No, it’s not about an attempt to destroy Posterous. Not yet, at any rate. It is about an attempt to keep Posterous honest, and call the company’s and the public’s attention to the situation when their employees are out of line, or doing a bad job. How that company responds to that information is up to it. What is not up to the company, and should not be up to the company, is how we (their past, present and prospective users) respond to their response, which is why this subject needs to be talked about in a location where Posterous has no editorial control.
The problems mention in this post - these and more - arose after Posterous rushed what another user aptly called “an alpha level release”, inflicting it on all of their users, seemingly just so that they could issue a press release and talk about their exciting new product. From a user’s point of view, the only thing that changed was that, for a while, one couldn’t edit one’s static pages or the links in one’s sidebar, or even find the management panel for one’s account, leaving one unable to do much with one’s account, other than stare at an almost empty virtual workspace while marveling at the stupidity of some very well known bloggers, as they publicly praised Posterous for having broken its own system (and having then left it broken for the next few days). ”So bold, so innovative!”, they said. “So suggestible”, I though, wondering if these people ever did anything other than reprint the press releases that the providers sent them. Did they ever try these “bold and innovative” products for themselves, to see whether or not they even worked, which this one did not?
The response of the company was to have the company whore (also known as their Vice President of Marketing and Business Development) try to spin utter, disastrous failure as a triumphant success. In this post, you saw a link to a bit of creative artwork he shared with everybody, a clearly doctored screenshot created to leave those examining the record, at a later did, with the illusion that one could toggle one’s workspace into something usable around this time. When I responded with screenshots that showed that Rich was not telling the truth, and that our workspaces did not, in fact, have the set up he claimed that they did, he responded by blocking my comment, and then acting, as I said, as if I had been reluctant to share the screenshots I had mentioned, and he were actively seeking out that which he had kept others from seeing.
While I’m not prepared, at this point, to say that it’s time to abandon Posterous, I will say that the time has come for Posterous to abandon Mr. Pearson, or accept the damage to their corporate reputation, should they not. The man has, demonstrably, engaged in fraud while acting on the company’s behalf. No, this is not even close to being unheard of in the industry, but then, the industry’s reputation has never been good. Posterous, on the other hand, seems to want a good reputation, to be seen as being an honest and conscientious company determined to do right by its users.
Let’s see if they deserve that reputation, and then, for better or for worse, give them some of the publicity that they deserve. As I’ve said elsewhere, in a comment that might or might not ever been seen by the general public, this is a potentially multi-writer blog: I am looking for other contributers. What I am not looking for is shills for or fanboys of Posterous, both of whom I’ll toss off of this blog without a second thought or any misplaced sense of guilt. As the saying goes, “I don’t need to give equal time because I am equal time” - the shills and the fanboys can already be heard on the company blog.
The rest of us are the ones who need somewhere to talk, and maybe this blog can be one such place - one among many, eventually, I hope.
Posted by: J. Dunphy
