How I Knew Nota Would Win The Sing Off

Did anybody watch NBC's The Sing Off? I surely did. I was in a co-ed a capella group in college... the Tufts University Amalgamates. Tufts... ring a bell?

Yes, the Beelzebubs are from Tufts. When I was in school, they were great and talented guys. For the laugh, I auditioned for them. According to their historian at the time, I am the first woman to ever audition for the Bubs. They were sweet. The audition was great. I sang "I L O V E U" by Take 6, they had me sight read and blend with them, and they gave me a Bubs shirt. It was lovely!

So I watched The Sing Off with an excited but critical ear since I've done that stuff. I did a lot of a capella arrangements, and still do. When I play around in my home studio, I sing all the tracks. So this is my world.

I knew Nota would win. First of all, they're amazing. They're 6 guys who sound like 10. They blend amazingly, they keep pitch and time well, and they do interesting arrangements that give them a really full sound.

The Bubs showed up with 12 people, and did what I'm used to seeing them do... amazing singing, tremendous entertainment. You'd think they might win, but I knew they wouldn't.

The prize was a big stack of money and a record deal. The Bubs put out their own albums every year or every other year, and have done that for decades. They're undergrads, and what a lot of people don't realise is that many kids in college a capella aren't music majors or serious musicians. They are not people looking for music careers. They might be engineers, pre-med, pre-law, looking to go into politics or diplomacy, etc... When I sang in the Mates, I was the only music major.

Also, as undergrads, the group tends to change every semester. Someone takes a semester off, you have auditions and bring in new people, people graduate. The group is sort of constantly changing. So you have a changing group of what might be kids who are not thinking about music as a career, and who are already putting out their own albums.

Nota deserves it. They were beyond great. Multi-talented, multi-dimensional, and really solid. But the prize will be better used by them than the Bubs. 

I've seen a capella live, and it's always blown me away. In college, I saw Take 6 live. I also saw Todd Rundgren's "Second Wind" tour, where for a few songs, he had his 10-piece band be an a capella group. I think that if people can stay away from autotuners and engineering tricks, a capella will definitely be on the rise now that it has had some national attention. I hope Nota will tour since I would definitely go if they came through my town.

Thanks to NBC for doing that show, bringing attention to a capella, and especially bringing attention to my alma mater, Tufts University... home of THE best college a capella groups in the country!

Posted at 09:02 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Goodbye, Evil Grandma Rose

If you know me for more than a few minutes, then you've probably heard one of my stores about "Evil Grandma Rose." You've heard the impersonation, which sounds like Edith Bunker since she had that shrill voice and Bronx accent. You might have even known that I called her Beelzebubby, which would be Beelzebub (the devil) plus Bubby (Jewish for Grandmother).

Well, I just got an email from my uncle (my mother's brother) that she passed away last night. I'm not sad about this for two main reasons. One is that she was a horrible bitch that most of us hated. She was mellower in her old age, but she was never really a nice person. I am blessed with a loving, caring Grandmother who makes me feel loved and special. That's not Grandma Rose for me or anybody.

Rose was my father's father, and oh my did Dad ever marry his mother. Shame there, but hey, we all repeat patterns until we get a certain amount of self-awareness and then the cojones to break the patterns. And for those who are new to my blog, I refer to my father as Jeff and my mother as Ellen.

Second, she had a pretty good life. She would have turned 97 in 2 months, and she was never sick. She took NO medications. None. She never had cancer. She never lost her memory. She never forgot who anybody was. She was living in an assisted living facility the last few years because she had vertigo, and would often fall (and break something) when she stood up. Other than that, she wasn't sick a day in her life. I don't even remember her having a cold.

And that's amazing for someone who I was sure lived only on chocolate. :)

She was also quite the businesswoman. I'm sure she was a horrible bitch in business, and I'm sure some people respected her, some feared her, and some hated her. But she made more money than her husband in a time when women didn't even work. She was the jewellery buyer at Fortunoffs stores (department stores in the NY area), and I think she did that for over 20 years. My grandfather, who died years before I was born, had evidently been a hosiery salesman.

In college, I wrote a song about her. My professor asked me to write a cathartic, personal song that I would sing alone (no instruments) at a school recital. I wrote about a child having a bad conversation and experience with a tree. She was the unmoving, decaying, poisonous tree, and the child partially represented my father and partially me. I'm still proud of that composition. You can't dance to it, but the audience liked it better than my comedy song about safe sex (with an underlying theme of the postal system).

I am at peace with her passing. I kept in touch with her, and never let on that I didn't like her. I called her every other month, and even visited her in April 2009 when I happened to be in Maryland on business. This is what we call a "mitzvah," which is when you do something you don't want to do because it makes someone else happy. :)

I don't think anybody will miss Grandma Rose. So don't be sad or sorry. Use this as a time to ask yourself what your granddaughter, nephew, sibling, or friend would blog about you when you died. What are you leaving behind, and who would miss you? 

I will not be going to any funeral. I will not be sending any sympathy cards. Please don't send any to me. I'm not happy she's dead, but I'm not sad at this.

Posted at 03:10 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Flash Forward Is My Life

I have a bizarre, life-long history with dreams.

I have had dreams with friends in them, and when we compared notes, we had the same dreams, each from our points of view.

I have had dreams that gave me information that I couldn't have otherwise had, and the info ended up true.

I have had dreams that have come true. They normally come true within a couple of days of having the dream.

In March, I was working on getting one of my staff to come back, and she had promised to return to work after an absence. I dreamt that she didn't come back, and completely quit. Two days later, she emailed me that she wasn't coming back.

In December 2008, I had a dream that the pendant I was wearing snapped in half. I'd been wearing it just about every day since I got it in the summer of 1998. It seemed extremely unlikely. Later that day, I was packing boxes to move. In slow motion, my necklace got caught on something plastic I was moving, and the pendant snapped in half.

I remember having a terrible flu and bad fever in the 1990s. My family was going on vacation, and I was too sick to go. So they bought me some Chunky soups, and were leaving me home to recover on my own. I was hallucinating from the fever, and kept yelling, "Your plane is going to crash!" I don't remember saying that, but I remember them being scared that it was going to come true because I was so rarely wrong about random stuff. The plane didn't crash.

I like to joke that I'm the Christopher Walken psychic character in Saturday Night Live... he was able to foresee people's ice cream headaches, and really mundane things. I guess I mostly see mundane things. And then they come true. But when they do, I feel more prepared for them.

But last night was another thing altogether. And this isn't uncommon for me either.

I fell asleep early. Around 11pm, I started tossing and turning, and became aware of my dream. I was sitting across a restaurant table from a friend. It was dinner. The place was dark. Mostly candle-lit and dim lighting. I've never seen this place. In the dream, he wanted to know why I had been asking him so many times to hang out with me. He seemed unsure if I were trying to date him or just hang out as friends, and in the dream, he was asking me to explain myself.

The relevant back story would be that I moved to a new town about 5 months ago, and have wanted to hang out with this guy, who also lives in the area. Nothing had come together yet, but I hadn't stopped trying to coordinate something we could go out and do. Just as friends. So I've asked more than a few times to get together over the last 5 months. The most recent had been earlier in the day.

I tried to fall back asleep, but the dream was still going. I remember sitting at the table in the dream thinking OK, I need to explain this to this guy... that I'm not trying to ask him out, but I just want to hang out as friends. How do I explain this to him without it being really awkward, I'm asking myself in the dream.

I tossed and turned with this dream for about an hour because it kept replaying on a loop. Around midnight, I just decided I was awake, and I turned the internet on on my phone. Emails started pouring in. I checked my personal account first, and found a message from the guy in the dream. It said:

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, you don't have expectations of being more than good friends, right? Hope that's not weird to ask:/

Well, it wasn't weird to ask since it was in my head for the last hour. The email was marked as 10:36pm, about 24 minutes before I half-woke up to be conscious of my dream. Well, now the door was open, and I could email back that yes, I just wanted to be friends, and I wanted to hang out now that we live in the same area because I always have a good time with him when I run into him, etc... Awkward conversation had and out of the way.

Welcome to my world. 

And I hope my friend will hang out with me. He's a nice guy, and we'd have fun. Yes, just as friends. Everybody relax. :)

So the TV show Flash Forward is very interesting to me. I like the idea of people getting a glimpse of a future that seems to be coming true. I have no idea where they're going with the plot. But watching it reminds me of me in some small way. :)

Posted at 07:20 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Palm Releases New WebOS, None of My Problems Fixed

Well, this is frustrating. Palm released a new version of their WebOS, which means my phone got updated, which is nice... except I can't believe it's not butter. I can't tell the difference AT ALL. None of the issues I was having or the complaints I had about the phone were fixed or changed.

I had emailed someone from Palm and told him my issues. He replied that nearly everything I had mentioned was on their road map for future changes. OK, so they know about all these, released a new version, and didn't fix all of these... so they're still on the road map. That's frustrating.

People are asking me what kinds of things did I want changed. Here are a few.

• There is no control over what sound goes off when certain things happen. Every email account makes the same sound, which makes the same sound as any system notification. So you have an email is the same sound as you have a tweet is the same sound as you just plugged in your phone, low battery, text message, or any app that sends a notification. All the same sound. So you have NO idea how important anything is by sound, and I'm used to knowing that from having Windows Mobile and some neato apps for that. This means every time a sound goes off, I have to take the phone out and check what it is.
• There is currently no way to disengage the EVDO internet. I can turn Bluetooth and WiFi on or off, individually. But not the internet. Which means that if the Palm sees email and twitter open, it will just check those all night, and play notification sounds every time something comes in. I get about 30 emails overnight, and none are worth being awakened. I'm used to Windows Mobile letting me say hey, turn off the internet, and even if email is something is open, don't use the internet... which means emails don't come in and sounds don't go off. I can't do that on the Palm right now, so every night, I have to go into each email account, one by one, and turn off its notifications.

