Scrybe: Silence and Server

Yesterday, many Scrybe users, including me, couldn’t see their data. We can now do so again. Here’s (some of) the activity from the Scrybe forums.

• I logged in today to find all my events gone. That’s from yesterday at 2:30pm (all times are “forum time,” rather than my local time).
• I logged in today and noticed all my calendar entries were missing. Yesterday at 2:39pm. I provide this link as well as the previous because most of the subsequent discussion took place in this thread.
• There has been a problem with one of our servers… We are in the process of restoring back up. We apologize… Today at 5:58am.
• For all those users, whose calendar entries were missing, your data has been restored. Today at 2:56pm. I for one can see my calendar entries again.

So the time between the problem being noted and its being fixed was about 24 hours. I don’t regard this as unacceptable for a free service a few months in to closed beta.

The bigger problem is once again lack of timely communication. This is particularly important for Scrybe given that it’s calendar data we’re talking about, and that there is a history of lack of communication.

So my criticism here isn’t about the 24 hours. It’s about the 15+ hours between the problem being noted and its being acknowledged. The Scrybe team had a chance to show that they really are serious about communication with their current beta users and with potential future users had they:

• Communicated within an hour or two (i.e. ten times quicker than they actually did).
• Made it clear that the problem was with a server, rather than with Scrybe, and that data were being restored from backup. This they actually did, albeit very late.
• Communicated on the Scrybe blog, as well as in the forums. When I go to the blog right now, I see that Gartner considers Scrybe cool. That doesn’t help me cool down.

I continue to wish Scrybe well, but this doesn’t make it any easier. There is no shortage of rivals.