In Podcast 142 Kevin De Wit told us about the email that Gobbler sent out advising all Gobbler 1 that…

• Gobbler 1 accounts would be closed as of 1st December 2014
• Gobbler 1 users should download their content from the Gobbler 1 system and upload it to Gobbler 2 by December 1st 2014 if they didn’t want to loose it.

We know that Kevin wasn’t the only one that was a little shocked by this email, we received the same email too.

Gobbler Hold Their Hands Up And Fix The Mistake

Within a couple of days Gobbler send out a second email explaining that they had made a mistake and what they were going to do to resolve it.

Recently, we sent an email letting you know we were planning on sunsetting the Gobbler 1.0 product. We didn’t think things through as thoroughly as we should have and we know how important Gobbler is to your workflow. So I spoke with the team and we have a new plan.

First and foremost, we will NOT be shutting down service for previously paid users effective December 1st. While free Gobbler 1.0 accounts will be closed, we will continue to provide the paid Gobbler 1.0 service until our 2.0 product can provide a rich set of features that truly improves upon the 1.0 client. Your data will continue to be available and your service will not be interrupted!

Furthermore, we’d like to say thank you for being a loyal Gobbler:

• Starting today your paid account is FREE

• You can now use as much storage as you’d like

If you have already paid for an annual account, we will be issuing a prorated refund to you. If you have a monthly subscription, you will not be charged again related to Gobbler 1.0.

This week, we met up with the CEO of Gobbler, Chris Kantrowitz and he gave the details behind what went on and also addressed some of the other concerns about migration and backups.

The Email Should Not Have Gone To Everyone

Chris explained that the original email was meant to only go to people with dormant free Gobbler 1 accounts, ie people who had signed up for a free Gobbler 1 account, and hadn’t used it in a long time.

Server Side Migration

With regard to migration of content stored on Gobbler 1 to Gobbler 2, Chris was at pains to explain that they are hard at work in making this work at server level. The problem isn’t the content, the problem is databases. Gobbler 1 and Gobbler 2 use different database formats and they want to be sure that the migration system they are working on, will work properly. The last thing they want to do is to release a migration system that doesn’t work and content appears to vanish in the migration process. We have seen this before in other brand’s migration programmes and it wasn’t pretty.

So paying Gobbler 1 users, rest assured that the Gobbler team are working hard to get a server based migration system that will work, and until they are confident that it will work, users that paid for Gobbler 1 accounts can contiinue to have access to your Gobbler 1 accounts, and content hosted there.

Gobbler 2 Is A Backup Service Too

Concerns have been voiced that Gobbler 2 is only a collaboration service and that Gobbler are dropping the backup features in Gobbler 1 in the move to Gobbler 2.

Gobbler 2 is designed to scan project files from a wide range of DAW platforms and so when you drop a Pro Tools session file, for example, into a Workspace in Gobbler 2 it collects up all the assets relating to that project and uploads them to the Gobbler 2 cloud, irrespective of where they are on your system.  In addition with Gobbler 2, as you continue to work on that project, as you change the session, add more content etc, Gobbler 2 will automatically pick up those changes and backup all those additions and changes to the cloud too without you needing to prompt it.

Chris stressed to us that Gobbler 2 is very much a backup solution as well as a collaboration solution and recommends that you put each project in its own Workspace so you can keep track of them in the Gobbler 2 app.

New Features in Gobbler 2

 Gobbler have also just announced some new features that they have added to Gobbler 2…

• You can now upload folders and multiple files as well as use drag-and-drop all with the Gobbler App to sync to a Workspace in Gobbler 2.
• Gobbler 2.0 supports any file formats so you can throw in some mp3 bounces, cover art, in fact anything else you want in your Workspace and keep all those assets together in one place in the cloud.
• Gobbler 2.0 now updates from within the App which means less work for you to keep up with the latest features. 

An Example On How To Handle Mistakes Well

We were initially shocked and concerned when the first email came through, and that Gobbler had lost the plot. But the second email and the subsequent assurances from the CEO himself, Chris Kantrowitz, to explain what went wrong, as well as Gobbler offering refunds to paying Gobbler 1 users, is an example of what to do when you make a mistake.

Hold your hands up, own up to the mistake and they go the extra mile to fix the problem. Thank you Chris and all the team at Gobbler for demonstrating the best way to handle things when you mess up.