April 2005 Archives

First, I'll say I hate the term CRM and always have. It's nebulous, fatuous, non-descriptive and confusing, and if you ask 99 people what it means, you'll get 99 different definitions. That said, I believe in the concept of CRM and bristle a bit when other news organizations and analysts talk about "the failure of CRM" as if it's the fault of the concept or the software that enables it.

It appears that someone agrees with me. Systems integrator Extraprise has found, in a study released today, that without C-level executive commitment (a/k/a "big cheese buy-in"), strategic planning, data integrity and "user adoption" (translation: getting stubborn employees to quit fearing change and actually use the stuff), CRM is a remarkably successful venture.

I wonder if the people who talk about "the failure of CRM" are the same kind of people who buy lawn mowers, store them in the shed untouched and then complain that it was a waste of money...the lawn doesn't look any better.

TES

Congratulations go today to GeoLearning's CEO Frank Russell, selected as a finalist for the very prestigious 2005 Ernst & Young Enterpreneur of the Year Award. GeoLearning, which produces products and services in the hosted e-learning and training environments, as grown more than 400 percent in the previous four years, a testament to both company quality and the explosion in popularity of the e-learning and interactive training methods as opposed to traditional, dry classroom training for call center professionals.

TES

Frank Russell, president and CEO of GeoLearning, Inc., has been named a finalist for the 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Now in its 19th year, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program is the world’s most prestigious business award and continues the tradition of recognizing entrepreneurial excellence. Winners in the 31 regions across the U.S. will be announced at regional awards celebrations during the month of June, and will then vie for the national awards, to be presented at a black-tie gala in Palm Springs in November.

Under Russell’s direction, GeoLearning has grown to be the leading provider of hosted learning management platforms and training services to corporations and government agencies around the world. The company has grown more than 400% over the past four years, boasting an average annual growth rate of 100.4%. More than 375 companies and government agencies—including high-profile brand names like Dell, Costco Wholesale, Ticketmaster and Nike—have deployed GeoLearning’s Internet-based learning management platform, and rely on its learning services to drive employee and organizational performance.

Russell will compete at the Ernst & Young Central Midwest regional awards program on June 23 in Kansas City, MO. Winners from the 31 regions across the U.S. will then vie at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year national program to be held at J.W. Marriott’s Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, CA on November 17-20.

“The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award is the world’s most prestigious business award. Just being considered is a gratifying achievement,” said Russell. “But mostly it is a testament to the hard work and dedication of many people, including my wife and executive vice president of the company, Linda. And both of us know that GeoLearning’s tremendous success is really a result of the entire GeoLearning team.
As entrepreneurs, one of the most important things we’ve done is hire sharp people and let them do what they do well. Doing that has allowed us to drive the organization’s direction and really focus on strategically growing the company.”

GeoLearning’s successful strategy has been recognized several times of late. Last month, Russell was named Small Business Person of the Year for the State of Iowa by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The company ranked #367 on the Inc. 500 list of “America’s fastest-growing private companies” in 2004, and was named among the top 200 technology businesses in North America by Red Herring Magazine. GeoLearning was also named to TrainingOutsourcing.com’s list of the "Top 20 Companies in the Training Outsourcing Industry." Selection to the list was based on experience in managing
multi-year engagements, commitment to training business process outsourcing services, recognition as a leading outsourcing service provider in the training industry, range of capabilities, and talent level of staff.

Customer sentiment about GeoLearning is just as glowing. Most recently, the company solidified its position as the top-rated enterprise learning management system company with findings from Bersin & Associates’ LMS Customer Satisfaction Study 2005: An Industry Analysis of the Customer Experience with Learning Management Systems. This comprehensive study identified GeoLearning as the customer satisfaction leader or
co-leader in 20 of 26 measures in the enterprise LMS category.

About GeoLearning, Inc.
GeoLearning is the leading provider of Managed Learning Services and hosted learning platforms, having been chosen by more than 350 organizations around the world to manage learning and development. Named to the 2004 Inc. 500, GeoLearning is one of the fastest growing private companies in America. The company’s GeoMaestro™ and GeoExpress™ learning management platforms offer robust registration, tracking and reporting functionality crucial for managing enterprise-wide learning, development and knowledge acquisition. With no hardware or software to install, GeoLearning’s
ASP-hosted platforms can be deployed quickly, allowing clients to efficiently manage human capital development, accelerate critical business processes, and drive organizational performance. Additional information is available at www.geolearning.com.

