This probably goes without saying, but your user demographic has a lot to do with how this kind of mishap will be received. Our product sells to Fortune 1000 companies in the procurement software space. I can tell you, unequivocally, that the users of our product have a distinct lack of tolerance with regard to "lack of attention to detail".<p>We've had a debug message or two slip through to production, and the conversation that follows is never comfortable. The inevitable conclusion they reach is that if we miss one small thing, we're likely to miss another. Sometimes you really do have to sweat the small stuff.
You shouldn't say radioactively stupid things to your customers, but you <i>should</i> get their permission to talk to them and then proceed to do so, because that will predictably raise engagement, retention, and many other things you might be interested in tracking. Look at the graph. Look at the "I had totally forgotten about you until you sweared at me, now I might actually use the service" testimony. These things can be yours without swearing.<p>I've been worried for the last five years that I don't send enough email. After having worked closely with some clients who have figured things out, this strikes me as less "a missed opportunity" and more "an oversight as glaring as being unable to spell SEO." They get <i>tremendous</i> value out of connecting with their customers on a semi-regular basis, and (this part truly blows my email-hating-spam-squashing mind) so do their customers.
I've learned over the years to never put profanity or anything even mildly offensive in test data. Too many times have I had to give an impromptu presentation off my test database, only to see user names like "Asshat Joe" and "Jack Off" show up big and bold on the projector screen.<p>Always, always use plain, non-offensive vanilla boilerplate text in everything you do.
I really hope every brand doesn't decide to start swearing at me. Personally, after having a product that was supposed to be "the next step" in our company's evolution get blasted in the press because a developer left a smartass comment in (Google "you have to install directx dumbass"), my policy is NO profanity, period, in any string, any test message, anything.<p>If you are <i>trying</i> to build a brand around it, great. Make a conscious decision and go with it. But doing it to be funny, "just amongst the team", has a nasty way of biting you.
Personally, i really don't like to see profanity in a professional context, but having said that...i really like the way these guys handled it, and not only that, their honesty and transparency really endears me towards them.<p>Edit: Interestingly enough, come from Britain, i think something like this would fair worse of in the UK. I think we're a little more 'stiff' than our US counterparts.
<i>We won’t be throwing around profanity in our emails, but we’re definitely going to try to take a more “real” tone rather than the false formality that pervades most company communications.</i><p>This, to me, is the key takeaway from all this. That "false formality" is a killer, IMO. I personally try very hard to avoid it when writing Fogbeam Labs stuff, like our blog[1], but it's SOOO easy to slip into that mode. Keeping that out and maintaining a "real" conversational tone is tough, but I believe it's better in the long run. (No, I haven't A/B tested this or anything, it's just a hunch).<p>[1]: <a href="http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/</a>
Sorry this is slightly off-topic, but I'm curious about the product here. Why should I use it? What problem is it solving for me?<p>Halfway down the homepage it says, "Don’t Change: Use Fetchnotes with Google Apps, Evernote, Outlook and all the other services you already love." Which was a great reminder that I already have a ton of other services trying to get me to keep notes in them... what's different about Fetchnotes and why isn't this plastered all over the homepage?<p>/unsolicited feedback
Even not using profanity but just failing to have someone else review all your translation strings can cause a serious problem:<p><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/images/acidiot.gif" rel="nofollow">http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/images/acidiot.g...</a>
Today you accidentally send out a test email (with the word bitches).<p>That makes me worried that tomorrow you'll accidentally send out another email leaking my details, or something similar.<p>I'm glad you didn't suffer too much for this small error, but the small errors can have big consequences.
The problem (well it's not even really a problem I guess) is that nowadays you're not sure any more if this was an 'accidental' slip up, or a bold marketing tactic. They surely are getting a lot more exposure with the 'slip up', and if it had backfired, well who cares really - in 2 months time nobody will remember.<p>Maybe I've been on the internet for too long and have become too skeptical.
<i>> we’re definitely going to try to take a more “real” tone rather than the false formality that pervades most company communications</i><p>This makes me wonder if by now there is an entire generation of tech entrepreneurs that has never read the Cluetrain Manifesto: <a href="http://www.cluetrain.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cluetrain.com/</a>
I know the feeling!<p>I was once part of a team who accidentally sent a communication where we updated our privacy policy, stating specifically that we would never share your email address with anyone.<p>Sounds normal right? The catch is, we sent it to 1000 people per batch, and rather than bcc'ing everyone, we used the "to" field. Whoops? Luckily we caught the issue after the first batch, i have no idea to this day how it slipped through QA however.<p>Similar result however, people didn't like it but many just wanted to point it out to us (and we did our best at saying sorry) I totally got where they were coming from, however we're human and life went back to normal eventually. Lesson learned!
I was working on some XML stuff and put superhero names in the test XML file. A week or so, some QA guy asked for sample XML and I gave it to him. Before I knew it, my test file was circulated in QA and Business Analysts for testing.<p>I guess they didn't read what's inside or didn't bother.<p>Then our client came and the BAs gave demo to them, using my XML file (I didn't know if they're going to use that!). The client were very upset with it.
Hi all,<p>Alex Schiff, co-founder and CEO of Fetchnotes here (and author of this post). The quality of discussion on the things we post to Hacker News never ceases to amaze us! I just wanted to point out that we posted an invite link by which 1000 people can get access to our beta on the blog post itself. You can also get in directly with this link:<p>www.fetchnotes.com/invite/blogpost<p>Thanks!
It is a clever (accidental?) marketing, but will the traffic stick?<p>Naturally, after reading the post, I went to check what fetchnotes is all about and... could not figure it after 30 seconds of scanning the homepage and left.<p>Anyone else had that problem?
This is what happens when companies don't value QA and/or don't hire experienced systems administrators. Even among experienced sysadmins email list servers are special skill.<p>No surprise when startups shoot themselves in the foot because the hiring director is a codehead who does not see the value in a sysadmin who cannot double as a dev or who is over 45 years old.
I just noticed there's nt link to your product or homepage from your blog. I wanted to click to learn about what your product is but there's nothing there.<p>Not the end of the world for me, I can copy from the address bar but I wonder if you're missing out on conversions.<p>Cool story though. I got a kick out of the customer responding back "...bitches"
I've always been a fan of connecting to users on a more human and personable level. This might have been an accident, but it made FetchNotes feel more human and have a sense of humor. I think most people really appreciate this, considering the majority of websites are bland and full of generic marketing text.
Demographics are everything. To this old dinosaur, I'd question your maturity and whether I'd want to be a customer in the future -- especially if you have any of my personal data.<p>Unlike some of the other commenters below, I don't think it's an issue of whether you have a "sense of humor" or not. YMMV.
I think it should be ‘What happens when you accidentally swear at your users and properly apologize afterwards.’ It's only the latter that softens and makes swearing look fun—IMO even for (most) young techy people.
they've been lucky. it might work once for a small, "personal" startup or a company that centers its marketing strategy on being political incorrect. but it also could have gone terribly wrong.
The bitches who got offended over this are drama queens who should get the sand out of their vaginas and redirect their attention to something worthier than petty trifles and smallminded grudgebearing.