I was thinking about it and it occurred to me that since I will be doing a lot of complaining about RMM and the fan club in the coming days I may give the wrong impression that I am overly angry at or don't like Ricky's management team.
I want to make it clear that in spite of the all the clusterfuckedness, I'm not mad at the staff. Yet. For now I am under the impression that they do care and they are trying.
I follow Bruno on Twitter and he seems like a really nice guy. I just started following Mariauxy. I don't know anything about her yet but she looks like a nice person in her photo. You know how some people just look like they are good people?
I have nothing personally against either one of them.
I actually feel bad for them because their lives are going to start sucking hard when all the shit with RMM starts heating up. Right now a lot of fans are holding back from complaining because it is a new staff (to us) so we are giving them a little wiggle room.
But Ricky fans have been screwed over so many times by the fan club that tempers are short and we don't have any patience once the excuses start.
My heart goes out to them. I'll have to invite them to my restaurant and buy them a couple few rounds of drinks.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Beta
I have to rant about this Beta thing. This is really pissing me off.
First of all, the purpose of a Beta site isn't to make a half-assed site and then every time something goes wrong point to the tag up top and say "Oh sorry, it's in beta!"
No. Fuck you. That's not how Beta works. When you put a site up in Beta it's supposed to be a working site. It's supposed to look and feel like a real site. The primary purpose of Beta is to open it up to real world testers so you can find all those little quirks that you missed.
It's like an author handing over his manuscript to a copy editor. You're not supposed to hand in a rough draft. It's supposed to be as good as you can make it and then a pro looks over and makes it even better.
Second of all, you had months and months and months to get this thing ready. If it wasn't ready to go live, and god knows that thing isn't ready to be live, then you should have left a message board up where everyone could get together, hang out and have a place to just 'be' until the new digs are ready.
And then when the new digs are ready and the inevitable glitches happen everyone would already have a place where they can ask tech questions, submit bug reports, etc. But instead you have everyone running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to figure out who to contact for tech support. It's kinda stupid, straight up stupid really, to have a Beta site and not have the code monkey a very visible presence.
I was a Beta tester on another site recently. The site worked flawlessly. Our beloved code monkey was a daily presence in the conversations. He kept an ongoing list of known bugs, let us know when new features would roll out and designed the site around our feedback.
It was a social community for knitters. The number of testers on that site was in the hundreds of thousands. Seriously. Hundreds of f'ing thousands!
RMM has how many users right now? Less than 5000.
Get it together guys!
First of all, the purpose of a Beta site isn't to make a half-assed site and then every time something goes wrong point to the tag up top and say "Oh sorry, it's in beta!"
No. Fuck you. That's not how Beta works. When you put a site up in Beta it's supposed to be a working site. It's supposed to look and feel like a real site. The primary purpose of Beta is to open it up to real world testers so you can find all those little quirks that you missed.
It's like an author handing over his manuscript to a copy editor. You're not supposed to hand in a rough draft. It's supposed to be as good as you can make it and then a pro looks over and makes it even better.
Second of all, you had months and months and months to get this thing ready. If it wasn't ready to go live, and god knows that thing isn't ready to be live, then you should have left a message board up where everyone could get together, hang out and have a place to just 'be' until the new digs are ready.
And then when the new digs are ready and the inevitable glitches happen everyone would already have a place where they can ask tech questions, submit bug reports, etc. But instead you have everyone running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to figure out who to contact for tech support. It's kinda stupid, straight up stupid really, to have a Beta site and not have the code monkey a very visible presence.
I was a Beta tester on another site recently. The site worked flawlessly. Our beloved code monkey was a daily presence in the conversations. He kept an ongoing list of known bugs, let us know when new features would roll out and designed the site around our feedback.
It was a social community for knitters. The number of testers on that site was in the hundreds of thousands. Seriously. Hundreds of f'ing thousands!
RMM has how many users right now? Less than 5000.
Get it together guys!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Customer Service Fail #2
This will easily become a weekly feature.
