27 March 2009

Thesis crowdsourcing experiment

I'm working on my thesis and thought it might be a cool social experiment to try to crowdsource for help. Its not about helping me write my thesis, but helping me find studies, articles, opinions and books. I've found a lot of books and studies (I'll list those this weekend) but of course there is now way I could find everything.

I'm not sure if Nebraska will let me do this yet.. crossing my fingers. But it would certainly be a cool experiment. It would also allow me to enlist news readers to vote whether they thought my thesis was correct and answer survey questions. I'll update you on whether I get a yes or no.

21 March 2009

Tell Comcast its 2009

Comcast Cares right? So they say. But just because your customer service people seem nice doesn't fix other issues--like poor quality products.

My wife ordered "Twilight" on OnDemand. Halfway through the movie the DVR errored out. We went to saved programs and hit play. It errored out again. The second time we went there it was gone. Ten minutes waiting on a Saturday night for someone to answer customer service and we found out we had to purchase it again. Sure, we won't get charged twice. It was annoying enough to go through this, but what was even worse is how glaringly bad Comcast's DVR is compared to TiVo.

Why doesn't Comcast allow users to fast-forward more than one speed (which is ultra slow fast forward) when in OnDemand instead of four different speeds like it does for regular shows? TiVo lets you jump ahead at different time intervals and fast-forward. It did this 9 years ago!

I've been begging my wife to allow us to go back to DirecTV (we don't have it now because basic Comcast comes with our HOA). But this was the last straw. All I can say is: Thank you Comcast for having such a bad product and proving yourself once again. You just gave me a great gift, my wife finally agreed to DirecTV.

Remember. It's not about how nice your customer service people are. It's still about your product. And an average product doesn't cut it.

08 March 2009

How Amazon got smart

Yesterday I downloaded a book to my iTouch via Amazon. It's the same as if you purchased it on your Kindle. It's quite a wonderful addition to the iTouch and frankly anyone who loves reading and wants their books instantly. Even though the iPhone and iTouch are competitors, Amazon just insured itself more and more purchases of ebooks. They just opened their potential buyers on a massive scale. And they did it without worrying about being fully proprietary and protecting their product.

I look at it this way. Google's philosophy is that they do things better than everyone else. And if they don't you'll go use the other companies products. That keeps them pushing innovation. It seems to me that Amazon is smartly thinking the same way. If the Kindle is the best people will still buy it, and if not then they will at least purchase books from them because no one can deliver books better. I only wish Apple would do the same with iTunes.

So why is this so smart? Because it means Amazon just shipped one less book to me while making nearly the same amount of money. Its a simple, but brilliant strategy. They cut out the warehouse, U.S. Post Office and the delay between getting the product into my hands.

I don't buy books for the sake of owning paper. I buy books for the sake of gaining knowledge. Now it just got faster and cheaper.

06 March 2009

Fear of crowds

If a crowd is swarming do you run to it or run away from it? I guess the answer depends on whether they are carrying rocks and torches. But I have to wonder why companies often seem to run away from crowds who are carrying cash.

The crowds aren't carrying physical money to your door--but they are potential customers. If you own a company and are on Twitter or some other social network but don't respond to questions or replies you are running from the crowd. If you don't have some form of feedback on your website and respond to that feedback, all the feedback good or bad, you are running from the crowd. And if you aren't innovating based upon feedback then you are running away from the crowd.

You are a lucky company if you have a customer who cares enough to leave a complaint or compliment. Both are good. Why? Because it gives you a chance to interact with someone who is passionate enough to help. How can you ever learn anything if you are always running?