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12/17 Trying Anew
Well Muppetbot getting kicked off its hosting pages is another good
opportunity to see if JDate and Matchnet are opening their minds.
From: "Jayson Dee"
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: Matchnet Customer Service
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 22:23:46 -0000
Hi Guys,
It's been months since I've heard from you. People are asking me if I could bring up muppetbot for the other matchnet sites, AmericanSingles a couple times and now someone is asking for PersianSingles.com:
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From: R... <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: hi
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 01:24:23 -0800
hi jayson -
just wanted to thank u for the priceless efforts of muppetbot on jdate -
love the links with pictures for chatting -
i was curious if u had a similar program going on with other of the
the american singles co's - like www.persiansingles.com
they also have a chat room very similar
to jdate -
just curious
thanks,
r...
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What's the deal? Is muppetbot always going to be hated by JDate.com? I just got booted of another site I was using to host the chatlist pages. This is a pain, I'd rather not work on the same things over and over. I'd like to upload the chatlist pages onto the jdate server itself. What can we do to get that to happen? This is a "killer-app" product that has already been designed for you, that your customers are constantly raving about. Please share your thought process on why you aren't jumping at this opportunity.
Regards,
Jayson
10/30 Trying Sales Not Challenges
Matchnet Billy still hasn't detailed why he thought Muppetbot loaded their
systems or presented a danger. So I'm talking to the product managers
he identified. Here's what I sent them this morning and our conversation
since.
From: "Jayson Dee"
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: RE: MuppetBot
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 21:20:16 GMT
Hi Nurit,
I have some old pages saved on geocities as samples. Here's a link to this "sorted by Name" page, and you can click onwards to the four other flavors.
http://www.geocities.com/muppetbot/samples/jdatechat01.htm
Muppetbot can also chart stats on the folks in JDate chat. I put some up in the samples directory. They are:
Stats by country:
http://www.geocities.com/muppetbot/samples/chart-0.hr.gif
Stats by State:
http://www.geocities.com/muppetbot/samples/chart-1.day.gif
http://www.geocities.com/muppetbot/samples/chart.FL.hr.gif
Stats by Age Range:
http://www.geocities.com/muppetbot/samples/chart.50s.day.gif
In the meantime, please show the samples to whomever needs to know Muppetbot is not evil but an asset, and let me know what we can do.
Regards,
Jayson
From: Nurit Ze'evi
To: 'Jayson Dee'
Subject: RE: MuppetBot
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 11:39:11 -0800
I liked your service myself, but apparently it was a load on our system.
Please send me some screen shots and let me check in to it, I'll update you
soon
Thx
Nurit Ze'evi
Product Manager - JDate
T 323-836-3000
F 323-836-3333
From: "Jayson Dee" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Re: MuppetBot
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 19:01:20 GMT
Hi Nurit,
Billy Navidad has sent me to sell you IMPROVEMENT and INNOVATION. I've developed a product "Muppetbot" that facilitates your customers' experience in your chat rooms, has proven to be quite popular with your customers, and apparently is currently without AmericanSingles's [JDate's] approval. I am not sure why, I do not agree with Mr. Navidad's opinion on it's dangers, however he hasn't shared his reasons. May I guess that AmericanSingles.com [JDate.com] is just scared to see something outside their control? If that's it, no worries, why don't you buy the muppetbot as a service. The muppetbot pages would be served from within your americansingles.com [jdate.com] server, available to all registered people, perhaps with additional features as a paid-members-only priviledge to encourage subscriptions. I have a separate search facility that eclipses your own search, which we could also develop for your site.
First, are you familiar with muppetbot? I can send you some screenshots with a description of its functions. Go into the chat room and ask if anyone used muppetbot and if it was a good addition to the chat room.
Please contact me when you have figured out what muppetbot does. Imagine that any improvements to your site improves your customers experience and loyalty and with that extra traffic comes additional word-of-mouth, additional memberships, and additional revenue: Muppetbot will make your site money.
Regards,
Jayson
10/26 Matchnet (jdate) replies!
Matchnet isn't ignoring me, and they actually sound reasonable!