Barbara from Germany contacted Bruno with her concerns about the problems occurring on RMM.
Bruno responded:
Do you see what he did there? Ricky's business manager just asked a fan to contact all the rest of the fans in the whole wide world and let them know that RMM is really really sorry about the problems at RMM but no worries, they have a web team working on it.
I looked at the Twitter feeds for AR Solutions @arsolutions (web team) , Bruno @1bdg (business manager), Mariauxy @mariauxy (assistant to Bruno), and Ricky himself @ricky_martin. Not one of them mentioned any of this in their Twitter feeds.
I looked online at RMM.com and Ricky's Facebook page but couldn't find any mention of this.
So the only fans who have this information from Bruno, via Barbara in Germany, are the fans who logged into TSARM today. Let's hope Barbara from Germany is mad crazy about social media and has both the time and the energy to spread this message far and wide so as many fans as possible will get the note.
Now as for those fans who are not on TSARM, well I guess you all are shit of out luck.
Fail.
Barbara from Germany contacted Bruno with her concerns about the problems occurring on RMM.
Bruno responded:
It's upsetting to read that the website is causing so many headaches - believe me, that's not our intention and we're trying to resolve all the glitches as soon as possible. We have a webteam whose responsibility is to build and maintain the rickymartinmusic.com site and they're still working on changing/adapting things since the site's still on "beta-testing" mode. I'd appreciate it immensely if you could alert everyone in all the forums about this and that more changes are coming soon
Do you see what he did there? Ricky's business manager just asked a fan to contact all the rest of the fans in the whole wide world and let them know that RMM is really really sorry about the problems at RMM but no worries, they have a web team working on it.
I looked at the Twitter feeds for AR Solutions @arsolutions (web team) , Bruno @1bdg (business manager), Mariauxy @mariauxy (assistant to Bruno), and Ricky himself @ricky_martin. Not one of them mentioned any of this in their Twitter feeds.
I looked online at RMM.com and Ricky's Facebook page but couldn't find any mention of this.
So the only fans who have this information from Bruno, via Barbara in Germany, are the fans who logged into TSARM today. Let's hope Barbara from Germany is mad crazy about social media and has both the time and the energy to spread this message far and wide so as many fans as possible will get the note.
Now as for those fans who are not on TSARM, well I guess you all are shit of out luck.
Fail.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Ricky at HRC Dinner
Ricky made a surprise appearance at the 14th Annual Human Rights Campaign National Dinner.
It's so cute how he's over excited he can barely speak. He did a really good job. He's such a good boy. I love him,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39_5Rs_DFYU
It's so cute how he's over excited he can barely speak. He did a really good job. He's such a good boy. I love him,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39_5Rs_DFYU
FAQs page coming to RMM
I tweeted to Mariauxy, Bruno, Ricky and AR Solutions that it would be nice to have a message board so everyone can ask questions and more importantly FIND answers all in one place.
Mariauxy said they are working on a FAQs page and a help button.
Coming soon.
Mariauxy said they are working on a FAQs page and a help button.
Coming soon.
Innocence Lost
It was well over 30 years ago. But sometimes, when I think about it... it still bothers me.
The sea monkeys... they really never did look like the picture on the box. I would watch them every day... wondering when they would start changing shape, when would they start doing tricks. The box said watch them do tricks. They never did. And they never would. Because they weren't actual monkeys of the sea. They were fucking little brine shrimp.
How can they lie to a child like that?
The sea monkeys... they really never did look like the picture on the box. I would watch them every day... wondering when they would start changing shape, when would they start doing tricks. The box said watch them do tricks. They never did. And they never would. Because they weren't actual monkeys of the sea. They were fucking little brine shrimp.
How can they lie to a child like that?
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Customer Service Fail
This may well turn into a category all it's own. There certainly is enough material for it.
We've been told to contact Mariauxy and AR Solutions with any problems we have regarding RMM.com website or our fan club membership.
If we would also like to copy Bruno and Ricky so they know what is going
on we are left with 97 characters to explain our dilemma.
