Friendster’s Colossal Mistake
Not unlike the great Movable Type snafu of ’04, Friendster has found itself mired in a public relations nightmare.
While there has been some doubt traded around,Troutgirlclaims she was fired from Friendster for blogging about their switch over from java to PHP. This has been bashed out all over the web and blogging scene now, and no-one has over looked the ironic attitude of a community building site firing one of their own employees for blogging (i.e. community building).
This has led to a mass defection of friendster users, especially a-list blogger types who are very important for community sites like this. Some are saying this is a knee jerk reaction, and we have very little info on the actual firing. All we have is the word of troutgirl. This is certainly true, but also indicative. Where are Friendster’s PR flacks? Where is the damage control?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that troutgirl’s management drew a great deal of heat for her comments on the switch over. In some circles, the debate on web application platforms is more nasty than religious fighting in the middle east. I also don’t think it’s out of the question to suppose that some high mucky muck Java people had some phone calls into Friendster. I don’t know the specifics of Friendster’s business arrangements, but it’s possible that troutgirl’s blog entries jeopardized some contract or arrangement with vendors. The problem is, there is no communication to the public about it, and no effort to defend their actions.
Friendster has been on shaky legs for a while now, and troutgirl was helping fight the entropy by working on the PHP transition that would make the site faster. One of it’s biggest complaints. The transition was a success, and as a result, she was well regarded by Friendster users. Firing her without an explanation to Friendster users was perceived as callous and against Friendster’s central aim: building communities. And what we are seeing now are those same communities turning their backs to Friendster and giving up on the beta.
Friendster’s mistake here was not so much in firing troutgirl, but in their lack of proper and timely response to the concerned raised by the community as a result. Had they quickly put her firing into a context, given a good reason for it, people would have understood. As long as it was a good reason. Users of this kind of application understand the importance of maintaining valuable relationships, and understand firing an employee who recklessly endangers valuable relationships with vendors or customers. I don’t know if this would be their justification or not, but some justification is necessary if they respect the community of users they are trying to build.
Posted by Joe Mullins at September 1, 2004 11:11 AM |TrackBack
