Listening to customers, redux

A few weeks ago I posted about reactions to the pricing structure of the latest version of Moveable Type, one of the most widely-used weblogging tools. The changes were announced on Six Apart’s blog - the post itself was an upbeat explanation of the new licensing terms, while the trackback links below were overwhelmingly (and vigorously) negative. A great example of instant feedback from customers.

To their credit, Six Apart didn’t react by immediately pulling down the criticism from their site, as you might expect a commercial organisation to do - after all, you can’t imagine McDonalds or Texaco allowing their sites to play host to opinions even slightly contrary to the party line, can you? Not only did they ride out the criticism, they also listened - the revised pricing structure has just been announced (on the blog, naturally), and it addresses many of the criticisms that were levelled at the initial version.

So a great example of the power of corporate weblogs on several levels. Not only did Six Apart get instantaneous - and very powerfully expressed - feedback on their decisions, they also took that feedback into account. Responses to the new model are fairly positive at the moment. From heros to zeros to heros again…

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