Brian Zafron: I Eat Web 2.0 for Breakfast

Why do some of web 2.0’s biggest and best social networks have the absolute worst customer service reputations?

It’s beyond counter-intuitive. These networks rise from nothingness due to their ability to effectively integrate users into a highly interactive community, and then, once the community has reached a pinnacle of interactivity, the creators foresake the community, essentially leave members to their own devices.

For my money, the two most egregious offenders - although I love them both to death- are Facebook and MySpace. Time and time again, I hear horror stories about frustrated users and their inability to discuss their frustrations, never mind solve them, through customer service channels.

Facebook, for one, makes regular practice of banning users’ accounts without warning or subsequent justification. As they continue to rake in the dough from advertising partnerships and attempt to become the “end all be all” uber website, their concern for the customer is only dwindling. Facebook dissatisfaction forums, like the one at www.getsatisfaction.com/facebook, are becoming more populous, along with reasons to be frustrated. A December 2008 research paper from HP Labs, for example, reports that 43% of all Facebook messages are now spam.

Fortunately, some social sites have elected to step up to the plate on the customer relations front. Even though Digg has taken much flack in recent weeks for their algorithm change, they have made a concerted effort to respond to their users, or at least their top users. This past Friday, moreover, Digg CEO Jay Adelson announced that he and Kevin Rose, Digg’s co-founder, were launching a series of “town hall” meetings to address users’ concerns. Of course, this initiative only comes after several of Digg’s power users raised hell and boycotted the site.

So what’s the lesson learned? Well, just like in high school, most of the big kids are assholes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. However, those assholes, at the end of the day, make us appreciate the nice kids a little bit more.

http://brianzafron.com/blog/?p=25

Facebook groups are amazing. The only better things in this world, as far as I’m concerned, are meals at The Ivy, an A-list celebrity’s nipple slip, and perhaps – I’m a little torn about this one- winning the lottery.

An effective Facebook group can spread like wildfire, spanning national and international networks, reaching a breadth of demographics you can’t even find at a Los Angeles 7-11. Or conversely, if the group is esoteric in nature, “I’m Obsessed With Button-Fly Jeans, and I’m Not Ashamed To Admit It”, for example, membership can increase with equal speed, but with dramatically more targeted results.

For an individual or company seeking promotion, Facebook groups maintain the upper hand on applications, pages, and networks. The reason is that groups not only take mere seconds to join, but seconds to share – with one friend or every friend in every associated network - and seconds to comprehend. When a user receives a group invitation that is even mildly amusing, inspiring, or provocative, he/she is likely to ask “why not?” before “why?” and when prompted to invite more friends, the same order of questioning applies.

As the administrator of a Facebook group, you’re in the driver’s seat 100% of the time. Not only do you wield control over all content on the group’s page – particularly useful in active groups with frequent postings – but with the simple click of a mouse, you can send a message to the entire group that shows up in each individual member’s mailbox. Just imagine your influence when the group is tied closely into your promotional content! Unfortunately, the caveat is that mass group messages are limited to groups with fewer that 1,200 members. Facebook programmers, however, are currently working to eliminate this caveat.

So how do you create a kick-ass Facebook group? Here are some tips:

• Title is everything. The success of your group depends first and foremost on the title. It serves as the group’s calling card, often the only criteria in an individual’s decision to join the group or investigate it further. A group can easily flourish with a stellar title and crappy or non-existent content.
• Tap into passions. Users associate themselves with groups that ring true to their stronger preferences. Groups, after all, speak to the type of person who constitutes them. They are highly visible components of one’s profile. So before you go ahead and create your group about fetishes for albino rodents, I’d suggest you think twice… and maybe go see a therapist. Examples: “If you remember this you grew up in the 90’s” (1,399,198 members), “I Love Naps” (109,286 members), “Addicted to the OC” (34,982 members)

• Articulate the un-articulated. People flock to groups about truisms they’ve never fully expressed or identified. If you can give them that “ah ha!” moment when they see your group invitation, you’re in like a skankily-dressed girl at a posh night club. Examples: “Enough with the Poking, Lets Just Have Sex” (354,744 members), “You were sexy until I saw that cigarette in your hand” (62,533 members), “People Who Always Have To Spell Their Names For Other People” (310,379 members)