About the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Program
The Entrepreneur of the Year awards program was created and is produced by professional services firm Ernst & Young LLP. As the first award of its kind, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic and growing businesses. The program honors entrepreneurs through regional, national and global award programs in over 100 cities and 35 countries.

About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young, a global leader in professional services, is committed to restoring the public’s trust in professional services firms and in the quality of financial reporting. Its 100,000 people in 140 countries pursue the highest levels of integrity, quality and professionalism in providing a range of sophisticated services centered on its core competencies of auditing, accounting, tax and transactions. Ernst & Young practices also provide law services in some parts of the world where permitted. Further information about Ernst & Young and its approach to a variety of business issues can be found at www.ey.com/perspectives. Ernst & Young refers to all the members of the global Ernst & Young organization.

Operating in the (what's becoming) highly regulated outbound (and inbound, for that matter) contact center industry is increasingly like navigating a mine field. In this case, however, the mines are $11,000 fines per violation of a rule or regulation pertaining to the amended Teleservices Sales Rule passed over two years ago. In addition to federal compliance, there are numerous and ever changing state rules to be observed. If you were compliant two years ago, or one year ago, or even a few months ago, you may not be now.

Gryphon Networks has released its latest "Gryphon Advisory," a newsletter that updates the industry about what's new and necesary in compliance. The newsletter may be viewed here: http://www.gryphonnetworks.com/downloads/newsletters/2005_04.pdf

TES

Far away are the olden days when companies could put content and functionality onto their Web sites, cross their fingers and hope. It really didn't matter if people had problems with your Web site...it wasn't their primary mode of communication with you, and it wasn't necessary to respond to customer e-mails. No one did, after all.

When companies finally began monitoring how their virtual customers were interacting with their Web sites, the surveys were cumbersome, limited and needed to be designed by professionals. Today, Web survey tools are as necessary to companies doing business off their Web sites as as agents who can write and spell.

Announced this morning is a new tool from Perseus (which specializes in a market it calls "Enterprise Feedback Management.") Details below.

TES

FREE WEB SURVEY SITE LAUNCHED BY PERSEUS, PROVIDER OF ENTERPRISE FEEDBACK MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS

Perseus, the global leader in Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) solutions, announces the availability of SurveySolutions Express, the 100% free web survey site that enables individuals to quickly gather the critical feedback they need to successfully meet their survey goals.

SurveySolutions Express is the first survey tool of its caliber and allows individuals to quickly write and field web surveys that gather feedback fast, free and without the functionality and response limits inherent with alternative web survey sites.

Perseus has helped redefine the web survey market over the past year with innovative technologies that have led the transition from static web survey software to Enterprise Feedback Management solutions that help organizations collaboratively collect, analyze, and share customer feedback within a centrally managed and secure environment, using feedback data like other strategic assets.

“More and more organizations are implementing enterprise-wide strategies to collect, analyze, and use feedback information in conjunction with existing systems, data, and business processes,” said Esteban Kolsky, Research Director with Gartner, “The vendors that succeed will focus on creating centrally administered, integrated frameworks to be used by organizations to deploy feedback as a strategic tool, as opposed to a single-function tool.”

“SurveySolutions Express broadens the exposure of our award-winning technology to individuals with moderate to low survey requirements that may have more sophisticated needs in the future,” said Jeffrey Henning, COO, Perseus Development Corporation.  “For many individuals SurveySolutions Express will be an introduction to the value and power of web surveys. As their needs expand, organizations can migrate to our EFM platform to enhance the value gained through collaboration, panel management and centralized control.”

SurveySolutions Express enables individuals to:

• Design Surveys in Minutes – Express features a step-by-step questionnaire designer to help users create a professional survey in minutes with a wide range of question types, advanced logic and response validations. Express provides countless options to modify the look and feel of each question.

• Collect Answers Immediately – Web surveys can be administered without access to a web server for distribution.  Users can provide respondents with survey access via a web site link, popup or through an email invitation.

• Report Results in Real-time with Summary Analytics – Users are able to manage responses and delete duplicates and/or partial entries, as well as view individual responses in real-time.  Users can select from eight different types of reports or use the analysis functionality to view summary statistics and dozens of charts. Responses can be exported in multiple formats including Excel and SPSS.

• SurveySolutions Express is the only web-based survey site to offer RSS feeds enabling users to keep track of their survey response levels within their personal news aggregator.

