OPW — July 7 — I'm very happy to report that Userplane is not going to close in the foreseeable future now. Darin Ohlandt is the GM of Userplane and was able to attend the Internet Dating Conference / Social Networking Conference and officially announce that Userplane is not going to be 'retired' and everything is business as usual. I followed up with Darin with a few questions, and here's the official word.
– Is Userplane going to shut down?
No. Userplane is not going to close and services will continue to be provided.
– Can clients be assured that AOL will keep Userplane live and alive for at least the next year?
Yes. AOL fully supports the Userplane services and customers.
– Are there any 'classes' of clients (i.e. adult dating) that Userplane is no longer servicing?
Userplane remains committed to providing services to our customers, regardless of any ‘classes.'
– How many people work at Userplane now?
AOL does not disclose specific staffing levels. However, we can confirm that the staffing of the Userplane team was reduced in March as part of a general reorganization that affected all AOL divisions.
– How many of those are involved with client/customer service?
Userplane has a dedicated team for tier-one customer support, in addition to support from other Userplane groups including development, operations and business development. The staffing of the tier-one support team has been constant for well over a year. We have continued to provide customer support and have responded to our customer service and new customer integration requests, with no breaks in service, although response times can be affected by the depth of service queues.
– Are there any new product announcements coming up that you can let us know about?
We have no new product announcements at this time, but will certainly work with you when we have any new developments to announce.
So – provide a terrible service to your (largest) customers and then treat them as fools with the lines above?
It may be down to the transcribing of the answers, but I don’t think there’s any customer who would believe the points above.
The service really seems to have been run into the ground and a PR response like the one above to appease senior management of AOL and shareholders just rubs salt into the wounds.
There is nothing in those responses to suggest that Userplane is doing anything other than keeping a skeleton service running to avoid the bad PR from shutting it down and admitting to shareholders of another failed acquisition.
Userplane needs to speak with their customers (those that are still there), commit to growing the service, investing in architecture and recruiting for new people – otherwise I think we can read from this that it is simply dead man walking.
If you’re in doubt, check out:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/userplane.com/
Ross
(claws now retracted, meeow)
So – provide a terrible service to your (largest) customers and then treat them as fools with the lines above?
It may be down to the transcribing of the answers, but I don’t think there’s any customer who would believe the points above.
The service really seems to have been run into the ground and a PR response like the one above to appease senior management of AOL and shareholders just rubs salt into the wounds.
There is nothing in those responses to suggest that Userplane is doing anything other than keeping a skeleton service running to avoid the bad PR from shutting it down and admitting to shareholders of another failed acquisition.
Userplane needs to speak with their customers (those that are still there), commit to growing the service, investing in architecture and recruiting for new people – otherwise I think we can read from this that it is simply dead man walking.
If you’re in doubt, check out:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/userplane.com/
Ross
(claws now retracted, meeow)
Agree with Ross. I got fed up with Userplane’s terrible service. I have a smaller site, so I threw my users into a variety of Voxli pages to solve their voice chat needs.
Agree with Ross. I got fed up with Userplane’s terrible service. I have a smaller site, so I threw my users into a variety of Voxli pages to solve their voice chat needs.
Sheesh – Ross! Strong words … and coming from you? Your one of the nicest guys in the business. Wow. You stated your point.
Darin contacted me prior to iDate Los Angeles and several of their company attended the event. As is our style, we allowed them to state their case publicly.
Clearly Userplane screwed up. And it was AOL’s management that held them down until now. Many customers are giving them a second chance. But they also opened up an entire market with which they were the 900 lb gorilla to.
The idate Message Boards has a thread on it which lists Flash suppliers:
http://mb.internetdatingconference.com/userplane-shut-down-t3137.html
Every few days, another one posts. The amazing thing I am seeing is that some of the software providers in the business that used to employ Userplane are now starting to offer their own.
Like I said, Userplane screwed up and opened a market to competitors when they had a lock on the market before.
Sheesh – Ross! Strong words … and coming from you? Your one of the nicest guys in the business. Wow. You stated your point.
Darin contacted me prior to iDate Los Angeles and several of their company attended the event. As is our style, we allowed them to state their case publicly.
Clearly Userplane screwed up. And it was AOL’s management that held them down until now. Many customers are giving them a second chance. But they also opened up an entire market with which they were the 900 lb gorilla to.
The idate Message Boards has a thread on it which lists Flash suppliers:
http://mb.internetdatingconference.com/userplane-shut-down-t3137.html
Every few days, another one posts. The amazing thing I am seeing is that some of the software providers in the business that used to employ Userplane are now starting to offer their own.
Like I said, Userplane screwed up and opened a market to competitors when they had a lock on the market before.
Okay ive been a userplane user for the last year or so,it seems to get worse over there,first it was the spammers now its the so called “hackers” that freezs the chats up all for what??NOTHING other than help people get of userplane and seach out new teritories.the thing is that userplane deos not seem to care at all.it might be bussenes as usual, but that bussenes sux then.what they need to do is fix the problems(url related) or start from scratch and try to rebuild it.if nothing keeps on happening then they might aswell close it down as it is loosing all of the old users
Okay ive been a userplane user for the last year or so,it seems to get worse over there,first it was the spammers now its the so called “hackers” that freezs the chats up all for what??NOTHING other than help people get of userplane and seach out new teritories.the thing is that userplane deos not seem to care at all.it might be bussenes as usual, but that bussenes sux then.what they need to do is fix the problems(url related) or start from scratch and try to rebuild it.if nothing keeps on happening then they might aswell close it down as it is loosing all of the old users