2006-10-12

How do you apologize to an audience that's not likely to see the apology?

Sigh.

To all that are not finding what they're looking for because they were directed to what is now a non-existent page on the TechRepublic site, I apologize. I understand that you may not find this apology, but what else can I do?

TechRepublic has gone and decided to do away with Member Blogs. I received the following email on 2006-10-03:

TechRepublic Blogger:

As many of you know, we are preparing to launch a new version TechRepublic. This revamp brings a fresh new look-and-feel to the site as well as improvements to features and functionality.

http://techrepublic.com.com/html/tr/preview/updated_TechRepublic.html

The process of revamping the site forced us to make some tough decisions about which features we would support going forward. Unfortunately, our member blogging feature didn't make the cut. So, with the launch of the revamp, we will be changing our approach to blogging on TechRepublic. Instead of giving every member the option to blog individually, we will be building a dozen or so topical blogs that have multiple contributors.

Starting next week, member blogs will no longer be available on TechRepublic. THIS MEANS THAT YOUR BLOG POSTS WILL NO LONGER APPEAR ON THE SITE AFTER THE LAUNCH. We apologize for any inconvenience that this causes; however, we feel that our new approach to blogging will better serve all of the members of TechRepublic.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have.

Sincerely,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shawn Morton
Site Manager - TechRepublic, CNET Networks

So, they're basically pulling my TR blog. That's fine, I guess - the blogging software sucked (it wouldn't work well with IE, it couldn't / refused to pull from the atom feed here, etc). But I wish they could account for the fact that they're effectively breaking links. Redirect people somewhere useful (perhaps this blog) when they go to my old TR blog. Or let me put up a message. Something. Now, you (usually) just get barfed out to the root topical blog collection they've started. Some of the old blog content is still accessible but I suspect that as they continue on with their site mods that stuff will be pulled.

So again, if you went to TR looking for something and couldn't find it, I'm sorry.

On a brighter note, at least I didn't have all of my eggs in one basket...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glad I get here not via Tech Republic