*** This post has been updated. Please see below. ***

One of the items I found in my inbox this morning was a reminder from NewsGator that my account was due to be billed for another year. The email included a handy link to ensure my billing information is up-to-date. Since I know that it’s out of date, I decided to click the handy link.

Guess what?

NewsGator’s down. (Turns out I was wrong, see below.)

I don’t think I even need to go into how ironic I found this to be.

I’ve been struggling to decide whether to use Bloglines or NewsGator (with FeedDemon) as my news reader of choice. Last week Bloglines had database trouble amounting to some really goofy (and not trustworthy) numbers being reported with respect to the read / unread counts on my subscriptions. That was just the push I needed to go back to using FeedDemon and therefore NewsGator. Now I can’t connect to NewsGator.

Neither one is looking good to me right now.

[Update] Wow. Well it looks like the problem I was experiencing was local in nature. Apparently none of the other NewsGator subscribers had problems. But what really impressed me is that I have comments on this post below from NewsGator’s CEO, as well as their founder, and venture capitalist. This within hours of posting my complaint. Please read their comments below – this is exactly how to respond to user complaints on public forums like blogs. Respectful, open to communication and helpful.

I can’t imagine they can afford to always be this attentive to user complaints, but I’m damn impressed. I’ll be renewing my subscription.

[tags] NewsGator, RSS, FeedDemon, NewsGator Online, Bloglines [/tags]

Please note: I've moved my active blogging over to a new site, called Jason Clarke - Infinite Bass Line. I will leave this site up indefinitely, but if you're interested in my latest posts please consider visiting the new site.