They asked me to talk to their product managers, so there will be
a way to get them to endorse muppetbot. First, I want to see if
Muppetbot really caused some damage, or if it's just unjustified
concern. Then we'll talk to their JDate person and see if we can't
get Muppetbot even more legit than it originally was, on the jdate
server itself (Well who knows)! Anyway, here's the
response I got from Matchnet, and below that, the response I sent
them:
From: Billy Navidad <[email protected]>
To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Subject: MuppetBot
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 09:30:25 -0700
Dear Jayson,
Thanks for acknowledgement of MuppetBot. We are pleased that one our members
is as enthusiastic in our services as we are. Although MuppetBot is indeed a
very cool tool from a consumer point of view we from the technological side
fear that the Bot will cause excessive strain on our chat and web servers.
We have experienced a heavy volume of traffic and request from MuppetBot. We
ask your consideration and not run MuppetBot. Our technology allows us to
block attacks of this nature. Unfortunately as long as this service runs
(MuppetBot) you will also be blocked from our service. What I suggest is to
write to Kathrin Nollan ([email protected]) AS product manager and Nurit
Ze'Evi ([email protected]) JDate Product manager and they can give you more
feedback on turning the bot into a feature not a security risk.
Billy Navidad
Matchnet.com
Network Engineer
323.836.3000 x 843
And here's my reply to Billy's above message:
From: "Jayson Dee" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: Re: MuppetBot
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 19:04:54 GMT
Dear Billy,
I will be in contact your matchnet product managers regarding making Muppetbot work in synergy with your dating sites. It would be easier to contact them after Matchnet gives some approval of Muppetbot. I would like to address your concerns about Muppetbot, and see if I can educate your team on how it works, or you could illuminate me in the damage it causes, so I can perhaps make changes so that it fits into a safer existence with your sites.
Here's a FAQ I prepared on muppetbot for its users, please read it if you haven't already:
http://www.geocities.com/muppetbot/faq.htm
Who decided to block muppetbot? That's the person I need to endorse Muppetbot as an asset. I'm hoping the decision to block came more from fear of the unknown and resentment at the perception of being attacked, rather than actual loads or expenses caused by Muppetbot. Muppetbot is completely benign in nature, and has several features in its design specifically to prevent it from causing a heavy load on the systems it assists.
So, I would like to get more technical information from your team. I am curious as to how it causes a heavy load, and what evidence did your team need to arrive at the decision to block it.
Honestly, I can't think of anything significant. Perhaps you are seeing an increase in profile and image lookups, with muppetbot's site as the referring page. These are not coming from Muppetbot, but your chat customers who are using the Muppetbot pages. This traffic would happen if JD and AS had a similar page design.
Muppetbot does hold a slot in the chat room but it generates very little chat traffic. It does look up users on jdate but it has a seven-day data cache. With 100,000+ active customers, looking up 1000 people/week can't increase your traffic by a noticible amount. In fact, Muppetbot has been around in one form or another for almost a year and it has never caused notice with you before.
I want to allay your fears about Muppetbot. What else can I tell you?
Muppetbot provides a host of additional services that management or marketing might find useful. I'm attaching some charts it creates in case you haven't seen those either. Please take a look, figure out how I can help us resolve Muppetbot's fate, and let me know.
Thanks,
Jayson
10/24 Muppetbot has been BANNED from jdate at the IP
level
I think this was intentional because Muppetbot got blocked from
American Singles at the same time. I have written a letter to
jdate and amersing but it might help if people that wanted muppetbot
back wrote in as well. At least, I'd like to find out what their
concerns are. They tried turning off muppetbot by canceling the 157919
account, which did nothing of course, but shows they don't really know
what muppetbot is. If they're worried about something muppetbot isn't,
and we can show them that, they'll let muppetbot back in. Meanwhile,
I could ip-bounce muppetbot back into the chat room but then we get into
a real hacker war and I'm too old for going where I'm not wanted.
So let's get muppetbot wanted! Write 'em, hopefully they won't ignore
a large group of members, and we'll know how to continue. To write
jdate, log into jdate.com and on the initial page there's a link
to contact them. Please tell 'em to unblock muppetbot and
why you want it back.
Thanks,
Jayson
Here's what I wrote to jdate.com and americansingles.com
I have been running a chat server service called
muppetbot for the past few months. However, Tuesday
afternoon I was completely blocked from jdate.com and
americansingles.com. This seems intentional, and I
want to allay your fears about muppetbot so it is removed.
My service is quite popular and quite harmless, and
blocking it reduces the quality of the members'
experience in your chat rooms. I am going to ask
other members to write to you to allow muppetbot
back in. Please reply as to your reasoning and
fears, so myself and muppetbot's enthusiasts can
answer them, or at least know how to continue.
Thanks,
Jayson
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