You know, the more I keep thinking about it, the more I belive it actually *might* be an April's Joke thing. That, or people running the site (and I mean both Viacom than TNT) are clearly beyond help.
If you sum it all up:
1) They introduce a new layout out of the blue. Without as much as an *indication* that they're going to (let alone actually asking users' opinion)
2) Ugly or not, it clearly is rather buggy (sidebar floating in the middle of the screen, pet images showing up where they shouldn't, actual error messages etc.)
3) They introduce it right before the weekend, which means we're stuck with it for three days without any response to all the negative comments
4) As if the shock wasn't enough, they introduce obligatory customisation in the same time...
5) ... just a couple of days after the beta stage, which makes you question the purpose of beta. It doesn't look as if they wanted feedback from the users since they went ahead with it anyway, without practcally any changes.
6) They showed us the redraws. The majority of us said they hate them. They kept the redraws. Shiny, shiny logic.
7) This is probably my favourite one - launching customisation prior to introducing any wearable items. A stroke of genius. The best way to convince users that customisation will make up for the redraws.
Honestly, if you take it all into cosideration it looks like the *main purpose* of it all is to make people as mad as they can. Every single step is a disaster from the marketing point of view, and thay could have easly avoided some of them. Not introduce the new layout and customisation in the same time. Or not do it just before the weekend. Or make the gap between beta and actual launch a little longer, if only to make it *look* like they're mulling over our comments. Or release at least 10 wearable items *right now*.
It gives me the impression that people running the site have zero knowledge on marketing, PR and all that stuff. Which doesn't seem right, since TNT have been around for 7 years and should be able to predict users' responses, plus I rather suspect that Viacom knows that infuriating clients is not the best way to increase profit. Or at least they should.
If they are dead serious about all this then I don't forsee a great future ahead of them.
(Sorry for all eventual spelling/grammar misatkes, English is not my mother tongue plus I'm rather ticked off right now
)