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October 2007

You are browsing the archive for October 2007.

Bad Spam

October 31, 2007

You might argue that all spam is bad, and you'd be right. But some spam is worse than others.

I just got this one:

"Summer is coming. Time to tone up!"

Given that spamming is a career for failures, when you even fail at spam, it's time to just give up on life.

TES

Vonage V. Verizon

October 26, 2007

Too many "V" words to keep track of...

In any case, here's an interesting case presented by TechDirt that Vonage was the true innovator, and Verizon essentially came late to the game and sued Verizon out of a bad case of sour grapes:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071025/184419.shtml

TES

Fed Do Not Call List Upheld

October 23, 2007

The Federal Trade Commission today announced its decision to keep the five-year-old federal do-not-call registry intact. When the Registry was created, the FTC had originally adopted a five-year re-registration mechanism before essentially "starting over," requiring people who had been on the list (now 145 million numbers) to re-register to ensure that the list is up to date.

The decision was made today to retain the list as is.

According to the FTC, "The Registry has been implemented successfully for five years and has included a scrubbing program that has removed disconnected and reassigned numbers each month. Finally, “[T]he Registry has enjoyed unprecedented popularity and helped enhance the privacy of the American public in a tangible way.”

You can read the full release here on the FTC's Web site: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/dnctestimony.shtm

TES







Find Me, Follow Me

October 19, 2007

I recently needed my chimney cleaned. It had been a while, and I'm one of those people who forever worry about chimney fires. I'd never had it done in this house before, so I did a Google search for chimney sweeps in my town. I found five names.

Led Zeppelin Ring Tones

October 15, 2007

Spotted this on the feeds today, and it makes me wonder...are Led Zeppelin fans REALLY likely to download custom ring tones and wallpapers?

I had rather imagined that those who download stuff like that are more in the market for boy bands and pop music. Do Baby Boomers really go in for all the cell phone personalization business?

Maybe they do. I imagine Verizon wouldn't pursue it if they didn't think it was viable.

OK...I feel hopelessly un-hip now.

TES

Disney Customer Service

October 12, 2007

There's an article on MSNBC today about airports turning to Disney for tips on customer service:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21225028/

It's worth the read. If you've ever been to a Disney park and you know a thing or two about customer service, you're likely to observe that nobody does it better than Disney. Crowd control and queue management have been turned into art forms by Disney, and the company also does very well with one-on-one customer service.

I once personally observed a customer service miracle at Disneyworld: my then three-year-old niece was eating a Mickey-shaped ice cream off a stick. It was a hot day, and as ice creams do in hot weather, the ice cream fell off the stick, dropping onto the pavement.




Tech-themed Baby Clothes

October 10, 2007

Tired of sports-related clothes for boys and flowery, princess-themed clothes for girls? (Nothing like setting your kids up for marketing-approved stereotypes from the get-go.)

Try CleverCuties.com, a Web site devoted to parents who are proud to be geeks. (Geeks being the bringers of knowledge and all...who isn't proud to be a geek?)

The moment I spotted this, I knew I had to have it:



TES

Nobel Prize for Nanotech Computing

October 9, 2007

It's nice to see a Nobel prize in Physics won by researchers in the computing industry:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21202515/

While I certainly love to (try and) read about quantum theory and really way-out stuff, it's good to see a Nobel in this category getting grabbed by some individuals with practical applications for their work.

TES

Buyer's Guides

October 4, 2007

It's fall...time to think "Buyer's Guides." Every year, the December issue of Customer Interaction Solutions is our print Buyer's Guides. We know everyone wants to be in it. You know you do. It's time to create your basic listing so your company will appear both in print AND in the online versions. If you think you already have a basic listing, double-check it: anything older than July of this year will not be picked up...you need to update!

To create/edit your Buyer's Guide listing for any of TMC's publications, or to see about purchasing an enhanced listing, visit http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/bg.htm.

TES

Spam Headlines

October 2, 2007

I normally don't even register the spam anymore, I just delete it in large blocks. But every once in a while, a headline makes it through my pre-coffee subconscious. (And let's face it, my subconscious is the only part working before coffee).

Yesterday, for some inexplicable reason, every other spam I received was something about yachts. Buy yachts, sell yachts, check out this yacht, do you want a yacht?

It's Beginning To Sound Like E-commerce Christmas

October 1, 2007

I'm always amazed at how early Christmas decorations start showing up in retail stores. All I can say is, I'm glad for Halloween.

Why?

Halloween, being a huge merchandising opportunity (candy, costumes, decorations, plastic skulls made in China, cheap fog machines, compilation CDs of spooky music, fake plastic tombstones, etc.), does us a favor. It "holds back" the Christmas merchandising until, at the very least, November 1st.



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