It's not quite enough.
Good thing we do have an email for AR Solutions and Mariauxy as a back-up plan.
We've been told to contact Mariauxy and AR Solutions with any problems we have regarding RMM.com website or our fan club membership.
 | |
| How not to use Twitter for customer service |
It's not quite enough.
Good thing we do have an email for AR Solutions and Mariauxy as a back-up plan.
I FIXED IT!!! :D
I think I figured it out! In an earlier post I was bitching about the evils of RMM.com and how they put this pop up in their website that tries to force you into signing up for their web feed A HUNDRED TIMES A DAY!!!!!!!!1
The AR Solution guy said they didn't have any code for that in their page. And I didn't believe them. I'm sorry to say, I think they were right. Sorry RMM and AR Solution, I was wrong.
I found that if I viewed the page in Chrome it was fine, so that led me to believe it was something unique to Firefox that was causing the problem. I tested the Java, pop-up permissions, add-ons and every possible thing that might do something on a web page. Nothing worked. Then I tried one last thing...
I went to Tools - Options - Applications and looked to see what the permissions were for web feeds.
Sure enough it was set to Add Live Bookmarks in Firefox. I changed it to Preview in Firefox. Restarted Firefox and so far, so good. I was able to visit RMM without screaming.
I have no explanation why this only happens on RMM.com and not on any of the couple few hundred thousand other web sites that I have visited on this computer.
I'm sure there is a perfectly logical explanation.
You win this round RMM. But I'll be back. Mark my words. LOL (lots of love ;))
The AR Solution guy said they didn't have any code for that in their page. And I didn't believe them. I'm sorry to say, I think they were right. Sorry RMM and AR Solution, I was wrong.
I found that if I viewed the page in Chrome it was fine, so that led me to believe it was something unique to Firefox that was causing the problem. I tested the Java, pop-up permissions, add-ons and every possible thing that might do something on a web page. Nothing worked. Then I tried one last thing...
I went to Tools - Options - Applications and looked to see what the permissions were for web feeds.
 |
| The culprit: Add Live Bookmarks in Firefox |
I have no explanation why this only happens on RMM.com and not on any of the couple few hundred thousand other web sites that I have visited on this computer.
I'm sure there is a perfectly logical explanation.
You win this round RMM. But I'll be back. Mark my words. LOL (lots of love ;))
Is everyone signing up for the club now or waiting?
So what is the consensus here? Of the people who already have access,
what do you think? Is it worth the $50? I want to know if we are still
getting concert tickets. I asked but didn’t get an answer yet.
Friday, October 8, 2010
What Happened to RMWFC
So whatever happened with the old site? I kind of creeps me out how things just disappear with no notice, no mention, nothing. Well maybe there was mention and i missed it since I am not a paying member anymore. Who knows. (I guess paying members know. heh)
All I know is I got an email back in June saying the new website was being build and it would be up and running shortly. I was going to renew my membership right around that time but when I got that email I decided to wait. After 11 years of almost annual 6-month down time I knew this game already. You know how things go when they saying "coming soon."
You pay for a year's access to a freaking webpage but you're LUCKY if you get 6 full months of access and 4 of those is partial access while they work out the 'glitches'. Not wasting my money when the website is down and Ricky is on hiatus. Plus I was working so much at the time I wasn't even logging in at RMM and TSARM but once a month.
But now? I don't know. Is it a good time to renew? The membership is $50 now, but for what I can't say. It doesn't look like the fan club is any different than before. If anything it looks like we will be getting less. We don't even have a web forum anymore. Yeah, I know they said "it's coming", but you know how that goes....
So who knows the story on RMWFC? Why did it disband? Where did all the staff go? What happened to everything?
You know, back in 2000 Ricky's crew could get away with being anonymous on the web. Back then the Internet was still fairly new territory for many of us and protecting your identity was a favorite sport. But these days hiding behind a computer screen is creepy and looks suspicious. I don't like it.
