eReader site has been revamped
Fictionwise hasn’t wasted any time getting the eReader site revamped which portends good things for the acquisition of eReader. The eReader store site was down for a day as they made updates to the site and it’s back up now and seems better than ever. The eReader site has been quite slow for some time but the new site is very snappy and navigating around is faster than ever before. This speaks volumes for the job Fictionwise is doing so far after picking up eReader and I am happy to see it.
They had some serious problems yesterday, the site was up and down a lot. There are still some glitches, but the bigger hassles seem out of the way:
- view by date is back (new releases show the last 500 titles published)
- Wish List is back
Still at issue:
- Notifications gone
- Newsletter subscriptions gone
- Some minor glitches on page refresh
- Can’t access account preferences
I predict a couple more outages before they get it straightened out, but they have made major progress in the past day and a half !
eReader, I’m rootin’ for ya !
Hi,
I’m Steve Pendergrast one of the founders of Fictionwise. I have to say the last few days have been very difficult for us but we do seem to be beyond the major hurdles. We did have a very rocky day yesterday with various obscure issues cropping up minute by minute. Things that worked perfectly during tests fell apart under the strain of thousands of real users hitting at once. My team has been working long hours to correct the remaining issues and they have done an outstanding job under difficult conditions.
Yes we understand a few pieces of data are still not fully imported into our system, but we are knocking them off one by one. Please rest assured none of the data is lost (newsletter subs, alerts, etc.) there are just data import glitches and sometimes software glitches holding us back from displaying it. We had to prioritize what got fixed first (buy books, download books, search, browse, etc.) Everyone will get their newsletter, the subscriptions are all in the system just not displayed properly in your account area. The newsletter is going out tomorrow instead of today for obvious reasons. We didn’t want to drive even more traffic to the site until it was functioning well.
Any kind of transition like this is gut-wrenchingly difficult. But some short term pain will lead to many benefits for our customers, some of which you are already seeing in terms of system performance and some new features (like the ability to choose an unlock code “on the fly” from any of your prior cards, and the ability to register a new unlock card without buying anything).
And have you noticed … eReader Pro is now free on all platforms? We did a soft launch on that yesterday but newsletters tomorrow will make it official.
We really do appreciate your patience and support. There are going to be some more issues, no doubt, but we will work hard to resolve them quickly. Give us a chance and you will not be disappointed.
Take care,
Steve P.
Now, if only they’d honor my repeated requests/form submissions to unsubscribe from their freaking newsletter! I love you eReader, but I don’t have a device on which to read your stuff anymore (until you release an iPhone version, for which I’d love you even more!).
Steve, can you get on that?
What a great, honest, response to what’s going on over there behind the scenes.
Nice one, Steve.
Looking forward to all the new stuff coming *cough* linux player *cough*
I noticed the ereader.com website being up briefly, but due to me being in the UK they seem to be always doing maintenance when I try to access it (I did notice the free eReader though, annoying in some ways as I’d already purchased a few of the Pro versions, but understandable
We have proof once again of what a fantastic job jk and kct are doing here by providing such a forum ! I’m not sure where else I would have found the kind of detailed explanation Steve provided (Kudos on candor, I’ve been involved in a few large-scale technology upgrades, and “gut-wrenching” is dead-on).
I’ve said it before, and will say it again: the ereader format rocks, and I’m hoping great things will come out of the Fictionwise acquisition (mebbe a little hardware support on an e-ink device somewhere, hmmm) . . .
Anyway, thanks – looking forward to buying many more ebooks from ereader.com than the 315 I already picked up !
Josh B: Your trouble un-subscribing was another transition issue, actually a communication snafu between motricity and fictionwise. I have personally looked you up in the db and opted you out. Sure hope that works
Regarding iphone, stay tuned. We’re waiting for the Apple SDK, once we see that we can evaluate the technical feasibility.
-Steve P.
I’m not a happy camper. As of today, still no newsletter – which means NO #$%^@$# discounts. Since I buy eBooks in batches, $100 or so at a time, I’m not willing to do so without the discount.
Still awaiting a response to my e-mail regarding same. Part of the allure of internet technology is instant gratification; this is annoying.
I have a Palm T3, I bought the eReader Pro, but now it dosen’t work with my unlock code and the free version dosen’t expand when I open the T3 screen.
This is NOT good. Any suggestions?
Thanks