• Exploit Current Events. Many successful groups have flourished due to the buzz of current events. Why not utilize the publicity that has already been created by mainstream media? Examples: “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” (442,033 members), “Stay in Iraq until the Job Is Done” (57,874 members), “One Million People against Crime in South Africa” (71,622 members)

• Just plain funny. Who doesn’t love a good laugh? Try creating a group that is so humorous people feel compelled to participate. Make them piss their pants and in their state of delirious urine soakage, click on the “join” button. Examples: “I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head” (742,154 members), “When I Was Your Age, Pluto Was A Planet” (1,239,153 members ), “Disney Gave Me Unrealistic Expectations About Love” (126,768 members)

• Make a spectacle of your size. Many groups achieve population explosion due to a direct solicitation for help with their growth. Sometimes this solicitation appears in the title, isolating size as the group’s principle interest. Contributing to a group’s growth can be fun. The best members treat the process like a game. Examples: “Six Degrees Of Separation - The Experiment” (4,215,241 members), “Let’s set and break a Guiness Record!!!! Approved by guinnessworldrecords.com” (2,749,370 members), “If this group reaches 4,294,967,296 it might cause an integer overflow” (58,681 members)

Along these lines, consider including instructions on the group’s page that detail how members can invite their friends to join. Instructions often provide a tremendous impetus for action.

Sample instructions to be posted on a group’s homepage:

1) Click on “Invite People to Join” from the menu on the right.

2) Select all your friends

3) Click on “Send invitation”

• Cheat. Sometimes the easiest way to create a behemoth group is to rip off someone else’s idea. Simply take the title and concept from a thriving group and add your own little spin. This spin might entail an altered perspective or just a variation of punctuation. Examples: “I’m Glad Pluto’s No Longer a Planet; It Makes Gustav Holst’s Suite Complete” (25,215 members; original group named “When I Was Your Age, Pluto Was A Planet”), “Six Degrees of Separation” (414,994 members, original group named “Six Degrees Of Separation - The Experiment”), “Save Scrabulous!!” (6,489 members; original group named “Save Scrabulous”)

• Avoid blatant advertisement. Don’t throw your promotional content in the faces of potential group members. Lure them in with a creative title and premise, then after you’ve built a solid community, begin your PR sprinkling. If people care about your group, then there’s a significantly better chance they’ll care about what you are promoting. But like a heterosexual man’s enjoyment of America’s Next Top Model, always promote with moderation.

• Active disseminators. No group will ever take flight without a core group of users to spread the word. It’s necessary to form relationships with the appropriate niche that will not only remain active in the group later down the line, but provide the initial invitation blitz. Basically, you need cheerleaders, not oafish offensive lineman.

With these tips in mind, you’re ready lace up your shoes and start some kick-ass Facebook groups. But until programmers lift the 1,200 group limit for mass messages, I’d recommend trying to create a slew of groups with 1,200 or fewer members.

http://brianzafron.com/blog/?p=24

Inspired by my post on The Correlation Between Moustaches, Hollywood, and Venture Capital Funding, my buddy Graeme created a hilarious video that’s posted below. Graeme is a talented screenwriter and voice over extraordinaire who, by day, picks up phones at one of Hollywood’s biggest production companies. Basically, he serves the man until his big break gets broken.

The video showcases Daniel Plainview, played by DD Lewis in “There Will Be Blood,” explaining the necessity of his entrance into the 2008 presidential race. He will bring us not only blood, but YOGURT. That’s right. Yogurt. Watch the vid and find out how/why. You won’t regret it.

More of Graeme’s vids at www.squakhead.com

http://brianzafron.com/blog/?p=21

How Important is Kindness to Success?

Let’s face it: the world is full of jerks.

Everywhere we go, online and offline, we encounter people who are solely looking out for their personal interests, immune to the emotional fluctuations of strangers, friends, and sometimes, even family.

From an intuitive standpoint, it seems obvious that jerks are putting themselves at a disadvantage. For every bridge they burn, every person they piss off, they are making their future successes all that much more difficult to achieve… right?

Well, in a word, or two words if you’ll be so kind, not always.

Some people, whether consciously or not, are attracted to jerks. You know that really hot, blonde girl in high school who, by some miracle, also happened to have a charming personality? Guess what? She still only dates jocks with egos bigger than their BMWs.

To take a more concrete example, look at Alec Baldwin. The star of NBC’s comedy series “30 Rock” was widely criticized after the abusive tirade he left on his eleven year old daughter’s voicemail, which was subsequently leaked onto TMZ.com. (As if it wasn’t enough that he and Kim Basinger named the girl “Ireland.”)