UPDATE: Someone on Twitter told me I CAN turn off the data. I have to go into the Phone, then preferences, and then turn off "Data Usage." It worked. However, my complaint would now be that this is in an illogical place. The Pre has a menu where you can turn on or off WiFi, Bluetooth, and Airplane Mode. I would think that turning Data on and off would also go there rather than having to dig for that in a submenu of the phone app. So Palm, please put that in a more logical and easily accessible place. :)

• For those of you wondering why I just don't turn off sound or put the phone in airplane mode, I'm in a biz where I might get emergency calls or texts at all hours. I need to hear those sounds go off, but I don't need a 2am notification that my horoscope email just came in. :)
• There is no way for me to see what apps Palm thinks I have open... what's running now including what's running in the "background." So sometimes I get messages about having too many cards open, but I only see three, and I know people are running more than 3 things at a time. Sometimes the phone is slow, and I assume it's from running things, but I don't know what's open. This also means I can't force close something... like force close email so I can sleep. :) I can swoosh email away, and it'll still pick up email.
• I don't know what apps are starting up when I start up the phone. I may want to stop running some of those, but have no way to see what's running automatically on startup.
• There is no way to tell the Palm that a Facebook or LinkedIn friend is not someone I need to see in my contacts every day. Right now, Palm is automatically syncing with my 300 or so Facebook friends and 200 or so LinkedIn Contacts. Well, that SEEMS cool, but honestly, any of those people that I was in touch with were already in my Outlook and therefore phone contacts. So now, my contacts move nice and slowly when browsing or searching because it's checking 500 people I never contact rather than just the 150 I had in Outlook. I'd like a setting that only syncs the people I had in my contacts ANYWAY, and doesn't add hundreds of people. Evidently, nobody at Palm has ever added a Facebook friend they don't really know or stay in touch with. As an eBay educator and speaker, a LOT of people add me on Facebook just to hear what I'm saying... but I don't know them!
• To some of you, that may sound like "who cares" because if you don't use those contacts, just don't choose them. But every time I go to write an email, and start typing my friend's name, it searches my contacts... and shows me 6 people who aren't "Caroline" because I have a bunch of contacts that have "car" somewhere in their name. Same for dialing by typing to search for contacts... I'm shown HEAPS of people I will NEVER email or call. I'd just like to be shown MY contacts, and then Palm should use things like LinkedIn and Facebook to connect to those people and keep their info updated.
• There is no way for me to "calibrate" the touches on the Palm. Many times I THINK I'm clicking on something, the Palm sees that click as a few millimetres away... which has lead to fun things like deleting the wrong email, opening about 15 new "compose" emails each day that I have to then cancel, selecting the wrong text, opening the wrong app, etc... I would like a calibration tool that shows me a bunch of X's and has me click on it. Windows Mobile was great with that since their clicking was WILDLY precise... stylus-precise... I used to use my fingernail. The Palm seems to be designed for you to click clumsily with thick fingers, but being able to calibrate that would still be good.

On another note, and this is not Palm's fault, I find that many apps people are developing rely WAY too much on the phone being online. My navigation has to be online, but I can't use EVDO while talking on the phone. So driving and navigating at the same time are OUT, which is BAD. An RSS reader I downloaded connected to my Google Reader account. OK, that seems clever... until I noticed that it didn't keep ANYTHING offline. So I got on a plane, and had NOTHING to read. That is less clever.

I'm not always going to be online, and someday, when I can turn off just the internet, I may want to be offline a bit to save battery life. Apps should take that into consideration!

So Palm, I ask again for you to please soon release an OS upgrade that fixes what I'm talking about. I can't be the only person who'd like to set up different sounds for each email account, or different sounds for different notifications. I can't be the only person who'd like to turn off the internet at night, or force quit apps I don't even know are running. Please make these closer stops on the road map! Thanks!

Posted at 06:38 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Mercury Retrograde + Match.com = Oops

I wake up this morning, and decide to ask out a guy I was matched with on Match.com. I start writing him an email like hey, you're looking for this, I'm this, I think we'll hit it off. Let's do lunch, my treat, because hey, then the worst that can happen is you get a free lunch with someone you don't want to see again... but the best that can happen is we hit it off and become friends.

My best pal Caroline calls, and asks what I'm up to. I'm writing an email to that guy on Match.com. "Oh!' she says. I said let me tell you about it. She tells me I'm writing too much, and that whatever I want to say about what we have in common can be something we talk about at lunch. Well, I wanted to be clear that I'm aiming for friendship first, and so on. She also thinks that offering to buy him lunch is way too aggressive. I said that I didn't want him to think I was some sort of broke or dependent chick who expects a guy to pay for everything.

So I start editing the email down to something much simpler. I'm finally happy with this tiny email, and I hit send. Nothing happens. I notice Match.com has something in the Draft folder. I go to that, see it's an email from me to him, and hit send.

And then I notice it's some earlier, incomplete version of the longer email. Oh jeez. I hit delete, but I have no idea if that deletes it for him. Dear Match.com, if I hit delete on an email I sent, it should delete it for the other person. Dear Match.com, send the email I meant to send, and if you're keeping drafts, try keeping current versions of what I'm writing. :(

I create a new email, write what I meant to say (the much shorter email), and apologise that he may have received two emails from me.

I really thought I was going to make it through Mercury Retrograde without major incident or embarrassment, but I do feel pretty dumb. OK, so maybe this guy gets a weird, incomplete email with me telling him we have things in common. Not the worst thing I've done all year. :) But I still feel totally dorky. I wanted to send the "right" email. I guess both emails are right. Hey, I think we'll hit it off, and hey, it's just lunch.

Mercury Retrograde... everything that can go wrong will go wrong. I usually do OK through it, but ugh, I feel like a total dork. Well, I'm not alone. A friend just told me he accidentally pasted something into an email to someone on a dating site, and before he knew it, the email sent itself. Guess it happens to the best of us. :)

Posted at 09:19 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

New Yorkers, Do You Know What Time It Is?

Once in a while, my business line rings at some weird hour. 4am. 5am. Last night, it was 4:50am. That's 4:50am the morning of Labour Day, when most businesses are closed.

It's not just morning calls. I have received calls at 9pm on weeknights and weekends. 8am on Sundays. Some truly weird times IF you think someone is there to answer the phone... and why call when you think there is nobody there.

Nearly every time someone calls me at a weird time, the area code on the caller ID is 212 or 718. New York metropolitan area. I get a few that are the NYC suburbs too. They had no concept of the time, or just figured they'd call a closed company. I prefer to call companies I know are open! Then I reach people!

My contact page even says what time it is where I am so you can consider whether or not you'd like my business to be open when you call. I'm giving you all the info I can. :)

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking hey Deb, if you turned your phones off at night or didn't have a home office, this wouldn't matter. OK, maybe we can blame me for this, but I still think it's odd to call a company at 7am your time, especially when that's 4am for the company.

Posted at 08:48 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Today's Tech: Do I Have Any Privacy?

I'm seeing some posts about how Palm is collecting data on people, and sending it back to Palm. People are losing their minds over this.

Now to me, the main issue is that you can't opt out. People should be able to opt out, but Palm wove it so into their terms and the ability to do anything with the phone that opting out = throw the phone in the garbage.

So now let's look at the idea that Palm or somebody is looking at how I use things or when I do things. And if I'm going to get wrapped up about that, then there are so many other things people can worry themselves over...

• Hey, former and current AOL users, who used to and may still surf the web inside AOL's world. They know everything about you... every word you typed into a chat room, every pic you downloaded, everything you did online.
• I use Comcast for internet. Can't they trace and know everything I'm doing? Did you read the agreement that your broadband provider had you sign when they installed it? Yeah, that whole back of the page had a bunch of TINY terms and conditions. Did you read those before signing that you agreed to them?
• Your bank and credit card company knows everywhere you were and where (and how) you spent money... where you took out cash, where you charged. If anybody starts really looking at your charges, they'll know who you do business with, where you're travelling, what gifts you're buying people, etc... They'd have plenty of data on you.
• Microsoft. Oh the things they would know from me because I use Windows. Same for Apple if you have a Mac or iPhone. Hey, for all I know, my MP3 player is sending info to Rhapsody. I have no idea, but choose to not get too caught up over it.

So while I like the idea of privacy, I also realise that in today's tech world, I don't have many secrets. Databases get compromised all the time, unfortunately, so you can only just try to protect yourself. Read your credit report online every month or so to make sure everything looks right. 

I've dated people who were really on fire about this topic. They didn't want to be "on the grid" and have Facebook knowing their stuff. Well, OK, then by that logic, don't have a cell phone. Don't email people. Don't have internet service. Don't watch TV! They know how long you watch which channels. And while you're at it, don't flatter yourself by thinking that the government or any particular company finds you SO INTERESTING that they want to review everything you're doing. You are NOT that interesting!

I also think that this is for marketing. I saw a blog say surely Palm is not collecting this for marketing. I say probably, yes. They'd want to know how you are using their phone so that they can make it more of what you want. Otherwise, the data on how you use your phone seems to not mean much unless they want to blackmail people doing things they wouldn't be proud of, and that's probably not on Palm's to do list.

Personally, I hope Palm has noticed how many times I accidentally open a blank email when I am trying to click on something else, and decide to move the "new email" button. :) I hope they see how many times I create an appointment, ask it to remind me 5 min before, and then watch it sync to my Google calendar as an appointment with NO reminder... meaning that I miss stuff. I hope they see how often I open the App Catalogue in the hope that they actually have more apps. I am suffering from app withdrawal.

So Palm, you're doing this. Everybody's doing this. Make it freaking work for me. Watch what I'm doing with the phone, and figure out what's frustrating for me... and fix it. That saves me the time of blogging or complaining to you. :)

Posted at 08:01 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

How Movies Are Marketed

I've been thinking a lot lately about how movies are marketed, and I'd love to get people's comments. It seems like there are some main ways that we become aware of movies coming out soon.

• Actors, writers, director (who I'll call "key people") on national morning shows (Today, Good Morning America) or national evening shows (Conan, Daily Show).
• Key people doing regional shows, like appearing on a local segment (live or by satellite) for say a Denver or NY or San Francisco news or lifestyle segment.
• Key people on drive-time radio like kooky morning shows.
• TV commercials. Hard to miss some of those. :)
• Newspaper ads
• TV reviews during the news, or movie review shows. I'll also lump newspaper reviews with this.

Many of these are designed to drive you to the movie's website, which then wants to drive you to...

• Join a mailing list
• Follow a twitter account
• Read a blog
• Watch trailers, clips, and interviews
• Download a desktop image or phone application
• Discuss on a forum
• Go to MySpace or another sub-site

It's not like the TV commercial sends you straight to their Twitter account... they want you on the website. And at that point, they'd like you to be one of their army who is telling friends, sharing clips, and thinking about when this movie comes out.

There are other ways to promote movies, like appearing at film festivals or doing special screenings in certain towns. But how many of us learn about a movie from that? I can't name a single movie that is playing at a festival. I can't name a single movie that is on a tour of cities to do special previews and screenings. So that's not where I get my movie awareness... unless I know someone who follows that stuff. And if the movie isn't doing some of that more traditional marketing listed above, when would my friends or I find out about the special screenings? It seemed like a circle, or a sort of catch 22.

You might find a movie's Twitter from friends who found it (but then somebody found it at SOME point). You might stumble on it, say on Fandango or YouTube, and watch a trailer, interviews, and other things put out there to make you interested. You might learn about a movie by seeing what your local theatre is playing... it's possible they're playing something you never heard of, and now you're going to read up about the movie.

And then there's also the "paid buzz," like paying bloggers to write about your movie, paying people to Tweet, paying people to post things to their Facebook, etc... I'm not sure how much of that will be the FIRST time we've heard about a movie... I'm trying to think about our first awarenesses of a new movie, and what the movie people do to make sure we're excited, we are going to see it, and tell friends.

How do you find out about movies? Do you send clips of movies to friends? I'd love to know more about the marketing of movies because I tend to think that it just about ALWAYS takes at least SOME of the traditional movie marketing in order to get a giant amount of the public to know about it, to be excited about it, and to tell friends.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Things to Consider Before Getting Married

Having read this blog post on Things to Consider Before Getting Married, I felt like that post really didn't cover enough. I know of no friends in bad marriages because of how many football games someone wants to watch. I haven't had any relationships end over that.

