If you joined InstantBuzz on my recommendation, I\’m sorry.
In many posts on this blog, and on various message boards,
and on my sites, I have promoted InstantBuzz as a great way
to build a list, promote a product, and gain exposure for your website.
I also, on many occasions, stated that InstantBuzz does not generate pop-ups.
I have now seen irrefutable evidence that some marketers have discovered a way to use the IB toolbar to generate pop-ups (which, incidentally, are not blocked by adblocker software).
I have no idea if the site owner will take action on this, or if it’s all just part of the game, but I personally will not continue to promote the system as long as the ability to cause undesired pop-ups remains.
And to those who took action based on my recommendations… I am truly sorry.
Wendy
June 2nd, 2005 at 3:20 am
You’re forgiven
Don’t be hard on yourself. You promoted something based on what you knew, and the results it provided. You did not realize at the time that there may be other issues. It just wasn’t known.
Don’t be too sorry for trying to help others. When you discovered something, you did the right thing. What else could you do?
No matter what, you still got a little boy that loves you, a business partner that thinks you are awesome (even when he bugs you), and a whole lot of respect from others, as you share your knowledge and thoughts, as you know them to be.
No one ever said that you had to know it all.
June 7th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
I too have promoted Instantbuzz quite a lot.
I made Shark statis last week, and now I cant even get into the site???
I have been getting a message error for 4 days now and wont let me in.
Seems like a lot of wasted effort to get over 50 people in, and then it locks me out of my account.
Can you atleast still get in your account, or is there a major problem going on with their site?
I have noticed on Alexa that their numbers have drastically came down this last week during the 4 day push, so im not sure what to think about all this, except I have wasted a lot of time promoting them all for nothing.
June 7th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
The downtime has to do with an InstantBuzz member who used spam to promote IB during the four day push. Someone who received that spam reported it to GoDaddy, who was the registrar of record for InstantBuzz.com. They tried to contact the site owner at an email which didn’t exist (mike@makeyourownsoftware.com, I think) and since the domain was never officially transferred to the current owner of IB, he couldn’t get the issue resolved and the registration was revoked.
I’m sure at some point IB will reappear. I’ve got about 150 people in my downline, which I would hate to lose, even though I’m not promoting it as a traffic generation method any longer.
June 7th, 2005 at 7:46 pm
WOW,
how did you find this out?
You would sure think that any company like this would certainly of sent everyone an email by now saying something, anything if they really cared about their people (us)
I was begining to think that they may have closed out my account because I promoted it in a yahoo business group i started a few years ago, but couldnt figure out what was a wrong with that because all 800 members opted-in in the first place.
June 7th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Hi John,
Mike F. posted a detailed explanation on a private message board when it first happened, but a shorter version of the story is here: http://www.1sitemanager.com/helpdesk/