However, the underappreciated “30 Rock” experienced a tremendous onslaught of recognition within the following months, including 10 Golden Globe nominations, including one for best actor, the certified jerk, Alec Baldwin. Many in Hollywood questioned the future of the foul-mouthed star, particularly after he parted ways with CAA (Creative Artists Agency), his rep for the previous 30 years, but his immediate future, we now know, turned out to brighter than ever imaginable.

Want some other examples of jerks being rewarded for their jerkiness? Well, here you go: Donald Trump, Howard Stern, and Hillary Clinton, all of whom, by no inexplicable coincidence, reside at the very top of their respective industries. (C’mon. Even if you support Clinton, you must at least sense she’s a jerk.) By the way, the vast majority of Hollywood’s A-list agents and managers could be included on this list.

So what now? Does this mean I’m going to start behaving like a complete jerk? Quite the opposite actually.

This past week, I read an article by an up and coming blogger named Tina Su, the inspiration for this post you are currently reading. She runs a site called ThinkSimpleNow, which, in the span of three months, went from zero to over two thousand subscribers. Not too shabby. (Before I proceed, let me shout out to Jeff, my buddy who pointed me in Tina’s direction.)

Aside from quality content and intelligent marketing, the secret to Tina’s success is that she’s a tremendously nice person. Now, I don’t know Tina personally, but I could quickly discern that she genuinely cares about her readers. Here’s a quote from last week’s article:

“Connecting with readers and potential readers is an essential part of my blogging success. Not only does it help my blog grow, but I absolutely love it. I have made many good friends this way. When people like you and feel that your content is valuable, they will tell their friends about it. I quickly discovered that many of my readers were emailing links to others, and referring many new subscribers.”

So what’s the difference between Tina and Trump, Stern, and Clinton? Why is she successful due to her kindness whereas the others are successful without any whatsoever? (Just roll with me Clinton fans.)

Well, to be honest, I can’t say for certain, but here’s my best guess: the medium.

The Internet, and blogging in particular, holds people accountable in a fashion that is both direct and immediate. If I’m pissed at a blogger, for example, I can write him/her a nasty email and stop reading his/her garbage. But if I’m feeling frisky, I could post a nasty article on Digg, Stumbleupon, and Reddit and form a movement that causes others to stop reading his/her garbage, as well. Now, that’s powerful.

Certainly, any person could form - and has formed - such a movement related to the Trumps, Sterns, and Clintons of the world, but the users that comprise the blogging community are already exceptionally integrated and technologically savvy, therein increasing their chances of creating a discernable impact. Additionally, as a newcomer to the world of blogging, one can only sustain a limited amount of negative buzz.

Like a true jerk, I now ask myself: what does all this information mean for me?

For one, I’m going to be sure I’m not a jerk.

Secondly, I’m going to make a commitment to respond to any and every email that you guys send my way. Moreover, I would like to strongly encourage you send me emails because I would like to get to know you as much as possible. Ask me for advice, an opinion, a favor, or even a date. Whatever. Just email me.

By tonight, there’ll be an easy “contact” link on the homepage.

Thirdly, I’m going to get some dinner. I know dinner has nothing to do with being/not being a jerk, but I’m hungry, and I’m tired of writing.

http://brianzafron.com/blog/?p=23

First, a little background on my office situation.

(my office)

As you can tell from the pics, I have a pretty swanky setup. It’s part of the deal I worked out for my company and magically (and by “magically” I mean after hours upon hours of bargaining, fighting, and pouting), it’s basically free. Those of you familiar with the world of Venture Capitalism might recognize my office as “incubator space.”

Translated for the lay person: a company gives you free office space and resources, and sticks you in a building with a bunch of caffeine-addicted, over worked, underfunded entrepreneurs. In exchange for your suffering, they take a tiny little piece of what they hope, one day, will be a large tasty pie. The real upside, if you can stomach the Larry Paige wannabes, is the variety of connections you make in this environment (factored into the “incubator” design).

Today’s post is about one of these connections, namely: ProgrammerMeetDesigner.com. What does this company do? Well, it brings together programmers and, you guessed it, designers (as well as entrepreneurs and writers).