Here is my take on this.

Consider what is very unlikely to change at all, ever.

Religion. Politics. How many kids someone does or doesn't want. How much someone smokes, drinks, or does drugs. How much someone goes to a strip club or enjoys porn. :)

If your partner doesn't agree with your views, and that sometimes bugs you, remember that you're signing up for a lifetime of disagreement on those issues. He or she may not eventually come around to seeing your way on this, so don't assume it'll change.

Don't assume he or she will change at all, ever.

I've been in long-term relationships with a few people who had some self-awareness of some bad or even destructive aspects of their personalities that they wanted to change. Great! Step one is being aware, and step two is wanting to change. And so far in my life, I've watched these people change none of these things. I think it was because they were large, fundamental changes to how they saw things, how they gut-reacted to things, and things like that... so they weren't easy changes to make.

I have gone into long-term relationships assuming that he will "stop doing that" because he says he will get help... or because my love can support him through his tough times... or because love conquers all... or something like that. And so far, I've been painfully disappointed, and it's a double disappointment. It hurts that the person is still doing things evidently neither of you want him or her doing, and then it's hard to realise that he or she broke a promise to change it.

Make sure that if you are moving in or getting married, you really love that person AS IS. If he or she NEVER changed and always did that or always avoided that or always was just as he or she is now, would he or she still be your Perfect Partner? If you don't immediately jump out with YES, then it's no.

While my last relationship didn't last, I knew I was going into it loving that person the way he was, for better or worse, and sometimes he was worse. :) I knew he might not change, but I was ready to support him in any change he wanted to make. To me, that's unconditional love, and that is what both people should feel for a marriage to be the right choice, and then work out.

Listen to your gut.

When you hear yourself unsure of these things, or you hear yourself thinking about how you wish she didn't do that or how you wish he didn't say that... put those on a pile. They're not isolated. People have patterns. People rarely do things once. Crappy people who learn that you'll take what they just said or did will surely do it again... they just learned you'll take it.

I have had friends who were married to crappy people, and they kept telling themselves that their spouse won't be like that to the kids... that he won't say those mean things to a little baby, and then he'll learn to not say those things to me. Well, it normally doesn't work that way. If he's saying hurtful things, he's got issues, and the kid will be the next target.

Nobody escapes someone with issues, and you shouldn't assume that someone who has patterns of being a certain way will magically stop being that way. If that person were capable of that kind of awareness, I'd think that he or she would see what he or she is doing to YOU, and would STOP.

Watch your role.

In many of my long-term relationships, I seemed to end up as the everything. I was the main or sole breadwinner. I was the person who planned everything, took care of everything. Fought every wrong bill. Dealt with every contractor coming to the house. I like to be supportive to people, but seem to end up as their therapist or the objective of their obsessions, power struggles, or addictions.

Some people think they want that take-charge person, or that they want to be that take-charge person. Well, just remember that you then have a relationship that is not equal. OK, not everybody's pay rates will be equal, but in theory, you want something equal. You are not in this relationship to take care of someone else, or to be taken care of. You're an adult. :)

Live together first for 3 years.

Yeah, really. Are you in some sort of rush? You shouldn't be. If this is the right person, you'll have plenty of time together. Don't be in a rush to be married or have kids. That doesn't work out for most of us, and most of the people I know who are still in their marriage seem awfully unhappy... but stay for the kids. By the way, your marriage is a model for your kids. Stay in a loveless or openly negative marriage, and guess what you teach the kids. It's no accident that I keep dating the same people who treat me as badly as my mother treated my father... it's what I learned, and I'm not out of that habit yet. So staying in it for the kids may not be giving the kids what you think it gives them.

I have noticed that the relationships I had with people were MUCH better before we moved in together. Once you are with that person that much, you get to see it all. It all comes out. That great behaviour they save for those dates or nights together is there... and then the other stuff comes out. It's amazing how much gets revealed about someone once you are living with them. People are different when they don't have the same personal space and choices on how they spend their time.

In the last 3 long-term relationships I've been in, I saw enough bad stuff from these guys in the first year we lived together to have known that this was wrong. But part of my bad pattern is to stay in these bad relationships and think that I can help, support, and love unhappy people into better places in their lives. I am wrong. But I sure could have avoided a lot of divorce issues and bad dealings with unstable guys if I had "put on a pile" what I saw once we moved in together. I should have seen that complete picture of who that person really was, not just loved their potential to be happier or better, not just loved the good times, and LEFT.

Why 3 years? Because I've still seen some people on their best behaviour in that first year or so. It's that honeymoon period. You've picked a place, some furniture... there's probably still some of that fun, fresh dating energy there. Let that burn off, and see what you have underneath it all. I found that not only were these guys awful and impossible, but we couldn't even stay friends.

Even if you've been dating 5 years but haven't lived together yet, live together for at least 1-2 years. It really is different. It just is!

Pre-nup

Yeah. I said it, and I mean it. Get a pre-nup. I don't care if you have NOTHING. Get one. If you both agree on property and things, then you'll both sign a fair pre-nup. If you don't agree on property and things, oh isn't that best to know before you get married?

It's like any other insurance. You hope you are not in a car wreck. You hope you are not hospitalised. But you have insurance in case these things happen. You don't want them to happen, and you assume they'll never happen to you. But they're good to have. So is a pre-nup.

Marriage is not supposed to be hard, so stop telling yourself that.

People marry the wrong people, and then guess what. Marriage is hard. It takes work and effort. And that's what they tell you when you hang out. Marriage is just so hard, and it takes work.

It doesn't have to be like that, and it shouldn't. Think about your relationship with your best friend. Does that person have to try to say and do the right thing for you? Do you tell him or her what to say, what not to say, and how to act to make you happy? Probably not. You probably go well together. That's the sort of relationship you should have when you want to be married. That great friendship where you don't each have a list of what you hope the other person will change.

Your relationship with your best friend is probably very easy. It's natural. You don't have to sit down and ask where it's going, or why she wasn't more supportive. This is your best friend. This relationship is not hard, and nobody tells themselves or each other that best friends are hard and take effort.

So why are we telling ourselves that marriage is hard and takes effort when you're supposed to marry "your best friend," your perfect match, your soul mate, the person who loves you and understands you the most? Why do we tell ourselves this stuff when it just gives people reasons to stay in bad relationships? Well, this relationship is a mess, but hey, marriage is hard and takes hard work, so I guess I haven't put in enough hard work because this is a mess.

So be very careful. There is no good reason to rush into getting married or having kids. There is so much to consider to make sure it's right, and you don't end up a statistic. Divorce is not the only statistic. I also think of the number of people staying in unhappy marriages "for the kids." Or the people staying in verbally, physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive situations. These are all easy to do. None of us set out to do this, but we fall into patterns or we believe liars.

Yes, I am a bit skeptical and not so hot on the whole marriage thing. That's more from watching unhappy friends stay in bad stuff than from my own bad dating experiences. If I were the only one having bad long-term relationship experiences, you can say it's just me. :) I'm in the majority. I think people need to do a better job picking their partners. If this blog post can save just ONE person from some of the mistakes I made (more than once), it's worth it.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

CSI Got It Wrong

I was flipping by TV the other night, and I don't remember if this were a commercial or an episode, but the CSI guys were standing over a body. Not that exciting yet. :)

But in deducing I don't know what, they decided that the guy was left-handed because he wore his cell phone on the left side of his pants.

Wrong. (Envision loud X sound from Family Feud)

I am a righty, and I wear my cell phone on the left side. Why.

• As a righty, when I carry a pocketbook, I carry it on the right. I hate when it bumps into my cell phone, or has to stand way away from me because it's on my cell phone.
• Because of where my cell phone case tends to sit on the right side of my pants, it was bumping into where the seat belt pieces connect. That was annoying, and it was hard to battle that to get into the cell phone case.
• If I'm a righty, then I am probably doing something with my right hand when my phone rings. Maybe I'm writing or carrying a grocery bag.

It just makes more sense for my cell phone to be near my non-dominant hand. CSI would have gotten this WAY wrong, if I were a body on the floor of a film set. :)

Posted at 07:17 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Can The Palm Pre Do This?

Well, I bit the bullet yesterday and got the Palm Pre. I was holding out for an HTC Touch Pro 2, and honestly, may still get that when it comes out and return the Palm. There's a lot I like about the Palm, but there is something nice about staying with Windows Mobile and being able to use all my apps. There are very few Palm apps, which is surprising given how long they're been yapping about this phone and how many have sold.

But so far, I would say the Palm interface is very slick, fast and easy to use, I like the multitasking, the screen is lovely... there's a lot I like about it. The gestures (finger motions) make sense, and the keyboard is small, but surprisingly easy to use. The screen seems to like bulky finger presses while I'm used to precise stylus pointing (or fingernail pointing). So since most people HATED precise stylus pointing, you would be happy!

So after 12 hrs of playing with the Pre, here is what I wish it would do. If anybody knows how to do these, please comment in the blog here! Thanks.

• I wish email could delete from server. I'd like to pick up email, junk what is really junk, and when I get back to my computer, NOT see the 30 emails I deleted.
• It seems like many notifications are sound OR vibration. I like both at the same time just about always. Sometimes I'm in a quiet place and can hear the phone. Sometimes, I am singing loudly in my car, and don't hear the phone, but feel the vibration. So the idea or one OR the other is NOT what I'm used to, and I'm worried I will miss things.
• I leave my phone on all night for two reasons: 1) someone might need me and call or text, and 2) it's my alarm clock. So I can't put it into silent or airplane mode since that would kill one of those goals. However, I can't find where to make the Palm stop picking up things like from the internet all night (and making sounds and vibrations when it finds them). I don't know how to get it to STOP picking up my email and tweets, or to at least NOT alert me. The Palm has areas where you can turn on or off Bluetooth and WiFi, but doesn't have an area where you turn off polling the internet (Windows Mobile does).
• There is no really quick way to call my favourite people. I have to go into contacts, find them, call them... I had an app in WinMo that let me dial by pictures, and it was RIGHT on my "desktop." I'd like fewer clicks!
• More custom sounds. I can't change my "you have mail" sound or my "you have a tweet" sound. I'm used to customising all these things in Windows Mobile... down to what SMS tone does a friend get. It's handy... why even pull the phone out if it's THAT guy, which you'd know by sound. :)
• More calendar customisation. I'm used to Outlook (and WinMo) letting me categorise my appointments, and each category can have a colour. So at a quick glance, I know if my day is filled with phone calls, work, or fun personal stuff.
• I'd like to be able to customise my App Launcher. I can move things around, but can't seem to remove things I'll never use like Sprint's NASCAR app. I can't make icons smaller and place them how I want them. I'm used to doing this with WinMo.
• I'd like ALL the IM apps to be available, not just Google Talk and AIM. I am now using Yahoo Messenger a lot, plus I do a crazy amount of Skype typing, and those aren't on here.
• Google Maps should have Latitude. I'd like that back!
• I'd like it to handle DRM subscription music because I use and love Rhapsody with my MP3 player. With the Pre, I was only able to load on tracks I ripped through iTunes. It didn't see the ones I loaded with Rhapsody. Weird.
• The integrations are neat, but I had NO idea that when I put in my Facebook info that you'd make EVERY Facebook friend I have a contact in my phone book. That kinda makes no sense since many of my Facebook friends are eBay sellers who just want to hear what I have to say about eBay. They're not REALLY friends. And when I wanted to remove those people, I was told I can't remove a Facebook friend from my contacts. Well, I'd like to! And I'd like you to know on next sync to NOT add it back!