SurveySolutions Express is part of the award-winning Perseus SurveySolutions software family capable of managing the most complex enterprise-wide feedback requirements. Used by professionals in HR, marketing, training and customer service, Perseus SurveySolutions is the industry’s only web-based survey software with an intuitive word-processor design environment that speeds survey creation. Perseus SurveySolutions products are fully compatible with Microsoft Office for enhanced ease of use and productivity.

""'People of Earth, your attention please,' a voice said, and it was wonderful. Wonderful perfect quadraphonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep.

'This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council,' the voice continued. 'As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.'

The cult of Douglas Adams is a bit different than other kinds of cults. For one thing, we don't take ourselves remotely seriously. If we did, I wouldn't be making any plans past the end of the week, when the Vogon Destructor Fleet is due to demolish the Earth to make way for a new interstellar bypass.

Friday marks the day when the "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" will appear on big screens everywhere (view trailer at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/trailers).

Decades-long fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (H2G2 to fans) are a bit torn this week: we're ecstatic that our favorite cult book/radio show/low-budget television series is coming to the big screen after years (and years and years) of delay, during which time its creator (the late great Douglas Adams) expired, but we're also trepidatious about its big-screen treatment, and somewhat unwilling to share our special secret goofiness with the general public. (Though admittedly, considering the number of copies the "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" has sold over the decades, the secret society is rather large and none too secret.)

In the countdown to the release of the film (this is truly the week to keep your towel handy, as it's the most massively useful item in the Universe), a special news item showed up (and was spotted by fellow blogger and TMC editor David Butcher) on Reuters: the BBC's launch of a new service to mobile devices that covers "Life, the Universe and Everthing." Essentially, the service will be maintained by registered users and with the use of Wikipedia. (View news item here: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-04-25T122422Z_01_L19322167_RTRIDST_0_NET-MEDIA-BRITAIN-HITCHHIKERS-DC.XML

The BBC will edit entries for pertinence and content before information becomes available, and improper posters will be fed to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

TES

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has just released its first-ever "DMA 2005 Hispanic Market Report," in which it evaluates the growth potential of the Hispanic market in the U.S. for teleservices agencies.

Notable informational tidbits from the report include:

India's largest IT, BPO and teleservices outsourcer, Wipro Limited, today released its fourth quarter fiscal results (ending March 31st) to fanfare: the company reports a 58% growth in net income for its year end. Net income was totaled at $363 million (Rs. 15.83 billion). Revenue was $1.87 billion (Rs. 81.35 billion), which translates to a 39% growth rate over last year. The company's Global IT Services & Products Revenue was $1.39 billion (Rs. 60.71 billion), which is a 40% increase from the previous year.

Company Chairman Azim Premji said, "Wipro recorded yet another year of very good performance. The results of  Wipro Limited once again reflect the passion of 'Wiproites' for facing challenges and triumphing over them. During the year, our Global IT business posted healthy growth in revenues, expanded operating margins and virtually improved all operating parameters. Coupled with robust performance by other businesses as well, we reported a strong growth in our net income. Considering the emerging opportunities in the global market an our unique business model, the future outlook looks as exciting as [the] journey has been so far. Looking ahead, for the quarter ending June 2005, we expect our revenue from Global IT services business to be approximately $395 million."

The company attributes its strong growth to a jump in its number of customers and a bounce back in growth rates from some of its formerly more sluggish divisions (embedded systems and product engineering). Additionally, favorable currency exchange rates contributed to growth, as did improvements in operational processes.

TES

Next Tuesday, April 26th, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is hosting a teleseminar on "Federal And State Teleservices Legislation Update." The event is to be moderated by Robert Borders, president of The TM Group, and speakers are slated to be Dan Smith and Anne Darr of DeHart and Darr Associates Inc. and Joan Mullen of of ORC ProTel, Inc.

Those wanting to register can do so at http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/mtdsp?meeting=CTE0905.

Why is it so important to attend sessions of this nature regularly? Because compliance in teleservices is like aiming at a moving target. If your aim is where it should have been a year ago, chances are it's misaligned today. Though news has been fairly calm as of late, rest assured that the rules haven't gone away: companies have been fined, and fined heavily in the previous year.

If you "think" you're in compliance, think again.

TES

Watch for the "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005" to be passed today by Congress. It's a big gift to the entertainment industry in terms of its prohibition of bootlegging copyrighted audio and video material, or recording a cinema-released film on videotape from the audience (which is the primary means by which films show up for sale on DVD just days after they've been released).

