Emma Brooks | Digital Media Enthusiast

What is GOING on with the internet today?

I’m hearing reports from various top-secret sources (aka me and my friends) that not only is Twitter down (which greatly upsets me), but Amazon Canada is down, LiveJournal is down, Facebook & Facebook Chat are being uber glitchy, PayPal isn’t working properly, EventBrite.com isn’t working and many more.

I’ve actually resorted to using MSN to talk to people. I KNOW!

The worst part? I can’t complain! My ability to tell everyone how much the internet is sucking today isn’t possible because NOTHING IS WORKING.

Check it:

and:

So, thus, without being able to actually trend this topic on Twitter, I am doing so on the only available platform I can: WordPress! (Insert angelic and heavenly music here.) I declare today: #InternetFAILDay

Love it. Use it. Pass it Along. Let’s make it work, folks.

I feel like Chicken Little too, by the way, running around screaming about the sky falling. The internet is falling! Run for your lives! The Day of Doom is hereeee!

Edit: According to Mashable, Twitter has been defending against a DDoS attack. Looks like Twitter is back up though… for now!

So I spent a long time last week perusing clothes on eBay trying to decide if I wanted to buy a dress for Fake Prom 2009 from it. (What’s that? Haven’t heard about Fake Prom? Oh, well, it’s nothing much: Only the BEST THING EVER.) I’ve actually recently purchased something on eBay with a brand spankin’ new account.

And it got me wondering… In 2005, I swore of eBay for ever and ever, never again! Never again was I going to use eBay or PayPal or any of those horrid, horrid sites because I had been screwed over one too many times. In fact, I believe I had a run of about 4 purchases in a row that ended up in consumer hell and me out of money. And with PayPal and eBay doing everything but helping me with those, I just gave up.

I declared a life-long personal ban on them. And yet, I’ve used PayPal about 5 or 6 times in the last 6 months to transfer money overseas. I recently bought something on eBay for my roommate. I am considering another purchase from eBay. What happened?

Did the great giants of online bidding and money transfers woo me back with more efficient, better services? Have I learned to forgive them?

The best answer to these questions seem to be: “Hahahahahahaha. Yeah. Right.”

Ask anyone who has used PayPal in the past: their opinions of these companies are pretty bad, to put it mildly. As for eBay, well, I can’t say I’ve really heard any fantastic stories. So clearly eBay and PayPal haven’t improved their services.

I know I’m not the only one who has returned to a vendor’s site after saying they’re never going to use it again. Many of my friends have slumped back to a hated vendor’s site and grudgingly given over their hard-earned money. So are we forgiving?

I don’t think so, personally.

It’s just that these companies offer a service no one else can really compete with, sadly. Can you think of an eBay alternative? I confess I can’t. Bank e-mail money transfers definitely took over any money transfers I would normally do, as they were easy, worked and I didn’t feel like my soul was dying a little bit every time I used it. But for the overseas money transfer, from an Australian bank account to a Canadian – I’m not aware, as a consumer, of a viable alternative to PayPal.

So we don’t forgive. We don’t forget. We just don’t have a choice. Thanks capitalism, for sucking when I needed you the most.

So what do you think? Are consumers forgiving? Can a company ever redeem themselves? Please let me know in the comments!

If you’re behind the game, here’s a link explaining The Great Write Off of 2009. You can find links and discussion to all posts by checking out the Twitter trending topic, #WriteOff09.

We’re almost at the end of The Great Write Off of 2009! Tomorrow is the official end date and I’ll be posting then as well. Until now, onto today’s topic: Unsolicited Spam.

Was I ever angry when I logged into my gmail account today to see an unsolicited e-mail from a real estate agent. I rarely hand out my gmail e-mail as a preventative so I am angry and sad that I’ve been blasted. My question is really, “How did she get it?” I wish I could know.

The e-mail in question:

Ha! She left her Twitter account at the bottom – GREAT! I quickly Tweeted at her with this:

Well, I can’t undo the fact that she has my email address now but damn, if I don’t feel better about yelling at her. And who knows, maybe she’ll respond to me and I can figure out how she got it. One can dream…

I know this is a little thing, but it’s the little things like this that drive me up the wall.

Recently I was on the MTV.ca site enjoying some free TV programming thanks to The Hills Aftershow Show (I never claimed to have good taste in TV!) when I noticed this banner ad above me. And not for the right reasons:

Something is wrong!

Can you see it? Just me? It says: Missed an episode? Click Here to Watch NOW.

If you’re going to go for leading caps, why isn’t episode capitalized?! And just for the record, I hate leading caps. They look ugly and unnatural. If you’re going to talk to a consumer, talk to them with regular punctuation, as if you’re talking at the same level. Leading caps makes me feel like this advertiser is talking down to me. Let’s have a regular conversation, with regular punctuation, shall we?

It’s small, yes, but I disliked it enough to blog about it! Take that, CTV.