Many of the things I was doing in WinMo were thanks to outside apps... SPB Pocket Plus let me arrange my interface. SPB Diary made working with my calendar easier. Lonely Cat Games ProfiMail was a great email app that could delete off server. Lonely Cat also made Slick, a multi-IM app. PockeTwit is a better Twitter app, putting my multiple Twitter accounts into one timeline and giving me WAY more features than the Twitter app I found for Palm.

So I feel like 1996 again... I was a Mac user who was a professional website designer/builder. And every time I wanted to use an app, it would say available now for Win95, available next year for Mac. I finally dumped the Mac and got Windows so that I could stay ahead in my own industry. And I feel like that again where every app out there seems to be for iPhone, Blackberry, and/or Windows Mobile... some are even Symbian. And where are the Pre apps!

Will I stay with the Palm for its neato interface, features, and POTENTIAL, or will I just get the HTC Touch Pro 2 when it comes out since it might have many of the same features and interface, but will run all the apps I miss so much. The drawback to the HTC Touch Pro 2? It's not out yet and it's WinMo, which may mean crashing and instability... not good either!

It's really up to app developers. Everything I want has to do with apps, which means apps (and I'd pay for these apps) can do what I need. Better email and IM handling... faster dialing of my most common friends... a better Twitter app... I'm sure these can exist, and if I'd pay for them, maybe 3,000 other Pre users (1%) would. That could be a nice revenue stream for somebody!

Posted at 06:56 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Myths About Recent Sales and Best Match

Even though eBay's communication about how to get Recent Sales momentum in Best Match search results has been clear and consistent, it sounds like some waters have been muddied. People are confused, especially those who received an email from a software service, telling them that if you move to another listing service, you will lose your "Best Match priority placement." Let's dispel this now.

Firstly, why is this important? Part of how eBay calculates where to place you in Best Match has to do with your Recent Sales. Quite simply, if an item that is a Fixed Price 30-day or GTC has a multiple quantity offered, and makes a sale, eBay would bump it higher in search results. The idea is hey, this is the one people are choosing, this must be a good one from a good seller, let's give it more exposure. The better it gets, the better it gets. :)

So you want to do whatever you need to do to KEEP the momentum you can get by making sales from these items. The word from eBay has ALWAYS been that you can keep your Recent Sales by doing these four things when re-listing the item (as of when I'm typing this on 6 July 09):

• Don't change the category.
• Don't change the condition.
• Don't change the title.
• Don't raise the price.

You can lower the price, and you can even change the description. Most importantly, you CAN change listing services. Nowhere in there does it say that you lose Recent Sales ranking if your relist shows up from a different listing tool than before. So thing 1, myth busted!

But something IS going on. Some people who are changing services found that their items sunk in search results, and it appeared that they HAD lost their Recent Sales ranking. What happened?

It seemed that many services had set "relisting" to actually be putting an item freshly on eBay. Huh? Well, think back to auctions. If you ran an item, and it didn't sell, you relisted. If it then sold, you got those insertions fees back. If it didn't sell that 2nd time, you had to list it freshly, and NOT relist so that if it didn't sell again, that 4th listing might qualify for the "free relist." So with most tools having been built back in the day, the system saw a "relist" of a fixed price item as a totally fresh, new list... which was resetting the Recent Sales on that item.

Aha!

So check your listing system to see how they're doing it. I work with InkFrog, and to fix this, you can now choose 1 of 2 ways to relist. One is a regular relist (say you use auctions and are hoping for the old "free relist"). The other choice says something like "relist for best match." This will send your item to eBay as a relist, and if you meet the criteria for NOT breaking your Recent Sales momentum, then you will keep that momentum.

That's why it LOOKED like changing listing companies was hurting Recent Sales, but it turns out that it's more about how the software is submitting that relisted item to eBay. When eBay was seeing these as brand new items, it was resetting Recent Sales. When eBay saw it as a relist, and it met the criteria, you should be able to keep Recent Sales!

We saw clients moving in ALL directions losing Recent Sales... I had a client move from Kyozou to Infopia, and it looked like he lost his Recent Sales. I know of people who left Auctiva for inkFrog and others. So it's not just one service... it looks like this was how many software systems were set up, and hopefully third party providers are making changes!

Whew, I hope that clears that up!

Posted at 08:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

What Nobody Is Saying About Michael Jackson

I have been watching some of the MJ coverage from network TV to CNN to MSNBC, VH1, E!, etc... I wasn't really a fan, but having been sick in bed a lot of the last 9 days, I've seen a lot of TV. :)

I have seen a lot of people interviewed who were friends with Michael Jackson. Nearly all of them talk about how they were there for him... they were there when he got married... or won an award... or did something groud-breaking, had his kids, went to court, etc... So many people are talking about being there for him, with him, etc...

But there is one thing I have heard NOBODY say about Michael Jackson.

I have not seen a single interview (yet) where someone talks about how Michael Jackson was there for them as a good friend. Nobody has said, "When I was at a low point, I called Michael because he's always there for me." Nobody describes MJ as their go-to best pal.

If Deepak Chopra or his son were having a bad day, I bet that they didn't call MJ. MJ's family... do you think he was the emotional rock that everybody turned to when things were going wrong for them?

To me, this reminds me of people who are takers, and maybe it's just part of being an addict... taking a lot from people around you, surrounding you with people who support your world view and get you your fix, not being the go-to supportive friend people wish you were. If you died today (and please don't), what would your friends say about you? Would they be thinking about all the times they were there for you, and evidently none of the times you were there for them?

Maybe it's a wake-up call about how we can be there more for our friends. Friendships are about a give and take, and the main thing I'm noticing about MJ is that while he may have been generous with money and using his ranch and material things, he doesn't seem to really have been anybody's best friend. Makes me think about the nature of friendship.

Posted at 06:16 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Crazy Woman in My Building

I woke up at 6:something thinking I heard someone knocking on doors or going around the hall. I figured it was the girls next door. They tend to party late and come home at weird hours.

But it was 6:something, so I got up, and got ready to take my dog for a walk. We were headed outside probably around 6:40am. Someone was running after me as I left the building. I tried to ignore her, but when I got outside, she called after me.

Crazy lady: "Where is everybody?"

Me: "Who is everybody?"

Crazy lady: "You know. They are all waiting for me!"

Me: "I don't know you. Who is they?"

Crazy lady: "You know, Seven."

Me: "Is Seven a person?"

Crazy lady: "Yes."

Me: "I don't know anybody named Seven."

Crazy lady: "Don't you know Leah?"

Me: "No."

Crazy lady: "Well, they're waiting for me."

I went to walk my dog. I took her on a crazy long walk hoping this woman would be gone. When I got back, this woman was sitting on the benches outside the main door of our building. I didn't say anything to her, and she did not try to follow me in. It was about 7am by then.

I was laying in bed watching some TV, when around 7:30am there was a knock on the door... which is a little weird as we all have doorbells that are lit up. This is an 11-floor apartment building with all inside doors. I looked out the peephole, and it was HER. I stood in silence a moment wondering what to say or do. She just stood there and didn't seem to give up.

I finally said, "Please go away." She said, "OK," and kept standing there. My dog let out a big bark, which startled the woman, and she walked away. That meant this woman has been walking around here at least for an hour with evidently nobody to meet... even though they're ALL WAITING FOR HER! So I called the police.

I saw out the window that the police came. Two cars were talking to each other. Nobody called me back. I hoped they found her and got rid of her.

11am, I decide to take the dog for another walk. Just before I go out the front door of my building, I notice the SAME WOMAN is sitting in the lobby on the couch. It's HOURS later. I am thinking she is NOT meeting anybody! If I were meeting someone and they were going to be 5 hours late, I would go find a Starbucks and not sit around the lobby of an apartment building... not to mention that this all started at 6:30am on a Saturday morning, the 4th of July.

I took the dog for an extra long walk, and called the non-emergency number for my local police. I told them the woman was still there, and what did the police who came out earlier find? The woman said she sees a record of the call and of the officers going out, but they never reported back. I said that I was really doubting this woman's story, and I have no idea why she's here. But I think she's scary and not making any sense, and I have no idea what's going on.

There is only one way in and out of the building, and I decided I didn't want to walk past her. I decided that the dog and I would wait for someone to open the gate to go into or out of the underground parking. Someone did just as I got there. We ran in, and got the elevator to our floor. But hey, if this woman is in the building, she can get in an elevator and have access to the underground parking.

You learn, growing up in suburban NYC, to not have a giant mountain of trust for strangers. :) But you also learn that if something looks weird and acts weird, you get away, and maybe you call the police.

For all I know, this could be the Mom of someone in the building, and they ARE expecting her. But then again, everything she said this morning makes NO sense, and if someone is "waiting for her," where are they? Why isn't she calling them? Why isn't she using our building's intercom system to get them to come down?

It's 11:30, and I don't see any cops outside. I know this is low priority, but then again, it's low priority until it's not. I'll just go in and out through the parking garage, and hope I don't run into her. I have no idea why she's here or why she was knocking on my apartment door hours ago. And while I'm on that point, when she was standing out there, she never asked for help or explained why she was there. She was just knocking, and when I said to go away, she was like, "OK."

Bizarre.

For those of you desiring a mental picture, this woman looks a bit like Penny Marshall (famous director and actress in Laverne and Shirley). She's wearing mostly black with some hot pink. She looks relatively normal, but her words and actions make no sense. And people making no sense scare me. :)

Update: The cops came. They had no way to get into the building. No key, no special code that opens the door. They were standing outside. The desk person called me and asked how they should get in. I told them to find my name in the directory and I'll buzz them in.

Well I HOPE I buzzed in cops. Who freaking knows without video. But I think the cops need a way into this building in an emergency. If someone were being attacked, and the cops were standing outside hoping someone lets them in... that would be REALLY bad.

Posted at 11:40 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

My Personal Ad

In the spirit of humour, here is my personal ad.

Wanted: busy CEO, top level exec, or guy with at least one high-level job that keeps him insanely busy... for tweeting, Skype chats, text messaging, and short phone calls while I walk my dog.

I'm crazy busy and you're really busy. Every time you blink, I've started a company, or taken on more consulting. We both travel a lot, and rarely in the same direction, so I may not see you very often. But you can tell the difference between me being busy and me not caring (I do care!). When we get together, it's laugh-o-rama, and we don't get tired of each other's work stories.

You've got plenty of your own money, plenty of hotel frequent stay points, and plenty of fun ideas about how to spend short weekends away. You'll consider a week in Disney World, FL with me... if we ever take a break from working. OK, we'll bring our laptops to Disney. You don't want to take me bungee jumping, skydiving, or to an S&M club. Ever!

