Scheduled Maintenance This Sunday & Pending Cashouts
We will be performing scheduled maintenance and backups tomorrow (this Sunday, 11th May 2008. at 10PM-11:30PM). During this time, you may not be able to log into Advertlets.com and ads may not be displayed all the time throughout this period. After that time period, normal service should resume, and it might even be slightly faster too 
We note that also, some of you may not have received your cheques yet, please read more if you have a pending cashout that has not reached you yet. Thanks.
Scheduled Downtime for Maintenance & Upgrades
Just a quick note that there may be some downtime tonight (between 2AM-4AM) as we proceed with server maintenance and further upgrades to enhance our ad serving speed.
During this time, you may not be able to log into your Advertlets account, and more default ads may be shown in greater frequency during that time period. The network is continuing to grow at a tremendous rate, and we will continue to upgrade to cope with the demand and provide great service. Please also let us know in the morning if things are loading faster for you, thanks!
Advertlets Back On, New Campaigns Coming
Hi, just a quick note to all that the DNS has succesfully resolved and we are fully back on. It’ll be a good time to install back your ad code today, as we have new ads coming within the next 1-3 days. And, the compensative plan will be announced next week, Monday.
Also, a note to all Advertlets registered members - we recently sent out an e-mail, and quite a few e-mails could not be contacted. If you have not received a response to an enquiry sent to the Advertlets team, do make sure your mailbox is not full, especially if you have a payment due. We will need to get in touch with you to verify your address details.
Also, if you have registered recently with Advertlets, if you don’t get the verification mail, do check your bulk mail folder just in case. Alternatively, you may want to make sure you typed in the right e-mail address: we noticed some “gmial.com” and “htomil.com” addresses, and do be certain if your e-mail address ends with a .com or com.sg too. More updates later today, cheers.
Advertlets.com : We’re sorry.
Hi,
This is Josh Lim here from Advertlets. This is directed all reading this, including bloggers that have registered with Advertlets in our key markets of Malaysia & Singapore.
Firstly, we admit. We made an error in judgment, and we did not intend for this to happen. And we are very sorry that it did, and would like to apologize for everyone affected. Some small mistakes are resolved easily, and affect a few. And some mistakes, however small, can affect millions.
Most of you are probably disappointed, confused or angry at the recent downtime that has happened, that has cut off access to your blogs. Over the past few days, we have been doing everything we can to restore service, as well as answering e-mails, phone calls, smses, media interviews, and support requests.
Its hard to apologize to more than 15,000 members, and this e-mail was hard to type, but undoubtedly necessary. And first, I’ll probably be best to start by answering questions you might have:
What happened?
A complication in the renewal process caused the Advertlets.com domain to expire, and caused issues for bloggers with our ads installed, which made their blogs redirect to a placeholder page. It was not our intent to do so. Advertlets.com blog users were unable to login to their Advertlets accounts and access the website as well.
How many did it affect?
According to our statistics, it affected 30-65% of traffic to our network over the past 2 days. On most days, we experience between 3-4 million ad impressions per day. The viewers of most blogs were affected in some way, depending on the nature of how DNS settings would resolve in different countries and ISPs. Some would resolve faster, some would not, which caused varying experiences for viewers in different places.
What can I do to resolve the problem?
You can follow some troubleshooting steps listed at http://advertlets.blogspot.com, a site temporarily set up to assist in this issue. Or, you can remove your code for the time being, and we will notify you when it has been fully resolved.
Whose fault is it?
Ours. The short answer is that it is our fault. The longer answer is that we tried everything we could as soon as we knew, however, some uncontactable and uncooperative parties made it harder. Nevertheless, the blame lies with us, and we will take full responsibility for it, and to resolve it.
What will happen to my current earnings?
Your current earnings will be retained within the system, and we will continue to serve paid ads for you to continue to earn in future.
If I choose to continue with Advertlets, can I be assured that this will never happen again? And how do you intend to compensate us for the error?
The domain has been renewed, and we will make sure that this can never happen again. We resolve to do better in future, and have more failsafe options available. A financial compensation plan is being worked out, and will be announced on Monday. (We will take more time to assess the situation to work out a compensation plan that will be satisfactory to all, will be within this month).
Will we be continuing operations?
Yes. Paid ads are beginning to be served through the system again in available locations.
Where is service available as of now? How soon until everything is okay?
We’ve received reports that the DNS has successfully resolved partially for the following ISPs:
- Jaring (Malaysia)
- TMNet (Malaysia)
- Starhub Maxonline (Singapore)
- PT Telkom (Indonesia)
Service is continuing to be restored throughout the rest of Asia and the world and all service should be fully restored in less than 12 hours.
Its heartening that some have been of great assistance to us in this difficult time, providing us with service updates from their area as well as moral support. But to those that were frustrated, we understand your frustration, and it frustrates us even more to have been the source of it. All in all, we are still in awe as to how passionate all of you are. And how many people have chosen to make Advertlets part of their channel of expression. It is our hope that you can continue to do so.
We will be notifying all when service is 100% functional, to assist you with your decision on the continued use of our services. Your impressions are your votes. And if you can forgive us, we will make sure your trust is never again misplaced.
We will be making some personnel changes and new additions to ensure that everything - support, ad loading time, code, and more run smoothly in future. Major upgrades to the system are due in February, in the form of Advertlets 2.0 with new ad formats, referrals, earning graphs, social features, and traffic generation facilities. And of course more contests, advertising revenue and sponsored post opportunities.
We hope that in the next few days we can prove ourselves again to you, nevertheless, our redemption will be in your hands. Once again, we apologize.
Regards,
- -
Josh Lim
On behalf of all at Advertlets.com
Advertlets Ads To Resume Soon
Quick update: The Advertlets website and user login are currently showing to most publishers already, and as soon (in the next few hours) as the DNS for media.advertlets.com resolves advertising will resume as usual.