All I know is I got an email back in June saying the new website was being build and it would be up and running shortly. I was going to renew my membership right around that time but when I got that email I decided to wait. After 11 years of almost annual 6-month down time I knew this game already. You know how things go when they saying "coming soon."
You pay for a year's access to a freaking webpage but you're LUCKY if you get 6 full months of access and 4 of those is partial access while they work out the 'glitches'. Not wasting my money when the website is down and Ricky is on hiatus. Plus I was working so much at the time I wasn't even logging in at RMM and TSARM but once a month.
But now? I don't know. Is it a good time to renew? The membership is $50 now, but for what I can't say. It doesn't look like the fan club is any different than before. If anything it looks like we will be getting less. We don't even have a web forum anymore. Yeah, I know they said "it's coming", but you know how that goes....
So who knows the story on RMWFC? Why did it disband? Where did all the staff go? What happened to everything?
You know, back in 2000 Ricky's crew could get away with being anonymous on the web. Back then the Internet was still fairly new territory for many of us and protecting your identity was a favorite sport. But these days hiding behind a computer screen is creepy and looks suspicious. I don't like it.
Communication 101 Fail - How to Alienate Your Customer Base
I'm a little annoyed this morning. I went over the RMM to see if there are any changes, any questions answered, any news of any sort.
We were told to direct all RMM website questions to support@arsls.com and c.c. carolina.rueda@arsls.com and mariauxy@rm-enterprise.com.
I did that with my question about how to reinstate my membership. Mariauxy replied right away to tell me she was forwarding my question to tech support (arsls). I appreciated the rapid response, but that was a little odd to me. A question about my fan club membership should be answered by fan club management, not the web site designer.
I don't even know who is running the fan club now. They say Jenn is gone. There is no information that I can find anywhere on RMM that indicates who is in charge.
I hate it when they do shit like that. Transparency is everything, especially when you are exchanging money for goods. I would like to know who is doing what and how to find them in the real world. There should be an office address, a phone number and an email address at the very minimum.
Communication is something RMWFC failed at miserably. I'm not putting all the blame on Jenn like so many people like to do. I don't know her full story but I do know that shit rolls down hill, so I am putting the blame squarely on Ricky's shoulders. It is his responsibility to have someone communicate everything to his fan club so they can communicate to their customers. When you are paying $50 for a membership you shouldn't be getting answers to memberships, breaking news and latest photos from TSARM. I'm not hating on TSARM. I love it there. I'm just saying if you are going to collect money and offer a service you should fulfill your obligation.
It looks like this new web team is handling things the same way RMWFC handled things. I suspect the reason for that is because shit rolls downhill! Don't understand how to get into/around the website? Email us one on one. Having trouble with your membership? Email us one on one. Having a major glitch that prevents you from logging in? Email us one on one. Have a question about anything at all? Email us one on one.
I hate that fucking shit. If one person is asking a question there is a good chance that 10 other people have the same question. Ask it once in an open forum and answer everyone at once. Show us you are present and working on the problem. We really don't want to hear yet again that you are 'buried' in emails. You're buried because you're fucking failing at communication.
There should be a bare-bones, all access web forum easily accessed from all Ricky Martin related sites where we can get together, help each other learn the navigation of the new site, ask questions about the fan club, make suggestions, etc. We shouldn't all be running around frantically hunting each other down in Twitter, Facebook or Myspace to ask each other questions that the fan club should be dealing with.
We were told to direct all RMM website questions to support@arsls.com and c.c. carolina.rueda@arsls.com and mariauxy@rm-enterprise.com.
I did that with my question about how to reinstate my membership. Mariauxy replied right away to tell me she was forwarding my question to tech support (arsls). I appreciated the rapid response, but that was a little odd to me. A question about my fan club membership should be answered by fan club management, not the web site designer.
I don't even know who is running the fan club now. They say Jenn is gone. There is no information that I can find anywhere on RMM that indicates who is in charge.
I hate it when they do shit like that. Transparency is everything, especially when you are exchanging money for goods. I would like to know who is doing what and how to find them in the real world. There should be an office address, a phone number and an email address at the very minimum.