You don't struggle with addictions or the truth. You're incapable of lying, and you'll tell me when my ass looks fat in that. You genuinely like my cooking and my kids (dog and cat). You're low pressure because we're both high stress, and I don't need any distractions. You are attractive and confident, you have great self-awareness, and don't need me to validate you. Oh, and you neither have a criminal record nor a "law enforcement" past, ie: we'll never be in a power struggle. You have a good sense of privacy, and know what not to post to your Facebook profile. I'm a CEO, you know. :)

In your spare time, you like to debate mobile phone platforms and manufacturers, recite Monty Python's Flying Circus Sketches, and think about the future of eCommerce user interface design. I'm a musician, you're a musician. Maybe we don't express that sides of ourselves very often, but they're a big part of us. Let's get out there and be musicians.

You're roughly my age (I was born in 1972), you're male, you're straight, you are free of "social" diseases, and you don't have or want human children. You're not religious. You might be single, and you might be currently unhappily married. You're in no rush for any sort of serious commitment.

And that would be my personal ad.

Added: Yes, I'm looking for perfection. I'm sorry, but you need to match all of this. I shouldn't settle for anything less than the right person for me. :)

Added: You stalkers can just back off. The weirdo in upstate NY, any Brits still holding a grudge, and the psycho Aussie with the criminal record. You don't qualify. So sorry.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Credit Card Fraud in Vegas

Last time I was in Vegas, someone skimmed my card. Oh, I learned all about it... this is where someone swipes your card (with a device other than the device they needed to use for you to pay), and it records everything on your card. They can then use that (or sell that) and reprogram a credit card to be yours.

This a REALLY sneaky for two reasons.

1. Your card wasn't stolen, so you don't know it's compromised.
2. Since they reprogram a card with their name on it, anybody who asks them to produce ID will still pass the test... the name on the card matches the name on the license. But if the cashier looked closer, the 4 digits printed on the receipt wouldn't match the 4 digits on the face of the card.

Two days after I got back from Vegas, while I was buying lunch in Tucson, AZ, my card was being used in a rural Pennsylvania WalMart to buy $1200 of stuff. Somehow, my card issuer didn't think it was WEIRD that one card was being used across the country at the same time, and let the charge through. I spent the week fighting it.

So how do you protect against this?

I'm going to Vegas this week for the eBay Radio Party, so this is on my mind. I decided to go to Safeway and buy a Visa debit card. It was $5.95 for one with $100 loaded on it, and I can use it just about anywhere. I'll use it to eat in Vegas, and that way, when someone walks away with my card, they have NO reason to skim it. It can't have more than $100 on there.

I suggest the same. Get yourself a gift card, and use that. Sure, I spent $6 on it, but I would pay $6 to NOT go through what I went through last time... fighting the charge, canceling the card, waiting for a replacement, messing up some of my monthly charges that were being auto-billed to that card. It was a MESS.

I've heard other people talk about using something like this... where they have a bank account (with an ATM debit Visa or Mastercard), and they only put enough money in the account to cover what they think they'll purchase. They do nothing else with the card, and don't keep a lot of money in there. That way, if it's every compromised, they haven't lost much, and the hassle is much less.

Personally, I think that by it being a pre-paid gift card, it's probably completely not attractive. Why steal my card for what might have $50 on it?

Travelling, especially to a conference? Spend a few dollars and get yourself a Visa gift card. :)

Posted at 02:59 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Why I Decided Against the Palm Pre

The Palm Pre came out this weekend. For weeks, I had the date in my calendar, reminding me to wake up early, and run to a Sprint Store.

Until I did some more digging.

I have the HTC Mogul (aka the 6800), and there is so much I like about it. If I could make it better, I'd have a bigger, sharper screen, and lots more memory. I'm at the point where apps crash because I'm trying to do too much at the same time. So the 64MB of memory that I think is in here just won't do. But it's intuitive, and I love the apps I can get for WinMo (Windows Mobile to the rest of ya).

I went to the Sprint Store and saw the HTC Touch, which is the newer version of my phone. Well, downgrade... they made it SMALLER, and it still had WinMo 6.1. So that seemed like a waste of money. I dug around the internet, and found that they're coming out with the HTC Touch Pro 2, aka the Rhodium, and that Sprint could have it as early as mid-June 2009. Well, I'm typing this on 7 June 2009, so I can wait!

Why not the Palm?

Well, I started remembering my days with Palm's first Treo. Man, that was the worst phone I ever had. So unreliable. It was something new for Palm, they hadn't really gotten it right, and I was a crash test dummy. Or just dummy.

While I hope the Pre is better, I started reading some reviews... both "official" and what people were writing in Twitter. I saw things like, "sluggish," and "doesn't play Flash," and started telling myself that I had it pretty good with Windows Mobile. And if the new WinMo phones have the upgraded OS and way more memory for multitasking, then isn't that really all I need?

And do I really want to re-buy all of my apps? I'm very happy with my apps. I live on TomTom, Photo Contacts Pro, PockeTwit, ProfiMail, Google Maps (with Latitude, in case anybody should care where I am), Skype, Slick, and a few more. Oh and let's not forget the great apps from the SPB people... SPB Pocket Plus, Diary, Weather, and Insight, though I haven't had time to run Insight in a while.

People don't know that WinMo phones can do a lot. We have the Opera browser too, ya know. My ProfiMail app checks 5 POP3 boxes and a gmail account once per minute, and alerts me to new emails. Text messages are in threaded conversations. My camera takes great pics. I can voice dial, and with Nuance's apps, I can even dictate text messages and short emails... great for trying to send a msg while driving for those of us who do NOT want to be typing while driving.   

I can do everything I love to do with WinMo. I just want to do it faster with a nicer screen, and it looks like the HTC Touch Pro 2 will be the best match for me.The Palm might be nice, but I don't want to be the crash test dummy anymore.

Posted at 02:30 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Pin the Tail on the eBay Listing Price

I'm just sitting here in disbelief...

First Auctiva goes from free to paid, and the prices seem a bit high. That's news.

Days later, they email their users trying to get them to not leave, asking them to prepay a year for $180. That's news.

Vendio announces that users leaving Auctiva can have Vendio free this year and cheap next year. OK, that's news, but what about all the rest of the Vendio users? I imagine there will be backlash from thousands of people who'd like to get Vendio for free this year and cheap next year. How will they handle that? Now those people might leave!

It also sets up the new users for another pricing change... and they would have just left Auctiva because of a pricing change. Their Vendio price will go up in 2010 and 2011. So this is weird.

inkFrog announces that they've been $9.95/month, and they promise to stay $9.95/month for at least another three years. Given that so many sellers are asking to NOT have prices switched on them, this is news. This should be tweeted and blogged and out there. People need to know this, but one person thinks this isn't news... so Vendio's announcement goes out, Auctiva's announcement goes out, and inkFrog's doesn't go out from this "source."

eBay sellers think this is news. They're thrilled that someone isn't going to play pricing games with them. It's so rare that a company in this industry is not messing with their customers that that IS news. Think about how many services have been sold (Andale, Marketworks) or just decided to terminate (Mpire, ChannelAdvisor Pro). How many have raised prices and not grandfathered people in.

Consistency should be news, and a company being fair to ALL of its customers, not just the new ones, should be news. Our industry should have more consistency and honesty!

Help spread the word. Tell people about inkFrog's price lock by tweeting and blogging about this announcement, found at http://community.inkfrog.com/showthread.php?p=199584

Thanks.

Posted at 10:01 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Truth Behind Auctiva and Price Changes

Auctiva, you did quite a job with marketing spin last week. The exact quote from Auctiva's CEO was, "eBay recently made changes to its affiliate program that greatly restricted, and ultimately eliminated, this critical revenue stream."

I care about the truth, and I'm not sure that's totally the truth. It does make people sympathetic to Auctiva, and look at eBay as the bad guy. But let's take a closer look.

The eBay Partner Network (ePN) is eBay's system for giving people and companies commissions from registrations and sales. The idea here is that if you can bring people who weren't on eBay TO eBay (say from your blog, website, etc...), you should get a commission for that.

Over the years, ePN has made a lot of changes. But one thing that was pretty consistent was that in order to make this commission money, you're supposed to bring traffic from outside of eBay. eBay doesn't want to pay a commission to someone who drops links INSIDE their eBay listings or Stores since that doesn't jive with the intentions.

Think of eBay's old "store referral credit." If you brought someone in from outside of eBay through that link, you might get a fee credit. If you dropped that into eBay listings, you can expect nothing. Same kind of thing.

Evidently, Auctiva had coded a number of things they were putting into listings (images, galleries, etc...) to have ePN codes. And when your shoppers clicked on those inside your listing, and then bought from you, Auctiva got paid commissions by eBay.

Evidently in 2009, eBay has decided to crack down on this harder. It looks like they are throwing people out of the programme if they are mis-using these links, by accident or on purpose. This particular case is no accident. :) Nor is it a secret. I've seen piles of people I don't know on message boards and discussion forums all talking about Auctiva's "use" of the ePN. There was a real outcry for eBay to either cut them off or let everybody make this kind of money.

I would rather have seen eBay allow this, honestly. I think that if you put something special into a listing that makes the sale, why not get a commission from it? There are plenty of things people put into listings that KILL their sales. If you can actually MAKE sales happen, do it and do more of it! eBay wants more sales. Sellers want more sales. Let people who can make more sales happen MAKE THEM HAPPEN and get rewarded for it. Where's the problem there!

When Auctiva makes it sound like eBay made a change that forced them to do this, I am not crying in my cereal. eBay's only change was to crack down on people who had been abusing the ePN, and Auctiva weren't the only ones. I would also have to say that a business that only survives as long as it makes money that it gets from breaking a rule is not really a strong model! That would be like a business deciding it's only profitable if it keeps sales tax money it collects rather than giving that money to the state! It's cheating.

So cry not for Auctiva. I think they made their own beds on this one. They could have been charging people $5 all along, come in cheaper than other companies, and had revenue to rely on. They never HAD to be free. They should have thought more long-term, especially if their major revenue stream was the kind of thing that could go POOF at any time!

Between eBay cracking down on non-compliant eBay Stores this year and now cracking down on misuse of the commission system, I think the best advice I can give is the same advice I've always given: be compliant. Follow the rules. You won't like it when eBay cracks down on the rules, and you haven't been following them!

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wedding Vows

Yesterday was the 44th wedding anniversary of some of my friends. I love them very dearly, and I'm glad they've held together.

They've had a lot of challenges in the 6 years I've known them. The husband has had gigantic health issues, one after another. He even had a heart transplant last year. They've spent like years worried nearly daily about whether or not he'll live. Scary stuff.

It's made me think about wedding vows... in richer and poorer, in sickness and health, for better or worse. I think some people vow that and really mean it. I think plenty of people promise that, and either don't mean it or change their mind. You're allowed to change your mind!

But it's amazing when people mean it. And it's amazing to see the previous generation stay together like this.

I think my parents should divorce. They're evidently married 42 years now. I think they should have divorced decades ago. I just think they bring out the worst in each other. Sure, they stayed through richer, poorer, and so on, but are they really making each other's lives better? From the outside, I think they don't make each other's lives better... just more convenient like roommates make things convenient in sharing a house.

