You make the call

What is a Web 2.0 company doing sending an embargoed anything to bloggers? Anyway, that said…

I would look at it as an opportunity. They should have a lot of hits on their site in the next day or two. I would get some more navigation up about the service (give the info they prepared for bloggers to whomever visits).

Also, they will be capturing a lot of e-mails early. I would take advantage of that, I would have some sort of promotion for anyone who signed up before May 15.

Create a real “insider” buzz. This in turn would inspire more posts by bloggers and e-mails, as well as sign-ups.

Actually, with the competition they have in this space, this company probably needed a little bit of controversy and buzz to get out of the clutter anyway.

As far as breaking an embargo is concerned, I would definitely try to punish the person responsible along with anybody who was involved in breaking it. How can you deal with someone if they are going to ruin your big idea. That’s not the way business should be run. If I were in charge, I would prosecute 10-fold…or do I even know what I’m talking about?

I agree with Patrick that the individual responsible for letting this news out should be reprimanded for their action. But if I were the CEO, I would consider this something that could become positive. Obviously, this slip-up is going to generate alot of buzz for the company and even with Google acting as the elephant(in that it never forgets) it allows that buzz to be fed by the massive amount of hits the broken embarg will generate.
The CEO should think about issuing a statement that while this was not the plan for their new product, they are going to allow it to continue on and they are confident the public will respond in a positive way.
Overall, this could turn out to be less of a crisis for Antonio’s company than originally thought.

The CEO, Antonio Rodriguez, at this point, is doing what he should be doing: waiting and learning of the effects of breaking a PR cardinal rule of embargo is going to have. You can see one of his comments here. http://www.parmet.net/pr/2006/05/05/oops/
However like the above post on the site I gave you mentioned, “give them enough information to ensure they understand what you are offering them but no more.�

As far as the competitors ripping Tabblo off and stealing its features like some suggest would happen, I don’t think this is the case. What features? Yes, Kerry Metzdorf introduced the program early to an unknown audience. But it’s not like she gave anyone a download file to steal.

I’m thinking that Rodriguez and Metzdorf must have had a meeting before her scrutinizing actions, would make her pitch mutual. Therefore, I suggest Rodriguez learn if bending the rules of embargo will work in his favor, or if bad press and negative blogs will spread unfavorably among the consumer base.

I believe that Rodriguez (Tabblo CEO) has handled the situation in a fairly positive manner. By including a link to his response on the blog(http://theonda.org/articles/2006/05/06/the-cluetrain-does-stop-at-tabblo-station), he not only attempted honest transparency, he also FURTHER promoted his product. His post is not just a public response to the broken embargo, but it answers the two main questions posed by valleywag and many others that were concerned about the product. This company has used this incident as free publicity and ridden on the coattails of the “scandal.” I know those who believe that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I’m not sure that I agree with that completely, but in this case, it may be true. Was the broken embargo actually planned? I obviously couldn’t answer that question. But I am forced to honestly ask myself: would I have heard about this new photo-sharing site without the broken embargo scandal? Probably not. I am interested to see what comes of it all.

It is a hard decision to make I think . . . but honestly if I were in their shoes I would see it this way: Yes, take advantage of the free publicity, but still stick to the May 15th release date. Either way I think that they can win. But my question is, why was that e-mail even sent out in the first place? There should have been a lot more thought and care taken in that decision.

I believe that Rodriguez has handled this situation quite well.

If I were the CEO I would look at this with both positive and negative reactions too. Yes, there is an advantage to getting publicity this early…there is no such thing as bad publicity..right or wrong?

But, I would find the leak and enforce consequences for their actions. You can’t have someone who leaks information representing your company.

As for the date. I would probably release more information closer the the actual release date to keep people interested.

The person who broke the embargo should definetely be punished for his actions. This CEO had a lot to deal with in this particular situation. This situation can be made better however. They still get the free publicity; and what is wrong with that?

Also, this happened a while back and I’m having a difficult time finding new information on it. Has the whole thing blown over?