The Inquisitr » fail

AOL rebranding to “Aol,” that should fix it

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:02:04 +0000

In other news, AOL is still around.

AOL announced rebranding plans sunday, losing the all-caps “AOL” and changing the brand’s name to the much catchier and sensical “Aol.” (Owl? Awl?) Along with the new pronunciation being rolled out by the net-dinosaur, AOL is changing the look of its logo, too.

Gone is the little circle in a triangle you may remember from a shower of free disks and CDs in the late 90s. Aol is taking the risky move of not committing to a single image or palette of colors, settling on a rotation of goldfish, flowers, a squiggle and other random items meant to convey… well, that’s not exactly clear. AOL says the visual marketing is “one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal.”

One thing that seems to be missing from the rebranding effort is content. Upon seeing news of the rebrand today, I knocked around the old AOL site a bit and found it to be exactly as watered down and clunky as it was the last time I was exposed to it, at work a few years ago. If AOL is banking solely on keeping the users who are afraid of an internet unfiltered by AOL and the really, really habitual, no amount of goldfish or prop-rockers can save it. A nebulous statement made in the rebranding press-release seems to indicate that not much is going to change there:

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people – employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL.

Still not getting it? Me neither, but you can watch the video that accompanied the press release below:

Early Christmas Fail

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:00:02 +0000

Who gets better toys, the naughty list or the nice list?

[FailBlog]

The Epic Wordpress + MediaTemple Failure

Kyle Brady — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:53:40 +0000

A week ago I, Kyle the Invincible!, was hit by an injection attack on the majority of my own sites, and it took a large handful of hours to even figure out what was wrong. Once I discovered that a file had been somehow uploaded to my server, which executed itself and inserted malicious code onto my site’s pages, I wrote about it – in fact, you can find the full technical details on my blog and some more details on the Wordpress bug ticket.

Everything seemed like it was OK afterwards, since MediaTemple (my host) had worked pretty heavily with me to find the problem and determine the solution – I even wrote about how I was happy with the interaction and name-dropped the techs who had helped me. But then when my post on the issue started getting popular, because this is apparently a common problem at the moment, they stopped talking to me, especially when I started pushing for more answers.

The key to all of this is that a file is somehow uploaded to the server, which I had initially thought might be a fault of my CMS. Wordpress claims it isn’t their fault, but they released a security update (2.8.6) pretty quickly after my security and bug reports on the issue. MediaTemple claims it’s not their fault either, because Wordpress is “notoriously insecure”. But when the same issue started appearing for other users that don’t even use Wordpress, I became concerned – even more so when I learned most, if not all, of them are MediaTemple (gridserver) customers.

I’ve been pressing them for answers for the last four days, since I decided it was a hosting security issue, and have been ignored pretty stoically. But imagine my surprise today when I notice that I’ve been hit by the exact same attack, just a week later, this time running Wordpress 2.8.6.

If there’s a security issue floating around, you’d imagine that those behind the problem would be extremely interested in fixing it as soon as possible… right? Well, apparently not. It seems to be more important for both Wordpress and MediaTemple to act more like the Camel Lights camel rather than Boris from Goldeneye, and this is absolutely unacceptable from a user standpoint. Any vulnerability that allows unauthorized access to data, breaks a site, makes a huge list of SPAM links to porn, and redirects links to a malware distribution site is entirely not something to laugh at.

This is not a chain mail letter you can ignore without repercussions – this could effect a very big swath of the Internet, no matter who has caused the security hole.

I’ve been relatively happy with the (gridserver) plan from MediaTemple, and I know most people have been too. If this keeps up, however, I’ll be leaving them for someone who’s more interested in my data security than they appear to be, especially since all evidence points to this being a server issue rather than that of public-level software.

MediaTemple: step up, and do what we pay you for. If not, there will be a user reckoning.

Wordpress: you need to make an announcement. If it’s not your fault, that’s fine – but recognize the issue publicly, publish steps to fix the issue, and make a definitive claim against MediaTemple; however, you better have concrete evidence that it isn’t your fault.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Apparently Fwix Has Invented Revenue Sharing With Bloggers

Duncan Riley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:17:46 +0000

Hyperlocal news startup Fwix is one of the smart new breed of hyperlocal players finally making a go in a fabled yet long unprofitable space, and yet apparently story telling now extends to their latest payment idea.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, Fwix is “going where Google and other giants haven’t: sharing revenue with the people who write the news” by “agreeing to split revenue with the people who write the local information.”

It gets better: from the CEO: “One of the things I want to change in the industry is how we pay people that are producing the content.”

Yes, apparently this revenue sharing thing is new and radical, a massive shift in what has been done before, because revenue sharing is such a amazing idea that it has never been tried before.

Except that it’s one of the oldest payment models in blogging and has been used by every one from two man blogs through to huge concerns for years. I should know, I was a co-founder of a VC backed blog network that was founded in 2005 exclusively on revenue sharing for…wait for it…bloggers.