Someone was telling me the other day that his life has been a mess for like 10 years, and he said it has definitely hurt his marriage. But they're together, and it didn't sound like they were in danger of not being together. I'm glad that they're staying together even when times are bad. Hey, we all have bad times, though hopefully he'll soon see a better life than the last 10 years!

My first marriage was abusive, and I stayed in there WAY too long thinking that you stay with this, and you keep hoping it gets better. Once he saw that I stayed through that treatment, it only got worse. So promising to stay in something really destructive is NOT a good idea, and I'm not for it!

I guess I tend to compare things, especially watching how other couples interact with each other. I've seen some pretty dysfunctional things. I've seen abuse. I've heard about abusive things going on. Sometimes, that can wake you up to what you have... whether you have that same abuse, or hey, you don't have it so bad.

I guess I like the romantic idea of still completely loving someone and accepting someone even when finances are tough... even when finances are a disaster :)... even when someone is sick and can't totally contribute or isn't an equal partner... even when things seem or are bad... even when things are out of balance. I like the romantic idea of someone loving and accepting me, even when I'm fat, pimply, poor, and depressed... though I recognise that that may be a hard person to love. :)

Ah, romantic ideals. I do like the idea of two people being fully committed to being as equal a team as they can be.

June is often wedding month... so make sure you are marrying someone you truly love and accept unconditionally. If you're waiting for him to change, or you're hoping she stops doing those 10 things you really hate, cancel the wedding. My first husband eventually admitted to me that when he married me, he was already feeling distant and disconnected from me. That is someone who should have cancelled the wedding. I certainly wish he had.

Don't be afraid to cancel a wedding. Better to lose some money and possibly be embarrassed than to make this your life or make that person the parent of your child. Wedding vows. Take them seriously, or don't make them. :)

Posted at 11:39 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Companies In The Same Industry Aren't Always Competitors

If you read my blog, you know I can be a bit of a whistle-blower. I have called out plenty of companies, large and small, in the eBay industry and well outside of it. I've called out plenty of companies, but when I call out a certain one, people want to dismiss what I have to say, claiming I'm just badmouthing a competitor.

Not every two companies in the same industry are competitors.

• ChannelAdvisor probably does not feel they compete with Auctiva. Auctiva is probably not working on how to get customers away from ChannelAdvisor's Premium product. :)
• If you asked Toyota what cars the Yaris competes against, they probably wouldn't name some the BMW 7 series. Ask BMW who they compete with, and I think you would NOT see the Toyota Yaris on that list.
• Wal-Mart may not feel that they compete with Nordstroms or Saks Fifth Avenue.
• A $59 tent at Target doesn't compete with a $200,000 Fleetwood RV, though one person may consider both and then choose one over another.
• Just because Brand New Online Marketplace Number 13,098 wants you to think they're a new and better eBay doesn't meant that they're on eBay's radar AT ALL. eBay may not perceive them as competition... when eBay is transacting billions of dollars a year, a marketplace that won't publicly say how much is being transacted may just not be seen as scary competition.
• I do not worry about losing business to people downloading free eBay templates as they weren't my target audience.

I don't compete with these other guys. (Frooition) When I call them out for the truly bizarre things they do, it's not because we are competitors. It's because they are the same fair game as everybody else I've blogged about.

I don't compete with people and companies in the eBay Stores Design Directory. You can't get what we do from them, and you can't get what they do from us. We are a full-service marketing, design, and strategy company. We know all the eBay rules, and we followed them before eBay had to crack down on broken rules. We do designs based on marketing, psychology, shopper behaviour, and principles of online user experience. We don't use cookie-cutter designs, or sell the same things to multiple people. We think that custom work goes beyond making that stock template "that blue" or that background "that pattern."

Not every two companies in the same industry are competitors. If I say something about another company, and especially if their customers are all over the web saying the same thing (or more harsh things), consider that I might just be factual and not "badmouthing." Badmouthing isn't my style, but trying to get truth out there is.

Posted at 03:12 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Rumour of eBay Certified Seller

I have been hearing some rumours about an eBay Certified Seller programme. First, let me say that I have heard NOTHING about this. I know nothing. I don't even know if it exists. But I've been reading the posts and speculation, and wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

For the first time in my life, I actually agreed with something someone posted in response to this on AuctionBytes. He or she basically said that Certified Seller sounded like another thing to add on a giant pile of ratings, titles, and categorisations eBay already has for sellers.

• Feedback
• DSR
• PowerSeller logo and levels
• Feedback stars
• Percentages and tiers
• Being sorted into Best Match

I think I'd agree. I think we have enough ways to certify or qualify sellers. I have bought from plenty of eBay sellers, and I think we know everything we need to know to organise sellers by quality or reliability.

If eBay would re-tweak Best Match so that DSRs and other "seller standing" parameters were the MOST important factor, then eBay would be serving me (statistically) the best sellers. Period. The best people!

But right now, "Recent Sales" has been tweaked as more important, as far as I can tell. This means you are more likely to get a seller who has a large inventory over a seller with really high ratings. I think this is wrong. I don't care how many the guy has... I just want to have a really good shopping and buying experience.

For those of you who are fans of my mockups of eBay pages (how I think the pages should look), you might remember that I started taking OFF things like feedback stars. In reality, so few of these things mean something to shoppers. Does a shopper care if you have a purple star? Does the shopper care if you recently changed your ID? Does the shopper look at these and even know what they mean? If they don't know what they mean, then they might be confusing or misleading.

Which is why I want to get rid of anything on eBay pages that is meaningless to the shopper. If this doesn't enhance the sale, why is it there? It might be just another thing the shopper has to read or think about, and that can slow down or derail shopping. Adding that a seller is "certified" may not mean anything more to shoppers than PowerSeller or anything else we throw at them.

I compare this to the time I tried to get to know Bonanzle. The site told me that some items were "in a bonanza." I had no idea what that meant, and there was no obvious explanation. So I gave up and left. I felt like there was a lingo that I wasn't hip to, so I was just an outsider. I think eBay should stay away from too many titles and lingo that isn't totally obvious and totally helpful to shoppers.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

People in Boston are Strict

I've lived in Boston a few months now, and the one thing I've noticed is that people are strict. People are often humourless, and lacking flexibility. Deadlines are really hard. I'm used to Arizona, and I'm also used to NOT treating people like that. I'm used to BEING flexible, so I often expect others to be flexible.

I belong to meetup.com groups. Last week, I realised I could make an event the day before the event. It was a new group, and I was only one of 4 people attending, including the organiser. I decided to change my RSVP to NO so I could see my husband's band play. I got a message the next day that due to unforeseen circumstances, the organiser of the group had cancelled the event and completely closed the group. The end. No first meeting. No group. ?!?!?

Another group I'm in charges $10 for each person to go to the event. I had RSVP'ed yes, but forgot to pay. The organiser sent out an email last week saying that if you didn't pay $10 immediately, she would go in and manually change you to a NO RSVP. I emailed her to please not change me, and I would pay some time the next day.

9:40am the next day, I get an email that my RSVP was changed to NO. She had set it so that nobody could change that to YES. You could keep it at NO, or you could change to "waiting list," neither of which prompted you to pay her stinking $10. So now I'm trying to figure out how to pay this and be considered a YES.

Jeez, strict.

Last week, I was driving down a street that was 2-lanes in my direction. I was trying to follow my GPS, and was not familiar with where I was. I was in the left lane. All of a sudden, the left lane I was driving in had a left turn arrow. I was surprised, and didn't feel like I had time to make a decision. There was a cab right next to me, so I'd have to hit my brakes, signal, and move to the right lane. I noticed that both lanes continued after the intersection, which was weird. So thinking I had no time to do anything else, I just continued through the intersection.

Lights started flashing. I was pulled over by the police. They told me it was against the law to be in a turning lane and NOT make a turn or NOT get out of the lane. I broke a law. Talk about strict. I explained to the officer that I was trying to follow my GPS, I was driving along in the left lane, and suddenly, it had a left turn arrow. I couldn't merge onto the cab, and I just continued through the intersection.

She let me off with a warning, but it was a sad experience that made me think this town is just really strict. No room for mistakes. No room for someone following a GPS to have her lane turn into a turning lane and not get out of that lane.

This town is really strict. I hope I find the fun and flexibility at some point.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Twitter Etiquette

Now that I'm on Twitter over a year, I've noticed some patterns. I wanted to make some suggestions to people on how to get and keep your followers. After all, like anything else, if you're not retaining people, what do you have? :)

The short version is "be sensitive." The medium version is, "this is social networking, which means think about how you would behave in an in-person social setting with strangers." The longer version is...

1. Unless your Twitter account is devoted to certain topics, like you're Rachel Maddow, consider minimum tweeting on politics. Around 50% of your audience may not agree with you. Say something liberal, and you may alienate half the people reading. Say something Republican, and you may alienate half your readers. I recently unfollowed some people for making repeated politically charged tweets that didn't match my beliefs. I followed her because she seemed like an interesting online seller, and I had no idea what her politics were. Ask yourself: Would I say anti-President things to strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party?
2. Same for religion. Like politics, religion is often something that people take very personally. Like politics, this is an area where debating people may be meaningless. People have their beliefs, and they're likely to stick with them. They aren't on Twitter for you to convert them, nor are they reading you so you can put their beliefs down. These often aren't intellectual debates... these get personal, and when you're getting personal, it could get ugly. Ask yourself: Would I talk about my religious beliefs to strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party?
3. Fighting with people. Remember that anything that's not a Twitter direct message is public. Anybody can see it. If I'm following you, I'll get at least your half of the fight. Some Twitter fights have already become legend, and have been blogged about. While your fight may not rise to legend status, it's still important to think about the communication you're putting out there. How will your followers see you? Will they want these tweets pushed to them? Might they unfollow? Ask yourself: Would I fight with a stranger at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party, or would I walk away or never start the fight?
4. Negaive statements on popular people or current events. For example, tweeting that you're glad Natasha Richardson is dead because you didn't like her movies or Rihanna deserved to be beaten... that could be left out of Twitter. I don't agree with either of these... they are just examples of some of the bizarre things "anonymous" people tweet because they think it might be cool or funny to talk crap. Ask yourself: Would I say this to strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party?
5. Topics that might break people's hearts or come off as insensitive... cancer, alcoholism, child molestation. You're going to have to REALLY tread lightly here if you want to post about this. Remember that everybody following you either will have experienced "this" or will have people close to them who has. People will naturally be sensitive about these topics. I can't really think of a tweet about molested children that I'd feel good about reading, so if you're going to tweet about one of these very personal issues, please consider people's feelings. The people sitting in front of their computers DO have feelings. Ask yourself: Would I discuss molested children with strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party? If someone else brought that up, would I engage in debate, would I change the subject, or would I walk away?
   