The part that the entertainment industry won't be so happy about is the language that makes it legal for distributors to sell "edited" versions of films, with the language, violence and sex edited out. (One might ask, "What's the point of watching the film?" but then, I suspect I'm not in the target demographic for this type of service.) Hollywood film makers have argued for years that it should be against the law for anyone to alter an artist's vision by cutting out what some subset of the populace does not want to see. (It's too bad this legislation hadn't been signed when the movie "Van Helsing" came out...it would be a service to humanity to edit out the entire contents of the movie between the opening and closing credits.)

But as is often the situation with such multi-point legislation, along with the good (for Hollywood, anyway) comes the bad (once again, for Hollywood). The tricky part, it's felt, is going to be in enforcing the law. Let's face it...the usual attendants at movie theaters (i.e., the people who are supposed to spot the pirates in mid-recording) are usually bored 17-year-olds who are concerned primarily with attaining the affections of the cute popcorn clerk or wondering if her shift will go by any faster if she commences building a paper clip chain behind the ticket desk. Additionally, a great deal of pirating and distribution of the resulting material happens off U.S. shores, and even Congress' long arms can't get to street vendors in Shanghai.

I don't really have an opinion either way about the ability for some distributors to whitewash objectionable-to-some-people material out of films. Certainly no filmmaker would have the right to complain if you merely skipped over the scenes with your remote. I'm wondering if the technology could be used to automatically edit spiders out of movies. Coming from the girl who can't even make it beyond the opening credits of "Arachnophobia," this would be handy.

TES

I find Web cams strangely enthralling. When Mount St. Helens threatened to blow last year, I periodically logged onto the "Volcano Cam" to see how high the plume of ash and steam was. I even fell for the "Corn Cam" several years ago, when it was chic among Web surfers to log in and see how high the corn in some Iowa farmer's field had gotten that day. (The link is at http://www.iowafarmer.com/corn_cam/ but it has not yet been made active this growing season.) My particular favorite was the "Hamster Cam" (located at http://hamstercam.frogtown.com/) which more often than not, allowed you to watch a hamster sleep.

If you're into cutting-edge action/adventure, this may not be the hobby for you.

Now we've got the "Vatican Cam." Yes, the cardinals locked up in the Cistine Chapel (talk about a conference room with a view) have gone high tech (actually, it's the Washington Post's Web cam) and allowed us to keep regular tabs on the white smoke/black smoke business. You can find the link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/vaticancam.htm

Unfortunately, it doesn't much work when it's night time in Rome...black smoke is hard to spot against a black sky. I'm hoping the final selection occurs during daylight in Rome, when I can spot the white smoke. Otherwise, I might ultimately have to admit to myself that I've wasted weeks watching a fuzzy picture of a stationary stone building.

TES

Compliance is a tricky thing: you do your homework to find the most effective solution for following the scads of federal and state legislation, you implement the solution and then you hope for the best. Call Compliance and TPG TeleManagement have joined forces and created a new audit service, Compliance Testing & Solutions, LLC (CTS). CTS has been created especially for teleservices companies, which bear perhaps the greatest compliance burden in b-to-c business.

The new service offers a kind of third-party verification and covers the compliance gamut: do-not-call lists of all kinds, dialing restrictions/legislation, billing requirements, and internal compliance procedures.

TES

Call Compliance, Inc. and TPG TeleManagement, Inc. Team to Provide
Compliance Audit Service for Teleservices Industry

Call Compliance, Inc., patent holder of the TeleBlock solution and provider of do-not-call compliance services, and TPG TeleManagement, Inc., a provider of quality and performance management services and software for the teleservices industry, announced today the creation of a new audit service aimed at helping companies that use teleservices solve the compliance puzzle.

The new company, Compliance Testing & Solutions, LLC (CTS), was formed with the special concerns of the teleservices professional in mind. "This is about leveraging the collective expertise of two industry leaders in order to help companies that use the teleservices channel," said John Glantz, President of TPG Telemanagement. "Separately, our companies are the best in our respective areas, but together, we have been able to develop the program, and deploy the resources, that will enable our clients to take compliance to the next level," he continued.