Communication is something RMWFC failed at miserably. I'm not putting all the blame on Jenn like so many people like to do. I don't know her full story but I do know that shit rolls down hill, so I am putting the blame squarely on Ricky's shoulders. It is his responsibility to have someone communicate everything to his fan club so they can communicate to their customers. When you are paying $50 for a membership you shouldn't be getting answers to memberships, breaking news and latest photos from TSARM. I'm not hating on TSARM. I love it there. I'm just saying if you are going to collect money and offer a service you should fulfill your obligation.
It looks like this new web team is handling things the same way RMWFC handled things. I suspect the reason for that is because shit rolls downhill! Don't understand how to get into/around the website? Email us one on one. Having trouble with your membership? Email us one on one. Having a major glitch that prevents you from logging in? Email us one on one. Have a question about anything at all? Email us one on one.
I hate that fucking shit. If one person is asking a question there is a good chance that 10 other people have the same question. Ask it once in an open forum and answer everyone at once. Show us you are present and working on the problem. We really don't want to hear yet again that you are 'buried' in emails. You're buried because you're fucking failing at communication.
There should be a bare-bones, all access web forum easily accessed from all Ricky Martin related sites where we can get together, help each other learn the navigation of the new site, ask questions about the fan club, make suggestions, etc. We shouldn't all be running around frantically hunting each other down in Twitter, Facebook or Myspace to ask each other questions that the fan club should be dealing with.
Book Signing
…or, OMFG RICKY IS COMING!!!!
Can you believe it?
Ricky will be signing his new book Me at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
After 11 years, but who’s counting, it looks like I will be forced to resign as president and founding member of the Never Met Ricky Club.
I'm not getting too excited yet.
I haven't started a countdown or anything.
I know there is still plenty of time for things to go wrong. And something always does go wrong. Fuck you Loki you fucking fuck. In all these years, something always happened and I wasn't able to meet Ricky when everyone else did.
I never knew why. Why did something happen <em>each and every</em> time? Whatever the reason, I am looking forward to this. I hope it goes smoothly and he doesn't do his usual 2 hours late routine because I have to get in and get out so I can head back to the Beach and get to work. (see? already there is potential for this going south)
Whatever happens, happens. I'm going to have fun and spend a couple hours with Ricky fans. It's going to be good. I can't wait to read the book.
Can you believe it?
Ricky will be signing his new book Me at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
Date: November 6, 2010 (View Map)
Time:4 pm
Place:Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Store phone: 305-44-4408
Time:4 pm
Place:Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Store phone: 305-44-4408
After 11 years, but who’s counting, it looks like I will be forced to resign as president and founding member of the Never Met Ricky Club.
I'm not getting too excited yet.
I haven't started a countdown or anything.
I know there is still plenty of time for things to go wrong. And something always does go wrong. Fuck you Loki you fucking fuck. In all these years, something always happened and I wasn't able to meet Ricky when everyone else did.
I never knew why. Why did something happen <em>each and every</em> time? Whatever the reason, I am looking forward to this. I hope it goes smoothly and he doesn't do his usual 2 hours late routine because I have to get in and get out so I can head back to the Beach and get to work. (see? already there is potential for this going south)
Whatever happens, happens. I'm going to have fun and spend a couple hours with Ricky fans. It's going to be good. I can't wait to read the book.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Do you get an RSS pop-up on RMM.com?
(cross post from TSARM)
Has anyone else had this pop up on their screen?
EVERY SINGLE TIME i click on anything on that site the page hangs for a second and then i get that little pop-up asking to subscribe to the RSS feed. I don’t want to subscribe but it asks EVERY SINGLE TIME so i finally clicked Yes and intended to delete the feed at the end of my browsing session.
The problem is, even if you click Yes it still pops up EVERY SINGLE TIME you click on anything on the page. And if you keep clicking Yes to accept the RSS feed it adds a new feed folder to your computer! If I click on 20 things while I am browsing I end up with 20 RSS feed folders!!!