6. Pet causes. Some people have experienced awful things, or those they love have been in horrible situations. I validate that, and I feel for people. But some of them now feel that it's their job to push their agendas on their Tweeple. I've read tweets bitching people out about getting girls vaccinated for cervical cancer. I've read tweets bitching people out for using their cell phones while driving. One thing I've learned from many years of amateur psychology is that you often can't change people. Bitching me out may not make me use my cell phone less when I drive. And for every one thing you want to change in me (a stranger who you may not have ever met), there may be two things I could ask you to change. But your purpose on this earth is not to talk me out of what I believe, nor is it to conform to what I believe. I just want to respect what you choose and believe without being given an earful about my choices and beliefs. Ask yourself: Would I tell strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party how they need to change to fit in more with my beliefs?
7. Insensitivity piled on top of insensitivity. I recently unfollowed something who tweeted something so insensitive about (some) children who are sexually molested that I could physically feel my heart breaking for everybody I know who had that happen to them. She then bitched me out for not really reading the whole fight (why would I want to do that... she made her point clear, and it was plenty sickening). She repeated what she said again @ me (I guess the first time didn't have enough painful effect on me), and basically told me I was overreacting and being oversensitive. She wasn't sorry, and she wouldn't stop, so I just unfollowed and blocked her, but I'd already lost a few followers who saw the unpleasant topic go by their screens. Ask yourself: If strangers at a business networking luncheon or alumni cocktail party seemed to disagree with something I said, would I "sheesh" at them, get sarcastic, and tell them they're just overreacting and being oversensitive?
8. That celebrity you're following may not be your new best friend. :) It's great that celebs are Tweeting and letting us into their worlds more. And it's really fun when they respond or retweet something we said. That's what social media is about. But they may not follow our tweets. They may not respond to us. They may not read what we're posting. And that's OK. They're celebrities. You don't have their email or phone number. They probably don't post to their own fan message board websites. You may never see them on commercial flights. :) They have to have some sort of wall up and boundaries, and that's OK. Don't bitch celebs out for not connecting with you more.
   

You don't have to be sensitive. I've read plenty of insensitive tweeters, including a few who looked like they were shooting for being purposefully insensitive or looking to incite people. The trick is to not take the bait.

Take the tests. Think about how you would react in a space where you might want to be liked and respected. Twitter is a social network, which means it's about connecting with people. You don't have to have everything in common with them, but you may want to behave more like this is a business luncheon than this is a noisy bar. :)

Posted at 05:47 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Best Designed Twitter Backgrounds

There are plenty of Twitter users, websites, and blogs who are showcasing or awarding people who they think have the best Twitter designs. I look at a lot of these, and there is one thing I notice over and over.

Nearly every "best" Twitter background uses a gigantic canvas. Many of them are 1600x1200 or larger. Many have a LOT going on in the first 3-5 inches of the left side.

I first designed mine like that, and then put it out for my friends to check out. Many reported back that their screen resolutions were only at 1024, 1200, or 1280 wide. Some said they had bigger screens, but had "zoomed in" or used CONTROL + to bump up the font size. This also seems to bump up the background. Also remember that screens are getting larger, but laptops are getting smaller.

That meant they couldn't see the first 5 inches of the left side of my design. I did some math, and decided that the lowest common denominator was that just about everybody should be able to see the first 137 pixels of the left, which will be just under 2" for some people. If your resolution is higher and your screen is bigger, you'll see more. But especially if you're writing words, it'll be important to think about compatibility for more people.

Looking at the Google Analytics for our aswas.com website, 56.2% are at 1024x768. 2% are at 1152x864. 23.4% were at 1280xsomething (4 diff resolutions that all had 1280 as the width). 6.7% are at 1440x990. That's 88.3% of users who can't see your 1600x1200 design, even on a really good day. 5.5% of my visitors were at 1680x1050 (which is my external monitor), and 2.2% of my users were at 1920x1200.

So if you are designing for a 1600-wide canvas, most screens and laptops won't see the whole thing. With Twitter centering the main content on whatever you CAN see of the background, that means that elements you deemed as important to the design could be covered.

Let's take a look at some screen shots to illustrate what I mean...

This is how I hope my twitter background might look for many people. You get my whole left side, and you even get my right side.

I have a large screen on my desktop, but I'm using left side room for my Windows taskbar, and right side room so that I can always see my Vista gadgets.

This is how the same screen looks on my laptop (same computer, I just unplugged the external monitor).

The taskbar is still on the left, so I'm just missing my right-side ASWAS.COM part of the design. Anybody who keeps the taskbar at the bottom would see that.

How about when someone zooms in? I hate reading tiny text. I use glasses for the computer, and don't want to lean forward. :)

You can see that as I zoom in more, the design just disappears on a smaller laptop screen. The same is true for zooming in on a bigger monitor. This time, let's show an example that I found on one of these "best backgrounds" websites.

This is the design on my large monitor. This is clearly how it was meant to be seen.

Again, these words are just tiny to me. So in Firefox, I zoom in. Here is how the design then looks on my large monitor...

And on my laptop, first "normal" and then 3 levels of zooming in...

The interesting thing is that if designers were using my 137-pixel guide, and putting most of the left side content inside there, designs would mostly stay in tact across many different screens and resolutions.

Which leads me to this point. Anybody can design anything really eye-catching and amazing when given 1600x1200 to work with, and assuming that people can see inches of design on either side of the Twitter content.

My question is what can you do when many people will only see the left 137 pixels? Is it still great Twitter background design when a large percentage of users can't see the design the way you intended it? Is it still one of the greatest Twitter designs ever when possibly 88% of viewers can't see your message?

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Upcoming eCommerce Conferences

Well holy cats, the month of June is getting quite complicated! There are so many events coming up. I figured I'd try to help people sift through them. :)

April 28-29, 2009 is ChannelAdvisor's Catalyst event. We sponsored last year, and it seemed like a good event. Most of the attendees told me that their favourite parts were the networking meals and other networking aspects. Many didn't think the seminars were that business-changing, but they loved who was there and who they could meet. I think CA had

This year, CA has dramatically changed their event. It looks like most of the networking aspects were taken out. I didn't think the seminars looked that business-changing. And I think they are capping the event at 200 attendees. They have not sold out yet, so you can still arrange to go. I have not registered yet, but plan to attend if all works out right... I have a (personal) event to attend a few days before in Tucson, AZ. I'll have to route a tour!

Yes, I know April is not in June, but I'm hearing from some people that they're not attending CA because they can only budget for one event each year, and they're choosing one of the ones in June. I just wanted people to know it was an option!

June 3-4, 2009 will be the PESA and ECMTA event in Atlanta, GA. I am currently not a PESA member, and the last time I was at one of their events was 2004. However, that was a nice event! :) I'm sure that this upcoming event will be a good one. I'm not sure I can budget for it because...

June 15-18, 2009 is the Internet Retailer show in Boston, MA. They seem to have sold out their giant trade show floor, and have 4 days of seminars and workshops. It's not cheap to attend, but it looks like a major eCommerce event. I'm going to try it for a day or two, just to see if it's something I want to throw more money at next year. So I'll be attending the first day or two. Then, I'll be flying to...

June 16-18, 2009 is the eBay and PayPal Developer Conference being held in the eBay North Campus in San Jose, CA. Yes, cross-country events the same week. I always love the Dev Con. It sounds like this year's will be smaller given the competition from other events.I think many "top level" people from companies will be at Internet Retailer, so I expect DevCon to attract more programmers than CEOs. I'll be speaking (for my third year in a row), so I'll be there for at least the last day or two.

June 24-25, 2009 is the eBay Radio Party (working title) in Las Vegas, NV. For those who miss eBay Live, the current plan is to do an small event in Vegas focused on live internet radio broadcasting with Griff and Lee. There will be some seminars (yes, I'm speaking there too!), and hopefully a fun party given the name of the event.

So those are some options for how to spend your month of June (and April) with the events that are most relevant to eBay and online sellers. I hope you will look for my As Was shirt (if you don't know my face), and come say hi!

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

In-Person Conference on Virtual Events... Huh?

I just got an email inviting me to the Virtual Edge Summit. In theory, I'd like to attend that, but I'm not sure I can budget for more conferences and travel. I already have what feels like 100 events coming up in the next 3 months.

The Virtual Edge Summit should cancel itself out. It is an in-person conference about virtual events and online communities. Huh? Why not prove the point of virtual events BY HOLDING A VIRTUAL EVENT?

Like don't have me fly to Santa Clara, CA (or assume I'm already in that area)... have a virtual event to show how awesome virtual events are! Jeez.

Posted at 08:37 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

I Want To See Higher Standards

People can't afford to waste time and money with sub-standard companies, products, or services. In this economy, that is magnified. Nobody should be sending ANYBODY to any company, product, or service that they don't really, deeply believe is the best choice.

I still see blogs and websites with lots of ads and affiliate links, and they take people to all sorts of things like "systems" for selling on eBay. These systems are pretty much always endorsed by some sort of "expert" or "big PowerSeller" to win your trust. They will take your money, and many of them don't work... especially if they are based in having you get most of all of your inventory from traditional "drop shippers."

I'm reminded of the controversy that swelled around an eBay "expert" who often recommended products and systems to his readers and fans. People started complaining that one of the companies he recommended was a scam. The "expert" finally admitted that he was just recommending them for the cut he got, and he had never actually checked them out. His readers were pretty angry, and I think they rightly felt like they had just been used for the "expert" to make money off of. Some people thought this was not totally ethical.

Similarly, a company recently told me that they don't really look into their partners. They push business to whomever comes in as the bigger sponsor of their events... but don't really check them out. It sounded like they had no standards other than who paid them. I think this company's clients should get recommendations based on quality companies who are good matches to their needs, not who paid the most in sponsorship money.

And I think that's sometimes true for websites and blogs that have ads and affiliate links. These are sometimes chosen for where money can be made, and not necessarily by who that website thinks you should be doing business with.

Who do you want recommended to you... by someone you trust?

So I am calling for higher standards. I'm calling for an end to "enabling" scammers and low-quality companies, software, and services. Sure, they may offer you a cut. But remember that that cut comes from your fans and readers paying that company money. If nobody hires them, you get nothing. Which means you might be pushing your fans and readers to spend money with someone who may not be good.

If that company, product, or service ends up "disgraced" like my previous example with that "expert," you could end up with "guilt by association." Your fans may want to know why you plugged a scammy service or rip-off e-book. Your readers may want to know how much money you made off of something that was trouble for them. Your readers may want to know why you pushed so hard for them to use a certain online marketplace if there are very few sales happening there. Your fans may have good questions, and those questions are really questions of your credibility.

I'm at the point where when I see ads on a website or blog, I just assume someone paid to be there, and the website probably didn't run any kind of quality check. I don't think they Googled the business to see if there are complaints. I don't think they checked BBB complaints. I assume these are paid ads, and as paid ads, they had NO standards to live up to. The advertised company, product, or service could be great, or could be a waste of time and money, it could be ineffective, or it could even be unethical.

We don't accept ads on our website, in our blog, or on our radio show. The companies who sponsored our events and the people I chose to speak at our events last year were chosen by my trust for them. Anybody who did anything to break that trust wasn't invited back. Companies I don't like, who offered me a lot of money to sponsor those events, were turned down. I didn't want to sell my attendees/fans/readers on something I couldn't totally stand behind.

