on this right away? If the story had first started today, they'd have five public statements and a fixed "glitch" in a matter of hours. Livejournal and Twitter carried the story here (and News.com gets to sit in the same failure box as Amazon for their lack of weekend activity).
ETA:
sbisson has a good analysis of what likely happened here.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 12:03 pm (UTC)Amazon may be hiding stories about people who love "bums", but I don't think that it's those kinds of "bums".
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 12:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 12:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 12:14 pm (UTC)I order from Amazon sporadically (I place a few orders a year of many items at a time, and only the occasional small purchase otherwise); which means that they'll almost certainly have fixed things by the time I do business with them again in any event.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 08:53 pm (UTC)It should be obvious enough for those looking for it.
I bet fewer than 10 percent of people who use Amazon (probably less) have any idea about this, and I bet a scary percentage of them would think it was a good idea.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 02:11 pm (UTC)I do appreciate Neil Gaiman on his Twitter saying Give Amazon time to fix this. He's even a voice of reason on weekends...
RANDOM-ASS CHRIS IS RANDOM-ASS
Date: 2009-04-13 04:30 pm (UTC)Re: RANDOM-ASS CHRIS IS RANDOM-ASS
Date: 2009-04-13 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-13 05:40 pm (UTC)