The head of PR and marketing at PMD is a wirey, 40 something year old man named David Bernstein who, unbeknownst to himself, is a regular contributor at this blog. By “contributor,” I mean that his bitching about venture capitalists, marketers, and every other person with two eyes and an asshole… well, it kinda rubs off on me - not that I need any rubbing.

Anyway, he’s a constant source of entertainment, so I finally managed to get around to looking at PMD’s site the other day, and believe it or not, I was very impressed.

However, I was even more impressed when I learned - through talking to him - about the early successes at PMD. Apparently, several prominent TechCrunch, TechStars and DEMO companies have come together through his site. One company, IntenseDebate (see: TechCrunch, TechStars, ReadWriteWeb, VC Funded), even details their worldwide meeting/collaboration through their site’s ” about us” section.

I’ve also seen their Facebook application, which announces one’s status (i.e. Entrepreneur seeking Programmer) on several friends’ profiles. When I first heard these guys talk about Facebook, I assumed they were merely looking to score dates with co-eds. But I guess I was proved wrong once again.

Not too shabby, David. Particularly for a guy who keeps a set of his girlfriend’s bra and panties in his desk drawer.

Anyway, long story short: I’m not too angry about sharing an office space with PMD. They might be guilty of obsessively watching “The Hills” and eating lunch at Urth cafe solely to catch a glimpse Tyra Banks gouring herself and any potential cleavage that may or may not result, but they are also responsible for the genesis of various prominent websites and for that, I tip my cap. That’s right. Consider my hat officially tipped.

Stay tuned. One of these days I’ll be sure to sit PMD down for an interview. After all, they’re only down the hall.

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=20

Put up your umbrellas, because I’m about to rain some truth on you: there exist only two types of men who’d I trust in a life or death situation. Any guesses?

Number one: medical professionals.

Number two: men with moustaches.

I know what you’re thinking. How is a man with a moustache, specifically because of his moustache, going to save a life? Moreover, shouldn’t a randomly positioned half-ounce of scraggly hair inspire suspicion rather than confidence?

In response, I’d like to direct you to exhibit A, exhibit B, and exhibit C, all listed below.

These three gentlemen are pillars of humanity, emblems of success, dukes of dharma: Tom Selleck, Daniel Day Lewis, and myself, your humble narrator, Brian Zafron. All of our accomplishments, and I’m sure Tom and Danny would concur, we owe to our moustaches.

Tom, for one, built a career out of his distinctively bristled bush, winning our hearts in Three Men and A Baby. He completely stole the film, and with all due to respect, overshadowed his co-stars. Maybe things would’ve been different for the two other men and that baby if they grew their own staches rather than rely on Tom’s facial prowess.

As for Danny, his amazing role in There Will Be Blood is not coincidentally his first stache-blessed adventure. He gave a stellar performance, without question, but word around town is that Oscar buzz will die the moment Danny takes the buzz to his face.

And lastly, there’s me. I’ve been rocking the moustache since my Junior year at Northwestern, which was the year I started making moves in the VC world. The initial moustache rocking was due to ironic urges, I confess, but after close observation of its ability to directly affect success, I now take my moustache very, very seriously. And correspondingly, I shit you not, people take me seriously.

Perhaps the most difficult obstacle in my entrepreneurialism is my age. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to get meetings or attempted to get a sit-down pitch in which wrinkled old executives squinted behind their glasses and asked, “How old are you, son?” My initial response, which I internalize of course, is that I’m old enough to take over your fucking company.

But since I began rocking the moustache, or entered “The Stache Age” as I fondly call it, people don’t ask me that question, they don’t see my age first and my ideas second. My moustache commands their respect, much like Tom Selleck’s and Daniel Day Lewis’s moustaches commanded the respect of theatrical audiences worldwide.

I am not trying to tell you that a moustache can guarantee VC funding. I am not even trying to tell you that a moustache will get you into the front door. All I’m saying is that if you can grow a moustache, or even buy one at a local novelty store, your life might witness some dramatic improvements.

backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=10

In the words of the 1990’s artistic sensation Vanilla Ice, I would
like to invite you to stop, collaborate, and listen.

OK, now that you have indeed stopped, collaborated, and begun to
listen, I would like to grab the mic and announce my extreme disgust for the phenomenon of the “Top 10″ list, consistently abused across the entire spectrum of social news sites. Users submit these lists like their dimebags of sweet, delicious Columbia cocaine - or “water,” as we call it in Los Angeles- and people continue to snort that coco like they’ve never tasted it in their entire lives.

