10e20 - Latest Comments in Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

rebeccakelley — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:36:47 -0000

I know, seriously, you'd have to be living in a bomb shelter to not have thought that anything Michael Jackson-related would cause an apeshit reaction.

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Rhea Drysdale — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:22:29 -0000

Late on this one, but it's funny and useful. Love it. Definitely don't understand how they could launch this without better preparation. MJ shut the Internetz down, of course his donation site is going to do the same, did you see those crazy Englishmen dancing in the streets of London?!

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Terry H — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:34:23 -0000

I don't understand why they would word it Help Give Michael the Memorial he deserves as if he had no money at all. There never should've been donations for his memorial.

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Seattle Janitor — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:23:49 -0000

Nice Blog

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Matachstick — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:08:09 -0000

Actually the total the city spent was just over 3.9 Million, other factors and city services are in play than just security for this event.

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Jake_Matthews — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:38:49 -0000

LOL - this one cracked me up:

"I couldn’t even click back to the first slide to get back to the Michael Jackson information–the slide show was totally borked and wouldn’t let me skip or click on anything."

so typical of people who have no clue what they are doing.

great post!

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

rebeccakelley — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:15:01 -0000

I don't expect them to know exactly how to have executed it perfectly, but common sense dictates that if you're trying to raise $1.4 million in a relatively short amount of time, that's going to come from a lot of people who will be visiting your site. That's where the logical "Can our site withstand that many visitors" question comes in.

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Matt Earle — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:55:02 -0000

This is the municipal government... not exactly motivated or ambitious people. If you think it should have been obvious to them how to execute this properly, you are way too enthralled in the online marketing world.

I totally agree though, next time they should definitely hire a company like yours - spend $20K, make $500,000.

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

andrew wee — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:54:33 -0000

Or even better.

1) A catchy domain - RememberingMichael.com
2) CA-based (or even better LA-based) hosting provider to sponsor load balancing/grid hosting
3) Payment processor with scalability to handle spikes/bursts
4) Problem solved.

Politicos fail.

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

chriswinfield — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:19:16 -0000

I still can't get past the big "HELP GIVE MICHAEL".

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Chris Goddard — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:16:26 -0000

Great post Rebecca! It's surprisingly unsurprising that a city government would make such a mistake. Let's be honest here - governmental bodies of any size are typically known for their tech-literacy. Just remember - "the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes!"

Keep on keeping on Abe!

Re: Donation Fail: How Los Angeles Screwed Itself with Michael Jackson’s Donation Website

Jack Leblond — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:56:18 -0000

It does seem as though somebody should have known better, but how many times has that been said about anything even remotely connected to government?

BTW - So glad to know Abe is still with us!