Ok, you may remember a few months ago I raved about the marketing of a San Francisco start up called Xobni. Their marketing drive through the blogosphere was a real tempter and something I held in high regard.

Today, after an overlong delay, I got an email to trial their beta product. So I did.

I should have been more wary when their step-by-step download guide looked a little rushed, but I continued anyway. The result of my gung-ho-ness was Outlook crashing. And then crashing again…bugger.

Xobni did a great job of drawing me in. They used my space to talk up their product. Their product didn’t deliver.

Lesson learnt – meritocracy still rules the web. If your product doesn’t work, you can’t pretend.