How Cloud Based software failed on one of the busiest newsletter days of the year.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of "Cloud Computing" let me post a Wikipedia explanation:

"Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network (typically the Internet)." 

Software as a service uses the Cloud as the medium to offer 'pay per use' online programs to subscribers on contract. Popular examples of Software as a service include Salesforce.com, Google Enterprise (Enhanced Gmail) and Mail-Chimp.

Don't get me wrong.  I support software as a service and Cloud computing.. but I also now realize that there are benefits and shortcomings to both software solutions.  Here is one example of how  Software as a Service solutions through Cloud computing can falter.

It's January 2nd. The biggest email campaign day of the year!  Many companies hit their lists today while everyone is freshly looking forward at 2012!

Here is a journal of what happened to me on Jan-2:

7:00 AM: Two e-Mail campaigns were created and released using Mail-Chimp.com email service notifying subscribers about upcoming events in 2012 ...
7:10 AM: Thousands of subscribers confirmed receiving my email.
7:30 AM: I verify my test emails and all the links work
9:00 AM:  I receive an email from one of my subscribers  "The links in the e-mail don't work"
11:00 AM: Further emails start to come in  "I have broken links!"
12:00 NOON: I check all my links and confirm that there is a problem with all the links in my e-mail.  The message on the sites  consistently return: 

No URL found for this tracker ID

12:01 PM: I log into my account to test my original email and am greeted with:

12:30 PM I email Mail-chimp:

Their response:

I am now paralized. Unable to do anything to rectify my situation. I am at the mercy of the service provider who directs me to a twitter update page... I now realize I am dealing with an:

EPIC FAIL!

Lesson Learned... No system is ever foolproof.  Software As A Service "AKA Cloud Software" Has it's down days too.

Rest assured, even though today was a disaster for me and many others who used Mail Chimp on January 2, I still am a strong supporter of the service as a viable option for mass mailing list distribution.

I'm just a little bit wiser now.

Kersten is a web strategist located in Calgary Canada. Visit his site at http://AskAWebStrategist.com