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Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles

By | February 28, 2011, 2:50pm PST

Summary: Microsoft launched over the past weekend a redesigned version of the Microsoft Answers site. So far, the “new and improved” version has been largely down for the count.

Microsoft launched over the past weekend a redesigned version of the Microsoft Answers site. So far, the “new and improved” version has been largely down for the count.

Microsoft officials acknowledged performance problems shortly after launching the redesigned site on February 26. In a post on the Answers site, a Microsoft official noted the following:

“Since we launched at 7 am this morning, we have seen extremely poor load time on the site. The entire dev team is still in the office working on this issue. We are narrowing the issue down, but still do not have it resolved.”

It seems the issues were still unresolved on February 28, when I asked Microsoft for comment on the reported problems. A spokesperson sent me the following statement:

“The Microsoft Answers site has been experiencing performance issues, specifically concerning intermittent site unresponsiveness. We are actively working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’ll continue to provide updates at Microsoft Answers.”

Microsoft Answers originally launched in beta form in 2008 as a community site for those with questions about Microsoft technologies. The latest update, rolled out this past week, introduces a new “reputation model” that helps users find content written by experts and elevates high-priority questions.

Microsoft officials didn’t provide any further details about what was causing the performance issues or when they expected them to be finally resolved.

Update (late in the evening on February 28): Microsoft officials sent me notification “that the site issues have been primarily resolved.”

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Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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I guess it's fixed?
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RE: Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles
termopane Updated - 13th Oct
@artstate Glad somebody agrees with me. Termopan
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RE: Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles
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It seems pretty fast to me. Maybe slows down time to time, but the average is satisfying. For me at least. http://www.handyortungkostenlos.eu/Prepaid-Handy-Orten/ | http://www.handyortungkostenlos.eu/Handyortung-gratis/
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RE: Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles
CustomComputers 28th Feb 2011
It seems apparent that the new face of the Answers Website is not much better than the assistance provided has been historically.

Could explain why 7 out of 10 technicians Google for answers or use other tech. site venues!!
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Wading through cyber landfills
klumper 28th Feb 2011
@CustomComputers
Could explain why 7 out of 10 technicians Google for answers or use other tech. site venues!!

And considering Google is little more than a trawler's emporium, reducing one to clawing through what amounts to a cyber landfill, that's saying something. wink

Btw I agree, MS publishes an admirable collection of support documents, white papers, help files, etc. FINDING them however, in some halfway logical manner, or per their second-rate indexes, can be sheer hell [resort to SE for that too if web based, rinse, repeat]. Therein lies the hang-up historically.
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RE: Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles
ibannieb Tech Support 28th Feb 2011
Agree. Google usually has the answers.
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Minor correction
DontBeEvil 1st Mar 2011
@ibannieb Tech Support

Usually Google doesnt have answers, the thirdparty sites that Google search results show have the answers.

Please give some credit to the people who actually provide the answers!
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The answer is rarely MS
Richard Flude 28th Feb 2011
"So far, the ?new and improved? version has been largely down for the count."

Surprised? What a company;-)
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What was the question?
dazzlingd 1st Mar 2011
@Richard Flude
Ballmer told the company to be more like Apple. So they are following Apple's example and taking down the whole website for 6 hours to add a single item.

I hear that Amazon were going to use the same model but Bezo's got upset as the website would never be up.
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Yup, just like Apple!
Will Farrell Updated - 1st Mar 2011
@Richard Flude
Yes I understand you didn't want people pointing that out but what can you do, we do have memories here so don't act so surprised.

Apple's RDF doesn't extend over the entire world
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Trying to access it, but it appears to be having problems everytime I click on a link off the homepage. It doesn't seem to be browser specific.
It appears to be back now. Strange...
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design fail
xp-client 1st Mar 2011
not just that. the new design is not so good and it's hard to find the original post.
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RE: Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles
09wwuer0sdvfojkasdfk 1st Mar 2011
Seems to be working fine for me. Very quick on all pages. BTW, Google is a good resource for tech issues but typically only returns meaningful links to sites you would already know if you really worked in IT
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It worked perfectly for me all along
Tim Acheson 1st Mar 2011
Any performance issue must have been mainly academic!
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I've been on it for a few months now, providing answers. The old site was ok, usable. The new one looks pretty, but that is the only good thing I can say about it. 4 days after rollout and I still get frequent timeouts when paging. Other than frequently nearly unusable response time, I don't see any single show stopper, but there are a lot of little "improvements" that add up to make me an unhappy, unpaid, answer provider.

I am seriously considering dropping my participation as too much effort and too little "return" to encourage me to continue.
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You expected otherwise?
james347 1st Mar 2011
Really now.
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