With all the "2.0" talk these days (Web, Identity, Where, etc), I thought I'd quickly react to this piece by John Battelle criticizing Google's (lack of) advertiser customer service by relaying two of my recent experiences...

First, Feedster. I blew out my cookies during the whole Blogger.com "AutoSave" debacle. Having signed-up for Feedster over a year ago and never having had to log-in since, I forgot both my user id and password (stupid Tony tricks). I emailed customer support several weeks ago; no auto-response, and no human response. Not good.

Second, Bloglines. After being given a friendly ultimatum from Pete, I contacted Mark Fletcher's crack crew about having my Feeds combined and blocking the private advertising Feeds I was testing. I did get a response (from "M.M.") a few days later, which amounted to "I've forwarded your request to the right group". I waited a couple of days and emailed back asking for an update; three weeks later... nada.

The fact that neither of these companies appears to issue a tracking ticket certainly doesn't help things. But the real point... with all the focus on openess, transparency, the effect of blogs on product marketing and management, tracking what's being said about your company... all great stuff, unless you lose track of the basic blocking and tackling of supporting your customers adequately through channels you've exposed and they count on for the most basic of things, like reclaiming a password...