CTS, which has already been engaged by its first client, has developed a unique compliance audit program covering all the essential elements of today's complex calling operations, including Do Not Call, predictive dialer usage, billing requirements, and internal compliance procedures. The CTS program encompasses on-site audits, detailed questionnaires, procedure and script analysis, as well as review and analysis of calling data.
"The CTS service will deploy detailed audit plans and data analysis to review our clients' inbound and outbound calling activity, technologies and procedures," said Joseph Sanscrainte, General Counsel for CTS. "The key for compliance in 2005 and beyond is third-party verification, and that's exactly what CTS provides," continued Mr. Sanscrainte.

About Compliance Testing & Solutions, LLC
Formed as a joint venture between Call Compliance, Inc. and TPG TeleManagement, Inc., Compliance Testing & Solutions, LLC (CTS) is your first line of defense against investigations and fines for telemarketing related infractions. CTS' team of seasoned professionals will review all of your procedures, from the ground floor up, and let you know whether you're in compliance with the complex set of state and federal telemarketing rules. For further information, call 866-556-8858.

About Call Compliance, Inc.
Call Compliance, Inc. (www.callcompliance.com), a privately held company located in Glen Cove, NY, is the leader in developing innovative technological compliance solutions for the teleservices industry. Call Compliance's flagship product, TeleBlock, is recognized across the teleservices spectrum as the gold-standard in ensuring the 100 percent level of compliance mandated under State and Federal Do Not Call laws. For further information, call 888-674-6774.

About TPG TeleManagement, Inc.
TPG TeleManagement, Inc. (www.tpginc.com), is the industry's leading provider of quality and performance management services and software. TPG's innovative technology and talented professionals bring a new perspective to quality management. Whether it's our use of standard deviation to measure calibration, or our proven correlations between our SEL System Quality Metrics and channel results, TPG constantly strives to develop new techniques and methodologies to lead the quality management industry. For further information, call (215)369-0500.

There's a great opinion piece in the New York Times today. Editors of the Times point out that were it not for California's law requiring that customers who have their personal information stolen be notified (California is the ONLY STATE IN THE UNION with such a law), no one would have ever known about the stolen data disasters at LexisNexis and ChoicePoint.

The writer calls the California law and the consumers that benefit from it, the "canary in the data mines," a great analogy.

Despite identify theft becoming rampant and producing an estimated $50 billion per year in losses, Federal legislation has been lagging. Keep your fingers crossed Senators Feinstein and Nelson are successful in their endeavors.

TES

Identity Thieves' Secret Weapon

Published: April 15, 2005

ut for a single innovative law in California, the nation's consumers might not even be hearing some of the more outrageous news about mass heists of supposedly secure computer information from reputedly trustworthy sources: LexisNexis gently announces about 32,000 suspected thefts of identity data, which soon balloon to 310,000. ChoicePoint, a data broker and credit reporting agency with access to 19 billion records, lets 145,000 consumers know their personal data may have been stolen.

These are among hundreds of thousands of warnings to vulnerable Americans surfacing mainly because California has a law requiring that consumers be notified when their personal data are pilfered. There is no such federal law, even though identity theft produces $50 billion a year in personal and business losses. As California's consumers play the canary in the data mines, consumer and law enforcement organizations are putting pressure on loosely regulated data brokers to let the rest of us in on their failures. But this is hardly the way to safeguard the American consumer.

Recent Senate hearings show that no one really knows how deeply hackers and in-house thieves are tapping into our personal records. There was the purloining of Ford Motor Credit reports on 30,000 consumers so street thieves could empty bank accounts and run up purchases. Computer backup tapes were lost at the Bank of America with the Social Security numbers and other vital data of 1.2 million federal workers.

Worthy proposals, starting with upfront, nationwide notification of security breaches, are being offered by senators from some of the most victimized states: Dianne Feinstein of California, Bill Nelson of Florida and Charles Schumer of New York. The nation also needs tight regulation of the security and business practices of data brokers and credit agencies, and a ban on the easy access and sale of Social Security numbers without individual consent. Consumers, not data dealers, deserve controlling interest in their vital information.

Indifferent lawmakers cannot say they have not been warned.

If you're like me, you frequently suffer from password panic. It's a chronic affliction.

I went to pay my Verizon bill online today. When I followed the link from my reminder e-mail, I was asked for my user name and PIN number. PIN number? I don't remember having a PIN number with Verizon. Last I remember, I had a password...my standard password, which I've been using for years. (No lectures on changing passwords for security purposes, please...you do it too.)

