Well I am strongly considering moving from MSN Spaces to Blogger. I have started the setup and getting a like categories solution. Have a look and tell me what you think.

Would be interested with any good or bad feed back with the blogger service? My gut feel is the link with Google could be a positive thing (any feed back here is welcome as well).

Hope to have the new site (depending on the feedback) by the end of the week or start of next week.

Happy Blogging,

Molly

PS. The new site is a little bit of a mess, will be cleaned up before the offical opening (so to speak)

Earlier today I wrote about Michael at Reel Reviews and his (in my opinion) whining blog entry and stated that I thought it was the wrong way to go about it. Well, Hacking Netflix (HN) pretty much has the same issue with Michael's blog entry that I did.

The one thing that HN was able to do was show the right way to go about it:

I know about getting rejected from affiliate programs -- I was rejected by Netflix, Blockbuster and Google. Most affiliate programs automatically (and unfairly, given the real meaning behind the word "hacker") reject sites with the word "hacker" in the name. I contacted all three companies, explained what Hacking Netflix was about, and was finally accepted (much to my amazement).

This is exactly what I am talking about. Why wouldn't you contact the company. It just doesn't make sense unless you really want to bad mouth them or you have a head the side of a Pumpkin and you think that they should be coming to talk to you anyway.

I hope a lot of lessons can be learned by this situation and would love to see Michael's feeling on the comments (unlikely) and even Scoble's (more unlikely, even though he was the one that brought the blog entry to a lot of peoples attention in the first place).

Happy Blogging.

Molly

UPDATE: My appologies to Michael, as he had addressed some of the comments I made in the body of his blog entry (which I missed and wasn't expecting). Also made a comment.

I have subscribed for a while now to Robert Scoble's blog. Robert is arguably the best known blogger and a definite authority on Blogging and more to the point business blogging. Over night he posted a link to a blog entry on Reel Reviews website (RR is a podcast that has DVD reviews, and is quite good) about his rejection from Netflix of his request to become an Affiliate. This is fair enough, Michael (owner and author of RR) is free to do what he wants but when you read the article (Reel Reviews Radio » Blog Archive » Netflix Says No To Reel Reviews (Twice!)) the question comes to me. Why didn't Michael actually just contact the company (as it says in their response) and ask whats up?

To me this is a weakness in this new Blog world. Yeah its great to have a "Conversation" and Netflix should probably be listening to see if anyones saying bad things about them but what is the point of Michael putting up the entry in the first place? Is it because hes pissed off and wants to blame Netflix and hopefully put people off Netflix? Does he want Netflix to listen and hear his pain and go and fix what ever their Affiliate Program was doing wrong (assuming it was doing wrong)? I don't know, which it is.

Assuming its the second one, wouldn't a much better way to get there attention and have a conversation be to talk to them? If you wanted to tell your mother about your current news, would you:

a) Go to a crowd of people that might be listening to you and yell it out and hope that she might be one of the people that are listening

b) Give her a call and tell her the news.

Me, I would choose b). I fear that blogging is breading an A) answer. This is why I see these sort of posts and think another case of a whining Blogger. You might say "Why are you whining about Michael's behavior and not contacting him?" Well I have tried by leaving comment on his blog but no response (will accept the argument thats its only been a day or less). Also I have only used Michael as an example of this trend (sorry for that Michael).

Lastly to respond to some of the comments (I feel are pointed at me) on the blogs comments:

Comment 1) "First, please don’t listen to anyone saying you’re whining, “stop whining” is usually code for “I’m a fanboy of product X and it rules, don’t bad mouth them.” Oddly enough the same types of people usually have long rants on their blogs devoid of anything but their own personal and highly subjective opinions on the way the world should work." 

Response 1) On the first part, to be honest, I have never been to the Netflix website let alone used their service and wouldn't know them if they hit me with a dead fish. On the second point, seeing as I am writing this post, its probably a fair comment.

Comment 2) "The post in question is well written, views the subject objectively without letting emotion turn the facts into a rant and brings up a very good question: what is NetFlix criteria and why would they reject something like Reel Reviews? "

Response 2) I would never comment on how "well Written" it was as my English (and its my first and only language) is shocking. I would question if it turned into a rant (the whole don't want my website in you affiliates program but you advertise on me is awfully ranty (if thats a word) to me!). But the last point is a great question! The problem is, we probably will never know why it was reject or if they would want RR as an Affiliate as Michael never asked them (directly).

Comment 3) "Hopefully this will gain some traction now that it’s being cross-linked by people like Scoble. I’m really curious why they would reject what seems a great product tie-in."

Response 3) Why do we need Scoble to be the great white hope? For goodness sakes, open your email program and ask the people that know. I bet you Scoble has no idea! Getting on Scoble's site might get you a lot of hits but its not the most efficient way to get answers when the company has give you their email address for goodness sakes!

So after response one, you may ask why do I care? Well I work in technical support for Progress Software and to the most part our customers are fantastic and bring their problems to us (www.progress.com/support) but just occasionally you see them use other methods and I just would love to show them that they get great value in Talk with us not just yelling in the crowd.

Happy Blogging (avoid the Whining).

Molly