But guess what? Cocaine, like Vanilla Ice, has been around the block
one too many times – and both should’ve been left in the 90s.

Why do people enjoy these Top 10 lists? Well, because they’re fun and easy. They appeal to the simple-minded, but if they’re packed with quality content, the Internet’s literary snobs, as well.

That said, I present you with an awesome Top 10 list entitled: “Top 10 Pick-Up Lines Overheard At This Year’s MacWorld Convention.”

Hey, I never said I wasn’t a sell-out.

10. Is that a MacBook Air in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
9. Most people don’t like me, but maybe you Think Different?
8. I want to rip off your clothes and make you my sex slave. What?
It’s not PC World.
7. Want some ram?
6. You’ll never meet Steve Jobs, but let me introduce you to his long
lost brother: Blow.
5. Nice iPhone. It’d look better on the floor of my room in the morning.
4. Hey. Someone farted. Let’s get out of here.
3. Want to touch my iPenis?
2. I didn’t know angels used Apple computers.
1. Want to come back to my parents’ basement with me?

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=6

Today, I’m still kinda fuming about my VC buddy’s bogus “hot tip.”

I understand that his intentions were pure, but that doesn’t exactly kiss my blog boo boo and make everything all better. Although, truth be told, I was somewhat appeased watching him lose 2 Gs playing poker last night. I think he was trying to impress this chick, Juliette (she’s got knockers from here to Katmandu) who was at game. (More on Juliette in future posts. She’s a handful. Literally.)

Anyway, my anger has led me to our current topic, describing why VCs aren’t worth their weight in gold, or in fool’s gold, for that matter - and of course I speak of the people, not specific firms nor the greater idea of Venture Capital.

Without further ado, here I go:

It’s really not their fault, you see. For the Venture Capitalist is a rare bread of predator, sitting atop the business food chain, the lion of the finance world, the master of his domain.

Everyday – and I mean every day - thousands of little peons, such as myself, reach out to the VC community asking for mere peanuts and offering tireless work, dedication, and talent. All the while, these people twiddle their thumbs with very contemplative expressions, make sure they get 36 holes in at Spyglass over the weekend, and take three-week vacations to Marbella in off-holiday season.

Now, I’ll admit they receive 5,000+ proposals each month that are complete hogwash, business plans that are more accurately cheap catchphrases: “A better Ebay” or “Think Yahoo.com, but my domain totally kicks more ass.”

At the same time, however, there DO exist scores of legitimate entrepreneurs out there, with solid backgrounds, talent, and work ethic, plus real vision and ideas. But VCs are rarely able to delineate the gems from the garbage, the promising from the pitiful.

Why? Well, many reasons.

For one, it doesn’t help that they read only the topic sentence for every executive summary put on their desk. Or that they enter every conversation (non golf-related) assuming it’s going to be a time sink. Or that they believe, or at least consistently purport to believe in private conversations I’ve had with them over the years, that 99% of people are brain-dead when it comes to properly forecasting and performing any sort of quantitative analysis.

A classic example I hear over and over again is that many VCs, when looking at your revenue projections, will add a year and move a decimal place over. The assumption being that no entrepreneur can ever objectively gauge the success of his own company or industry, regardless of any extensive experience or resumé the entrepreneur brings to the table.

OK, fine. Maybe the entrepreneur isn’t a soothsayer. But is the VC? Caution is one thing, but hubris is another.

This connect-the-dots mentality is the reason Venture Capitalists are probably the worst source of news imaginable, as this blog illustrated first hand this past week. I should have known that when my VC buddy told me “Scrabulous is over,” what he meant was “Listen, I don’t have the time, patience, or care to follow this situation, but I read a foreboding report on TechCrunch, so it must be true. Now get out there and make me some money.”

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=5 

Did you know that Babe Ruth, in his first game in Major League Baseball (MLB), struck out four times and made three errors in the field?

Well, like Babe Ruth, in my first post in Major League Blogging (also MLB, for those of you keeping track), I totally boned it. It turns out that Scrabulous was up and down all day due to reported “maintenance issues” that are currently resolved. So Scrabulous lives to see one more day, perhaps many more, and I end up looking like a complete blunderguff. (In case you’re living under a rock, a blunderguff is a fart that’s deployed before a beautiful woman enters the vicinity.)

