First DimDim advertises that you can record your meetings with video and audio with the click of a button. Then you are supposed to be able to few the recording later as well as a transcript from the public chat. A number of weeks ago I hosted a webinar and later found that none of the links with in my account that were supposed to be to the transcript and recording worked. When I reported the issue to DimDim support this is the first response I received:

“Could you please let us know if it is ok to close this support ticket?”

What?!? You can imagine my surprise. With no attempt to correct the issue they were already asking to close the support ticket. After that I posted a message on Twitter about it and Kevin who seems to be their eyes on Twitter @replied to me asking me to email him about the issue. I emailed him what happened and then received an email from another support representative, that said the issue was escalated to him and he asked when he could speak (on the phone) with me. Then shortly after that, and before I was able to respond to the email about when we could speak, I received another email:

“I am sorry for the inconvenience. We have recreated the recording for you. Please refer this following URL to access your recording and let us know if you have any follow up queries”

Ok great, but why did this happen and what is in place to keep it from happening again. Then I received another email:

“Status: Closed – No Response (was: User Verify) Resolution: Fixed. Closing the issue after follow up”

Wow, I understand you want to clear up tickets as quickly as possible, but this really seemed to be pushed through with out anything from my side (the user). The only follow up was another link sent with no explanation and the links within my account still did not work.

Finally I was able to set up a time to speak with support on the phone. Which by the way, they called after the time that I told them I would be available, and I had to interrupt a meeting. Some of my questions were answered though. Apparently DimDim did not have enough resources to support the recording service and at some point had to move the recordings to other servers. However, the back end, i.e. links in profiles were still not working, as they were never updated. I was assured that this would not occur with the 3 upcoming webinars, I had scheduled. When I asked about why the ticket was closed so quickly. I didn’t get much of an answer, supposedly there was a previous email sent about the issue that I never received. But the guy told me I can log in to their support site and track the progress.. Great, I don’t want to have to log into your system and chase you around. I just want it to work. Plus, that still doesn’t explain why the ticket was closed so quickly.

I should also mention that with the first webinar that I hosted, one of the participants could not hear the audio when they dialed in via the telephone to listen. Luckily they were able to switch to their computer speakers and listen in that way. At that time I thought it was a one off thing that would not be a problem.

With all that said, I decided to give them one more try. I had a webinar: An in Depth Look at Twitter, scheduled for July 16th. Everything was set up and I started the webinar on DimDim. shortly after the start I learned that many of the participants could not hear the sound. They were using the phone. Others using their computer speakers were able to hear. So, I suggested those that were on the phone switch over to their speakers. They were still unable to hear anything. Then at one point (DimDim is accessed through a browser) the whole DimDim application froze up for me. Thankfully it came back to life after a about a minute, but I could not restore sound for the participants that could not hear anything. After about 10-15 minutes of trying to troubleshoot. The participants were great, very patient. I had to end the webinar. It turned out to be an embarrassment and now I have to reschedule the webinar.

So, the lesson learned… after a multiple issues including unreliability, no audio, lost recordings and poor service.. I am quite positive I will not be using DimDim ever again.

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