Intense Debate open beta launch
Posted by Jon on Oct 30, 2007
Well, we finally opened up the beta to everyone today. It’s been a crazy week leading up to this and an even crazier day today, but all in all I’d say things went pretty well.
There have been a few minor bugs here and there, but overall things held up pretty well. We had several major reviews and a huge spike in traffic, and all things considered I was really happy with how well everything managed to hold up.
While I’m glad to get to this point, and there is certainly a fair amount of relief to finally be at this point, it’s really just a new beginning. We’ll keep cranking away to continue to make Intense Debate even better, and now we’ll have an endless flow of feedback from all of our new users to help shape the product.
So if you have a blog (or if you’d be willing to set one up) I’d encourage you to check us out at IntenseDebate.com….it’s a whole new way to comment.
Pandora
Posted by Jon on Oct 19, 2007
I had forgotten how much I love Pandora. I was reminded of it during a recent visit with Seth Levine and I pretty much haven’t turned it off since. To me I like it because it’s so amazingly simple. I’m not very good at remembering names of songs or artists (or anything for that matter), and I find it so convenient to be able to just find the name of an artist or two that I’m into right now and create an entire radio station (that I can listen to all day) with a variety of music that has similar characteristics to the artists I entered. I don’t have to create a complicated playlist and I don’t have to remember the name of all the artists and songs I want to listen to. Instead I just pop in one or two artists and have music to listen to all day.
I spend a lot of time at my computer and I had kind of phased out listening to music while working because I found it too much effort to keep up the variety to last me all day. I had replaced it with podcasts instead because it was just easier for me to find fresh content that way. However the simplicity of Pandora has reinvigorated my music listening by making it so easy to get fresh, new music (that I actually like). I’m certainly not going to eliminate podcasts from my daily work habits, but music is definitely working its way back in thanks to Pandora.
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Internet woes
Posted by Jon on Oct 16, 2007
Tonight I was doing what I always do…working on Intense Debate, when to my dismay all of the sudden my internet went out. Now I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how horrible it is when the internet goes out for the developer of a web startup…so needless to say I wasn’t happy. I went through my usual checklist of renewing my ip, restarting the router, restarting the modem and the router, etc, but all to no avail. I noticed that my router wasn’t even getting a proper IP address…so the problem was definitely not on my end. I have cable, so I decided to check my tv and see if it was still getting cable properly. And yes it was….so I get on the phone with Comcast to see why one works, but the not the other.
And so the process began…”Press 1 for English”, I press one. “Press 1 for new service, press 2 for all other inquiries”, I press 2. And then the “pretty” music begins…”Your call is important to us, please stay on the line”….*more music*….”All our service representatives are currently busy, please stay on the line”…and everytime the music pauses I’m hoping…praying that it is a service rep coming to assist me. But…it’s always that stupid recording “All our service representatives are currently busy, please stay on the line”…
Then, when I had all but given up hope someone finally answered! “How can I assist you?” Finally! I’m saved! My internet is saved! I said, “I’m having problems with my internet”. Then, before I knew what had happened I’d been transferred to another recording! Nooooooo!!! This one told me things like “if your lights are off make sure the modem is plugged in. If it is, try another outlet”….I’m thinking, “I waited for this? I already knew/tried all of this!”…then, after a few minutes of this less than helpful message I heard, “If you’re still having problems please stay on the line.” What?!?!
So now I’m back to the “pretty” music…oh joy. Again with the “All our service representatives are currently busy, please stay on the line”, but this time they mixed it up a little…adding in things like “For answers to frequent questions visit us on the web”, or “Chat with us online at…”. Oh geez, why didn’t I think of doing that before! Oh yeah…my internet doesn’t work.
So I waited, and I waited, and I waited….and then all the sudden I heard my Gmail Notifier tell me I have new mail. Wait…I have new mail? How does it know I have new mail…could it be? Is it possible? My hope started to build and….YES!!! The internet has returned! Finally! Then I realized I was still on the line…
To recap, I ended up spending an hour of my time on the phone with these guys…all but about 15 seconds of which was with various recordings and I still never got a sole to tell me what the problem was. Let’s just hope my internet holds out….
Note: So…it didn’t hold out. In the time it took me to write this blog post my internet died again…*sigh*. If you’re reading this then my internet did come back at some point (as that is how I published this), but really…how hard can it be to keep my internet afloat? Are they just toying with me because I hung up?
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