But I am not without people to point my fingers at, those blunderguffers who blunderguffed me into blunderguffdom. (That’s right. I said it.)

For one, my source: the VC friend who insisted on the authenticity of Scrabulous’ removal. As a result of his “hot tip,” I hurried my blog to a premature publication, trusting that this blunderguffer wouldn’t be working for a multi-million dollar firm because he was exceptionally unreliable. My faith in him soared when I witnessed, about tenish minutes after my post, other reputable blogs (ie Mashable) reporting the same story.

But then, at the end of day, when he called to confirm that Scrabulous was alive and well, that same faith was lying in my trashcan, right next to a couple discarded Starbuck’s cups and sticky pictures of Mary Kate Olson (long story). Fyi, I can bash this blunderguffer in my blog because he’s only 28 years old (a hot shot Stanford grad; only five years older than me) who professes that we’re not only business partners, but friends. Lets hope he doesn’t go back on his word, eh?

And the second person to whom I point my finger, drum roll please, is actually a collective of people, namely all those fellow bloggers who got my hopes up with their like-kind posts. I truly believed I had broke a frickin’ ginormous story in my first at bat, and that everyone else was scooping me – ME! – your humble narrator. But alas, to no avail. The higher they fly, the harder they fall.

A quick side note: the Babe Ruth anecdote is completely spurious. I pulled it from the top of my cap. For all I know, Babe Ruth hit three homers in his first game. But the point is, as the anecdote hopefully illustrates, we all make mistakes, or at least could conceivably make mistakes.

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=4

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Below is some breaking news from an associate at the VC firm that’s funding my spanking new online venture. We had dinner last night in Beverly Hills and he mentioned his firm’s “interest” (activity?) in helping someone finance the acquisition of the popular Facebook application, Scrabulous, with the intention of settling with Hasbro and EA later down the line. Today, I noticed I could no longer access my active Scrabulous games. Gulp! A quick call to my friend confirmed that the shit indeed hit the fan.

At approximately 2:09PM PST this afternoon, Scrabulous, boasting over 2.3 million active users, appears to be down. This possible removal comes after a month long legal battle with Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble, who sued under claims of trademark infringement.

Scrabulous was originally created by two Indian brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, as a standalone website. Growth was exponentially increased when Scrabulous joined the orgy of new Facebook applications, climbing to the 9th most popular slot with over 600,000 daily users.

Legal experts have pointed out that Hasbro’s case against Scrabulous is pretty air tight, and it was only a matter of time before the application was removed. Nevertheless, Facebook appears to be missing a golden opportunity by not leveraging the app’s traffic, particularly since no online version of Scrabble currently exists.

So, when the dust settles, what’s left? 2.3 million pissed off Facebook users, a boat-load of unfinished Scrabulous games, and the possibility of Scrabble finally uploading their own application. But in the meantime, my unquenched Scrabulous addiction is going to eat away at my soul. Maybe I’ll go outside for a change.

A quick note: This is my first blog post, and although it was way ahead of schedule my friend’s scoop seemed a worthy event to hurry the launch. Don’t worry, I have a small continent’s worth of material that’ll be uploaded within the next couple weeks. Please check back for earth-shattering, mind-bending, Noble-prize-worthy (OK… maybe that’s pushing it…) information about anything and everything related to kicking ass and taking names in web 2.0.

Edit: Its currently 3:01 and the app is still down.

Edit 2: 3:26 PST and Scrabulous appears to have been as techcrunch puts it: “joined the deadpool” for over an hour!

Edit 3: 3:41 PST I just got an IM pointing out its been going up and down for the last 5 minutes. I’m trying to contact the creators as we speak.

Edit 4: 3:57 PST The IM seems to have been wrong. As far as I can see the app has still not come back up. We’ll stay tuned and are waiting for a response but in the mean time people on the 47,000 person facebook group are mixed in whether they think the app is down for good or just repairs.

Edit 5: 4:51 PST Scrabulous does seem to be going up and down. Several people have suggested that it is because they have to pull the servers one by one and the scrabulous people are dragging it out w/ this redundancy. I wouldn’t even know how to comment on this speculation.

Edit 6: 5:43 PST Played my first Scrabulous move since this morning. Looks like this Application might live to see at least one more dawn. However, its some consolation that I wasn’t the only one who was fooled (see mashable) http://mashable.com/2008/01/16/scrabulous-shutdown/

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=3