The Epic #AmazonFAIL of 2009, the aftermath

You'd figure after such a brouhaha, Amazon would be all over damage control, sending out formal apologies, giving out free copies of the de-ranked books, something. Apparently... not so much.

So it was a little glitch. Oops! And Amazon employees were yanked from their family Easter festivities to find the problem, which "didn't take much digging" to figure out. But they couldn't issue any sort of statement, or switch that one little tag from "true" back to "false", until late Monday afternoon? Really?

Have we even received an "official" response to the situation yet? All I've read are these "unofficial comments" from Unnamed Source. I guess this is an "official response." Posted Tuesday morning. If I'd ordered a book Sunday it would have gotten to me faster than that, wouldn't it have? Maybe they should put their shipping department in charge of PR.

Several people are unimpressed with the whole affair, and the explanation. Such as Jane at Dear Author, and Sara at SmartBitches (where Tasha, in the comments, makes a good point: "I would be more likely to believe this was a simple error that resulted in mass de-ranking had there been a mass re-ranking when the error was reversed." I didn't go on Amazon to do any searches myself yesterday or today [don't want to give them more business, still miffed with them], but if what she says is true, the "flipped the wrong switch" story doesn't hold much water, does it?)

Richard Nash has some thought-provoking things to say about the mess.

So does Vroman's Bookstore.

Interesting to note, while the GLBT community was affected the most and was the most vocal about it, their books were not the only ones affected. Which brings us back to Richard Nash's point, doesn't it?

I don't have much to add. Just felt I should update on the situation, and I had lots of linkies to share. I hope they make sense, because my brain is tired and I feel very disconnected from the blogosphere. I haven't had time to read any blogs (that were not tagged #amazonfail), and the six weeks ends Friday and I'll be out Thursday and Friday and I have quizzes to grade and two tests to create and lesson plans for two days to invent and other random grading to catch up on and instead I'm here, writing this. So I hope that explains the discombobulation.