Woopra – a lesson in how not to launch a new service
This is bait-and-switch at its finest:
I was reading the coverage of a new web stats service called Woopra launching on TechCrunch this afternoon and, because I’m a sucker for stats and always game to try a new product, decide to register for it and check it out.
I go ahead and sign up through a pretty painless procedure, download their software, browse through their pretty slick site, and then I hit a snag: all is fine, until you want to actually add a site to get statistics from to your account. At that point, you are supposed to enter an invitation code… which you don’t have and won’t get anytime soon.
At this point, you have spend 10 minutes on signing up, downloading and installing software (inluding downloading and uploading and activating a WordPress plugin) and suddenly, you are stuck. I checked the confirmation email, and it made no mention of an invitation code either.
What a great first impression. If I sign up for something then I expect it to work – if you want me to sign up for a beta, just make me give you my email address and send me a message when you are ready. At least give me an idea that I’m not signing up for a full product – and don’t make me download your software if I can’t use it. That seems to work just fine for every new web service besides Woopra – and given that Woopra is entering a pretty crowded web analytics market, they just managed to drive lots and lots of users into the arms of their competitors.