The sarcasm aside and the obvious lack of research from the Wall Street Journal, the original Fwix release doesn’t actually claim credit for revenue sharing. Somewhere between the release and the Wall Street Journal, the interesting part was overlooked until later in the article: Fwix’s new AdWire service is not just rev sharing with their bloggers (nothing new), but with sites that embed their widgets and send them traffic as well.

I can’t recall having previously seen rev share applied to people running widgets before, although widgets used for advertising purposes (with money changing hands) isn’t new. I’d give a review of the widgets except for two things: Fwix has perhaps the most detail-less info pages I’ve ever seen for a service like this, and every site they claim is running the widgets don’t show the widgets when I visit them. On the last point I’m thinking geotargeting, given there’s a dirty great big blank space on The DailyKos where I’d presume there would normally be an ad…or in this case, the Fwix widget.

To be fair to Fwix, it’s more likely that the Wall Street Journal is following in the proud tradition of its parent company with sloppy reporting, but likewise the record could have been corrected.

Wireless network name fail

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:29:04 +0000

No seriously, we totally can.

[FailBlog]

Remember the woman who claimed she was left disabled by a flu shot? We’ll she’s all “cured” now

Duncan Riley — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:03:29 +0000

Former cheerleader Desiree Jennings made headlines in October when she told the media that she had been afflicted with the neurological movement disorder Dystonia following a flu shot.

As we noted at the time, the disorder apparently left her only able to walk properly backwards, or run forwards. The rest of the time she appeared on camera to be seriously messed up.

Despite their being “no successful treatment for its cause” (Wikipedia) guess who has been miraculously cured?

According to Science Blogs, the doctor who miraculously cured Desiree is “known for urine injection therapy, among other things, and has charged tens of thousands of dollars to apply his quackery to cancer patients.”

Desiree in the mean time is now pumping the anti-vaccine message, putting at risk the lives of thousands of children.

The chances of the whole thing being a hoax just went from about 50% to pushing towards 100%.

Captcha fail

Kim LaCapria — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:15:24 +0000

Even spam bots might be put off by that one…

[FailBlog]

Rackspace Cloud suffers major outage

Duncan Riley — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:57:57 +0000

Rackspace’s increasingly popular Rackspace Cloud product suffered a major outage Monday night, taking down a range of popular sites and services.

Sites reported to be down included Posterous (and by extension Robert Scoble), Tr.im, a range of smaller Twitter tools, and of course we were offline for the best part of an hour as well.

Rackspace said in a support update that they had experienced a power issue with their Dallas data center. An attempt to reach Rackspace’s “fanatical support” when the service first went down resulted in nothing more than a busy message.

The outage also affected Slicehost (which was acquired by Rackspace last year), Laughing Squid and a range of smaller Rackspace resellers.

VW Tuareg 1 vs Tesla 0

Duncan Riley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:51:44 +0000

What happens when a VW Tuareg, Tesla and Toyota Prius meet in the one spot? Well according to a story out of Denmark in October, the above happens.

A translation at What’s Up With That says that the VW Tuareg stopped on a small road due to construction work, with the Tesla behind it. The Prius driver either wasn’t watching, or resented that the Tesla looked better and runs on electricity only, so pushed the Tesla under the Tuareg.

On a side note, I wonder if this picture will make Jason Calacanis cry?

Authentic Nacho Fail

Duncan Riley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:00:41 +0000

Free Nachos, apparently now an authentic Irish experience to be sure to be sure.

Northwest Pilots Lose License Over Laptop Use

AHN — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:53 +0000

Minneapolis, MN (AHN) – The licenses of two Northwest Airline pilots who over shot the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last week by 150 miles have been suspended. The pilots who were using their laptops while in the air broke company policy.

The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the pilots — Capt. Timothy B. Cheney, 53, and First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54 of flight 188 — became aware of their mishap only after a flight attendant asked about the landing time. They were out of radio contact for more than an hour while they were engaged in mundane tasks relating to scheduling.

“The pilots said there was a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls from (air traffic controllers) even though both stated they heard conversation on the radio,” the NTSB said after interviewing the two.

“Using laptops or engaging in activity unrelated to the pilots’ command of the aircraft during flight, is strictly against the airline’s flight deck policies and violations of that policy will result in termination,” said a statement issued by Delta.

Watching your surroundings fail

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:06:07 +0000

You’d think as a runner you might expect runners to be running on tracks, had you spent much time running on tracks in your running tenure…

Targeted ad fail

Kim LaCapria — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:33:16 +0000

…or demand stimulation win?

[via FailBlog]

Facebook group “I Automatically Hate the New Facebook Homepage” is mocking you

Kim LaCapria — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:56:30 +0000

And in not many people are getting the joke.

