On July 25th at 5:25 p.m., Purdue wrote cryptically :

Please stay tuned...

I will discuss the day's whirlwind developments here shortly. Thank you to everyone for the kindness we've been shown today.
Paul

Followed by more than 50 comments from angry customers, along the lines of:

So an email sent at 7:30am and a follow up email sent at 5:30pm that says you will update us soon.... It all makes sense now.

No phone contact, no email response, no update on your site. I wish I had more hands to give you more thumbs down.

Posted by: Shocked and Appalled at July 25, 2005 06:07 PM

Other comments gave links to other fulfillment services. Big ugly mess.

Stephen Baker of Business Week analyzed the role of the blog in iFulfill’s failure. Purdue had never hesitated to print angry customer complaints on the blog, on the advice of his consultant, blogger B.L. Ochman.

Purdue asked Ochman if he should publish such scathing comments on the blog. Her steadfast advice: Be transparent. She argued that readers and customers would trust him more once they saw that he didn't censor his blog. What's more, blogs with lively comments drew more readers. Purdue not only published the critique, he also mentioned it in his blog and linked to it, so that readers would see it.

Let’s review. Here are some things a blog can’t do:

• Fix a shoddy product


• Stop creditors from baying at the door


• Do a personality transplant for a boring executive


• Fix roaring incompetence by a company's managers

• Engage passionate customers in a conversation


• Provide a community for brand loyalists


• Humanize a faceless corporation


• Provide fascinating reading material, including free books

“It’s crackers for businesses to create blogs where their competitors can tear them apart any day. Don’t expect that trend to catch on here in Singapore or anywhere else in Asia, ever. In fact I can’t imagine anyone anywhere outside the nut-case-packed US ever even coming up with such a cockeyed idea. . . . And now more shock and awe as Steve Baker of Business Week says he too thinks that the idea that companies with blogs should not censor critical comments makes sense. Only a journalist could think this. It’s stark staring insanity, mate. No company equipped with a brain will do this.”