Finally, bewildered, I asked Verizon to "remind" me what my PIN number was. They sent a text message to my phone about three milliseconds after I clicked the "send new PIN" button on the Web site. Problem solved.

Modern security experts tell us NEVER to write passwords down. Someone might see them! Don't use obvious PINs and passwords, either. Someone might guess them! Unfortunately, I'm seldom the one who can guess them.

What these experts haven't acknowledged yet is that most of us are suffering from a complete password, username and PIN overload.

My standard password is alphabetical. For a straight user name and password set-up, I'm usually OK. When an account asks for an alphanumeric password, I'm sunk.

Many of us pay the vast majority of our bills online, do our banking online, view our credit card balances and home and car loans online. We have work e-mail accounts, home e-mail accounts, and a throwaway Yahoo! account we keep for interactions with a high spamability factor (ordering from catalogs, for example). Many of us carry wireless devices that are password-protected. We all have ATM accounts and work and home voice mail. I regularly get reminder pops from a multitude of companies that some bill or other is due: cell phone, cable, phone service, electric bill, car loan, mortgage, car payment, credit card payment, shopper's club renewal, insurances and various other periodic payments).

Additionally, many of us buy from online merchants or subscribe to online publications that require user names, PINs and passwords to operate.

Let's say that, on average, only half of these companies allow you to determine your standard, tried-and-true username and password. That leaves you with rougly 10 to 15 instances each month when you have to reach into your memory for the correct combination of identifying user name or account number, plus PIN or password.

Right. Most days, I'm lucky to remember to close the car door before I start driving.

I long for the day when biometrics becomes a common, everyday method of determining I am who I say I am. Because...no matter how feebleminded modern life makes me, I'm pretty sure I will always remember to take my eyeballs, fingertips and larynx with me in the morning.

TES

Before I muse a little on the news highlighted by Johanne Torres' recent article on TMCnet, "Comcast VoIP Plan Rolls Out in Boston and Hartford, CT," (http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/articles/2005/comcast-voip-digital-voice-boston-hartford.htm), I'll say first that I'm a Comcast customer, by virtue of where my house happens to be, for both cable television and broadband. I've written in the past before about how I find Comcast to be the most customer-service challenged company I've ever had the displeasure to deal with. Each interaction with Comcast takes a year off my life...I'm convinced of it.

Reading Johanne's article this morning, I find that Comcast is ready to offer me VoIP phone service. The news caught my eye for personal reasons: I currently use AT&T CallVantage for VoIP service, so anytime I can consolidate one more service onto a single bill, I'm usually interested.

Then I read a little further: for me, a (unwilling) Comcast customer, they're going to offer me the "bonus" rate of $39.95 a month! Wow! Considering I'm paying only $29.95 a month to AT&T, I'm not sure why Comcast expects me to get tickled about this. An extra $10 a month for...well, I'm not exactly sure.

The company is touting its E-911 service, but I get that with CallVantage. Comcast cites "the convenience of calling one number for customer service," presumably to customers with bundled services. Great! Instead of losing one year off my life each time I call Comcast customer service, I'll lose 18 months!

Shortly after I sign up for the new Comcast Digital Voice service, I'll venture down to the nearest bus station and ask if I can have the privilege of cleaning their restrooms if I pay them $10. To me, it's the same thing.

TES

There should be a special place in hell for Web developers who disable your "back" button. I'm sure it's happened to you before. You're surfing a Web site, finishing copying down the recipe for garlic-pineapple pickles in aspic, and then attempt to return to the page you were looking at before the craving for garlic-pineapple pickles in aspic assailed you. No go...you're stuck.

What the Web developer is doing is not so much "disabling" your back button, but causing the same page to reload each time you try to go back. The result is: no matter how many times you click back, you're like a gerbil on a wheel. A lot of effort, but you're not going anywhere.

This is a particularly annoying trick in the Google era. Crafting a Google search has become an art: a mix of "exact phrases" and single words that generates a page that is of interest to you. We've honed our skills through years of using search engines, and can now lay money on the fact that we'll get a relevant hit to what we want every time we search, because we know the quirks and tricks of the search engine.

Problem is, when you follow a link off a Google results page, and then find you can't go back, you've lost your carefully crafted search and have to start over again.

The way I look at it, the kind of Webmasters who disable the back button to keep browsers on their sites are probably the same kind of people who think locking their dates up involuntarily in restraints will only result in helping a lovely evening go on for longer. The thought process is bewildering, to say the least.

TES