Ostensibly to mock the hundreds of Facebook groups that spring up in the presence of any change at all in the Facebook GUI, someone’s gone and created an (all-caps) group called “I AUTOMATICALLY HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK HOMEPAGE.” Not surprisingly, most who joined isn’t really getting the joke, although the group’s mission statement is pretty sarcasm heavy:

I HATE CHANGE AND EVERYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH IT

I WANT EVERYTHING TO REMAIN STATIC THROUGHOUT MY ENTIRE LIFE

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WANT FROM THINGS I CANNOT CONTROL

BY LOGICAL DEDUCTION I AUTOMATICALLY OPPOSE THE NEW FACEBOOK STREAMING HOME PAGE

And then…

IF I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS GROUP IT IS NO LONGER FUNNY

Even though it’s right there that it’s clearly mocking the Facebook uproar every time a minor change is applied, that doesn’t stop the uproar. Wall posts include:

I thought mine had broken yesterday, this is just a load of crap – WHY OH WHY do they have to f.ck about with it. can’t follow any thread properly, and have missed replies and posts sent directly to me!

yeah, this sucks. why couldn’t they leave everything the same, i doesn’t even make sense. and when they decide to change it back, i vote for a dislike button too!

Hate is so bad I could not be emphatic enough to describe how much I hate it!!!!!!!!!!

it was NOT broke !!!! why did you try to fix it,at least explain it so we all get it !!!!!!

And to whoever is clearly listening and cares about my personal opinion about Facebook, if I have to pay for it, I’m out of here!

Religious indoctrination fail

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:40:40 +0000

C’mon guys- lose them on stuff like this and you’re going to have a really hard time with the whole virgin conception/walking on water/water into wine thing.

[FailBlog]

Fail Cake

Duncan Riley — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:00:33 +0000

Fail Cake: the only way to celebrate your misery.

Microsoft to Sidekick users: We totally found your data!

Kim LaCapria — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:00:04 +0000

Microsoft has announced that most if not all of the data lost last week in the Sidekick debacle is being recovered.

While the news comes as a relief to panicky customers, some who filed lawsuits after the data loss, it appears that confidence in the device may not be recoverable. Since the incident, angry T-Mobile Sidekick users have ranted angrily on the web, feeling rightfully less assured that their data is safe and reporting lack of cooperation on T-Mobile’s part in facilitating device changes.

Microsoft blamed “a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up” and explained that components need to be painstakingly rebuilt piece by piece to keep data intact. While the efforts are no doubt appreciated, it’s difficult to forgive an error that could have been avoided with adequate preparation. Keeping customers through contract is one strategy, but working from a place of “we’ll make the trouble worth your while” is always a better strategy than “after a protracted period of making you worry, we’ll eventually do what you paid us to do all along.”

Microsoft’s statement on the incident and resolution:

Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers,

On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologize for the recent problems with the Sidekick service and give you an update on the steps we have taken to resolve these problems.

We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.

We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users. If your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log into the T-Mobile Sidekick forum at http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick for the latest updates about when data restoration will begin, and any steps you may need to take. We will work with T-Mobile to post the next update on data restoration timing no later than Saturday.

We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data.

We will continue working closely with T-Mobile to restore user data as quickly as possible. We are eager to deliver the level of reliable service that our incredibly loyal customers have become accustomed to, and we are taking immediate steps to help ensure this does not happen again. Specifically, we have made changes to improve the overall stability of the Sidekick service and initiated a more resilient backup process to ensure that the integrity of our database backups is maintained.

Once again, we apologize for this situation and the inconvenience that it has created. Please know that we are working all-out to resolve this situation and restore the reliability of the service.

Sincerely,

Roz Ho
Corporate Vice President
Premium Mobile Experiences, Microsoft Corporation

[Image: GadgetCrave]

Unintentional innuendo win

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:20:04 +0000

And I have to tell you about the guy I have who is fantastic at drilling tight holes! And the local chess store, they’re always flogging their bishops!

Sidekick users see data in the cloud evaporate

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:22:22 +0000

Sayeth T-Mobile: DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power if you haven’t already.

I had Sidekick II back in the day and it was so cash. I saw one for the first time in years yesterday and I remember being surprised they still existed. Apparently, people are still using them, and some of them got a bit of an unhappy surprise this weekend with an untold amount of customer data being “almost certainly lost.” Microsoft subsidiary Danger had a server outage, and lacking the foresight of a 3rd grader writing a book report on Captain Underpants, they didn’t back your shit up.

T-mobile gets bonus points for their candor here, releasing a statement on Saturday that details the outage and the fact that data is unlikely to be recovered and your friends with iPhones are almost certainly going to be smug and snarky about the whole thing. Full text of the statement, below:

Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption.

We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips in our Sidekick Contacts FAQ. We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

In addition, we plan to communicate with you on Monday (Oct. 12) the status of the remaining issues caused by the service disruption, including the data recovery efforts and the Download Catalog restoration which we are continuing to resolve. We also will communicate any additional tips or suggestions that may help in restoring your content.

We recognize the magnitude of this inconvenience. Our primary efforts have been focused on restoring our customers’ personal content. We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer.

We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost.

Once again, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger regret any and all inconvenience this matter has caused.

Fail: Homophobia on Halo 3

Duncan Riley — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:26:49 +0000

There’s homophobia, and then there’s homophobia on Halo 3. A sad reflection on America.