I emailed the web team and got the standard issue reply that you get from every Ricky Martin webmaster since the beginning, “Sorry darling, it’s not us, it’s you.” They told me they don’t have any code that asks to subscribe to their RSS. They said I must have a worm on my computer from somewhere else. In the old days they would tell you your computer is having trouble loading the page and you have to clear your cache and cookies. Not they say you have a worm. Same song, only the lyrics have changed.
I of course don’t believe them. I think they are full of shit. RMM.com is the ONLY site that i have issue with. I don’t have this problem anywhere else.
Edit to add:
I’m not sure if the code monkeys are working furiously behind the scenes to solve my problem. But just in case they aren’t I am attempting to problem solve on my own.
I have tried disabling numerous things in my browser’s options tabs. No luck. Tried blocking pop ups. Turned off Java. Turned off everything I could think of that might help.
That damn bookmark is still popping up.
I did try the page in Chrome 6.0.xxx for Windows and it was a SUCCESS!!
Yay!!!
So it appears the glitch is something to do with Firefox. I’ll keep trying to fix it. I hope i can figure this out. If not I just may go completely bat-shit crazy, but not before November 6th, please
Has anyone else had this pop up on their screen?
EVERY SINGLE TIME i click on anything on that site the page hangs for a second and then i get that little pop-up asking to subscribe to the RSS feed. I don’t want to subscribe but it asks EVERY SINGLE TIME so i finally clicked Yes and intended to delete the feed at the end of my browsing session.
The problem is, even if you click Yes it still pops up EVERY SINGLE TIME you click on anything on the page. And if you keep clicking Yes to accept the RSS feed it adds a new feed folder to your computer! If I click on 20 things while I am browsing I end up with 20 RSS feed folders!!!
I emailed the web team and got the standard issue reply that you get from every Ricky Martin webmaster since the beginning, “Sorry darling, it’s not us, it’s you.” They told me they don’t have any code that asks to subscribe to their RSS. They said I must have a worm on my computer from somewhere else. In the old days they would tell you your computer is having trouble loading the page and you have to clear your cache and cookies. Not they say you have a worm. Same song, only the lyrics have changed.
I of course don’t believe them. I think they are full of shit. RMM.com is the ONLY site that i have issue with. I don’t have this problem anywhere else.
Edit to add:
I’m not sure if the code monkeys are working furiously behind the scenes to solve my problem. But just in case they aren’t I am attempting to problem solve on my own.
I have tried disabling numerous things in my browser’s options tabs. No luck. Tried blocking pop ups. Turned off Java. Turned off everything I could think of that might help.
That damn bookmark is still popping up.
I did try the page in Chrome 6.0.xxx for Windows and it was a SUCCESS!!
Yay!!!
So it appears the glitch is something to do with Firefox. I’ll keep trying to fix it. I hope i can figure this out. If not I just may go completely bat-shit crazy, but not before November 6th, please
Hello World!
Hi peeps,
I started this blog because I needed a place where I could talk without keeping an eye to fan club / fan site TOS. I needed to have a place to unload all of my frustrations with the new fan club and have a place to speak my mind without censorship.
Those of you who know me know that I NEED TO GET IT OUT!!! And then I’m fine. lol
This blog was started with the intent to chatter about the comings and goings of Ricky Martin world, but I reserve the right to ramble on about anything I chose.
You are welcome to lurk, comment and/or point and laugh to your hearts content.
It’s all good.
I started this blog because I needed a place where I could talk without keeping an eye to fan club / fan site TOS. I needed to have a place to unload all of my frustrations with the new fan club and have a place to speak my mind without censorship.
Those of you who know me know that I NEED TO GET IT OUT!!! And then I’m fine. lol
This blog was started with the intent to chatter about the comings and goings of Ricky Martin world, but I reserve the right to ramble on about anything I chose.
You are welcome to lurk, comment and/or point and laugh to your hearts content.
It’s all good.
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