Those are my standards. They're not everybody's standards. But I think now is a good time to take a look at having higher standards. Relationships are important. Your fans and readers trust you. Every suggestion you make to these people can make or break that trust. So I think websites and "experts" should be more careful about who they recommend. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Advanced eBay Store Design is Dead

I saw that a conference a week or so ago had a seminar about Advanced eBay Store Design. I'm surprised to see that someone is out there talking about this or trying to sell you on this. Advanced eBay Shop Design is dead.

In January 2009, eBay dropped the axe on "advanced" eBay Store design. This seems to have been the practice of using coding that broke an eBay rule in existence since 2004 to give the eBay Store a very different look and layout. All through 2008, I was waiting to see if eBay would embrace this style of design, or if they would kill it. I believed eBay would kill it, so my company chose to NOT offer this non-compliant style of design.

eBay chose to kill that style of design. Among other things, they felt that changing the Store's look and layout that much was confusing to eBay users, who get accustomed to how an eBay Store looks and works. This meant that hundreds of people paid a lot of money to get an eBay Store that not only broke eBay's rules, but was possibly less effective than a more "simple" eBay Store design.

What's left of "Advanced Store Design" seems to be an overdesigned eBay Store home page. Once you click past that, you get an eBay Store with minimal design (as it probably should be). My question now is: why sell the overdesigned home page when time after time, we hear that these are less effective?

Let me put it this way. I used to call someone on the eBay Stores team every year, and ask the same question. I'd say, "Tell me that your data shows that custom eBay Store home pages work. Tell me you have proof that they are more effective... they make shopping easier... they make shoppers stick around longer. Tell me ANYTHING, even if you don't give me the data, tell me you HAVE data that shows that custom Store pages lead to more sales. I will make sure every client I have gets a custom Store home page if you tell me this." And year after year, there was silence on the other end of the phone. They could not tell me that a custom Store home page, especially one with a lot going on, would be better for a seller.

And then they drop the axe on "advanced" Stores. I get the message. I believe that these designs are often not effective, and have the potential to distract and confuse shoppers. eBay would know if custom Store home pages lead to more sales, and they would be comfy telling me that they do, even if they give me none of their internal and confidential data. So we still recommend that sellers NOT use eBay Store home pages at this time.

What's left of Advanced eBay Store design is evidently just a custom Store home page, which in my opinion are often overdone.

Advanced eBay Store design is dead. Long live simple eBay Store design that brands the seller, makes shopping easy and obvious, and excludes distractions, microscopic text, and the "let's throw everything on the home page" idea that most online retailers abandoned in 2008. I'll explain that one tomorrow. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Don't Get A ProStore

With ProStores offering something for free to some sellers (in response to Vendio's new Stores, I think), some clients are asking me if they should just get a ProStore. Some are thinking about shutting of their other eCommerce sites to get a ProStore. I think I need to say something out loud here. Sorry if anybody's offended, but you know me. :)

Don't get a ProStore. Just don't. They're not ready for eBay sellers. If you do NOT sell on eBay, a ProStore may be fine. If you sell on eBay, a ProStore is not what you probably think it is.

1. ProStores won't list to other marketplaces. If you are looking for a multi-channel solution that will take your items, list them to eBay, put them on an eCommerce site, and list them to other marketplaces, that's unlikely to be a ProStore any time soon. When do YOU think eBay will build in the feature of listing your items to Amazon? :) So if you're looking for multi-channel, as most sellers are right now, ProStores won't be your solution.
2. ProStores can't take custom HTML templates for eBay listings. Yes, you can design a ProStore, but you cannot take an item in your ProStore, and send it to eBay with one of our templates wrapped around it. Many of our clients are used to doing this with their Vendio, Inkfrog, ChannelAdvisor, Marketworks, Kyozou, Auctiva, Infopia, Blackthorne, etc... ProStores does NOT do templates for eBay, so if you are our client, there is no good way to deal with our HTML templates inside ProStores.
3. Last I heard, eBay thinks you should list with Blackthorne, manage things with Selling Manager Pro, and then also use ProStores. So eBay suggests three tools where I suggest ONE tool (like Vendio, Inkfrog, ChannelAdvisor's Marketplace Advisor Premium). I think that the more tools you use, the more likely you are to work inefficiently.
4. ProStores is not an eBay listing tool. It's just really not. 3 years ago, ProStores was a company called Kurant who build their eCommerce system. eBay bought it, renamed it ProStores, and has confused people ever since. eBay never built this to seamlessly integrate with all that is eBay. They've been adding these features over time, though don't get too excited by the word "adding" since I haven't seen that much added in 3 years.
5. ProStores says hey, don't worry. We'll import your items from eBay, and you won't have to work too hard putting in your inventory. I say hey, don't totally believe that. Yes, they can import from eBay, but your items will come in from eBay EXACTLY as they look now. If you use a listing border, that will come in. If you use one of our templates, that will come in. If your listing has links to your eBay Store, About Me, or other areas of eBay, that will come in too. That means someone shopping your ProStore might see a designed listing dropped inside a designed eCommerce site (ugh) with links OFF your eCommerce site back to eBay. I'm going to call that not a good idea!
6. Don't rush to shut off another site. What many sellers don't realise is that each eCommerce site is a different experience for your shopper. Some are awesome, easy, and more likely to make sales. Some are clunky. Some eCommerce systems go REALLY well and naturally into search engines like Google, helping your items show up more and higher. Some eCommerce systems stink at this. Don't just go by the price of a system. There is more to think about when it comes to a successful shopping cart website. Best to let multiple systems run at the same time, and test them. When you searched Google, what came up higher? Which had people staying on the site longer? Which had people making more sales or higher $ of sales? These are the sites to keep. :)

Sorry I'm not towing the eBay line on this one, but I just can't in good conscience recommend this tool for anybody who sells on eBay or is looking to do the multi-channel thing. If you are looking for JUST a website with NO other marketplaces, maybe ProStores could be a solution for you. I'd still want you to compare it to BuyItSellIt.com, Vendio, epages, etailcomplete, and maybe a few others.

But if you sell on eBay and especially if you sell on multiple marketplaces, a ProStore is just not the right solution, even for free.

Posted at 04:34 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

How Sprint Can Fix Things

This blog post last week talked about how Sprint lost 1.3 million customers in Q4 2008 while Verizon gained 1.4 million and AT&T gained 2.1 million. The post suggests that the main issue is customer service, and Sprint Nextel ranking near the bottom of a survey.

I've had Sprint for many years, and I've actually been really happy. I'm just that rare person who is really happy with their service, and how much lower their prices are than other carriers.

Now that being said, when I DO need customer service, and I call in, I get an Asian support team (Philippines I think) who has messed up what I needed 100% of the time I've called them. But when I get the American team, like when we turn on the international Blackberry data plan when my husband travels to Europe, they've been GREAT.

I think Sprint lost a lot of people to AT&T in pursuit of the iPhone. In that case, the customer service and pricing wasn't enough to keep them because of the choice in equipment. Considering how people feel about the iPhone, I'm not sure Sprint could have done much to keep those people. Millions of iPhones have been sold, and I saw a graph recently that claimed that iPhones had 66% of the market share.

I would think Verizon would be down from people jumping ship to get an iPhone. But I wonder if Verizon is counting Alltel subscribers as theirs now, which would probably make numbers go up for them.

So I say to Sprint what I want to say to just about every company out there. Americans are out of work. Many Americans are willing to work for lower wages than they got before just to have a steady job where they get paid. I remember back in Tucson, people thought that a $10.50/hr call center job for AOL or Intuit was a GOOD job.

Stop sending the work overseas. Bring it back here. We customers will get better service from friendly people who will be happy to be working again and making money. We're worth it, right? We paying customers are worth getting friendly Americans on the phone. That's the change I want to see Sprint make. And release the damn Palm Pre already. :)

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

eBay and Adults Only Items

I've noticed a few interesting things happen recently, and I don't think they're by accident. :) I promise I am trying my best to make NO puns in this post, but it's not so easy. Every word sounds rude! OK, here we go...

eBay sellers who list in Adults Only (formerly "Mature Audiences") used to NOT be allowed to have an eBay Store. I was recently told that these sellers can now have eBay Stores. So there's some new revenue for eBay.

On a side note, I have always found it very bizarre how many overtly sexual devices are listed under Massagers: Other, which means they're outside of Adults Only. Anybody can see them. I know this is the biggest euphemism ever, but some of these titles have words that make me blush! No, I'm not buying these. We have a new potential client who sells such things, and evidently, I needed to freshen up on what's going on in Adults Only. I didn't even know the category had changed names... not like eBay put that in their Announcement Board! :)

For what seemed like forever, eBay sellers were not allowed to accept PayPal for Adults Only items. PayPal seemed to be staying mostly or completely out of anything porn-related. Very recently, eBay changed that policy. Adults Only items can now be paid for with PayPal. We all know that online sales of "devices" and sexual materials is always a big business, and now PayPal will get a piece of that.

I went to PayPal's "help" area, and tried to type in relevant words. I wanted to see if PayPal was going to allow people to use them for any website that might be pornographic or sell adult devices. Every word I put in gave me no search results.

I tried PayPal's automated help chat person, "Sarah." Luckily, she was NOT offended when I asked if PayPal can be used to pay for pornography. She directed me to PayPal's acceptable use policy. That page says that PayPal cannot be accepted when selling, "certain sexually oriented materials or services." I guess "certain" means that some will be allowed and some won't. The page said nothing else about what will or won't.

So I'm guessing that eBay will relax this rule for PayPal so that they can get a cut from all the Adult items being sold out there. Maybe in this economy, any revenue is good revenue.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

How eBay Can Fix Things

I still have hope that eBay can fix things. But they're going to have to do things differently, and not just talk about making changes. I think it was in November that we saw Pierre tweet that he was stepping in to fix things. It's March. I'm trying to keep my hopes up, but I'm not really seeing the change I wanted to see by now.

I think the best way for eBay to fix things is just turn back the clock roughly to 2007. I had a very good year in 2007, as did most of our clients! :)

• Get rid of Best Match. If we got 100 eBay buyers in a room, and asked them about their experiences, I doubt many (if any) would say it was hard to find what they wanted. Finding wasn't a problem. Real problems on eBay include fraud, slow shipping, sellers who don't follow through on promises, etc... Finding is not the problem, so why are we working SO hard on it. Jeez, even the guy who had something to do with the origins of Best Match blogged that he didn't like where it had gone!
• So get rid of Best Match. It's gone. Sellers no longer have to scramble to change listings and strategies for unannounced reasons. Shoppers won't be shown sellers whose greatest quality (as of how Best Match is currently tweaked) is that they have a lot of inventory. DSRs are no longer the most important part of the algorithm, which leads me to....
• Forget about DSRs. DSRs are a binary system of good/bad. 5 stars= good, everything else = so bad eBay could stop you from listing ever again and shut down your business. I still shop by feedback percentage on the assumption that bad sellers will get bad feedbacks. Which leads me to...
• Let sellers leave negatives OR get rid of feedback completely. If you want to be more Amazon-like, remember that Amazon doesn't encourage conversation between buyer and seller, which means the buyer doesn't really get the chance to threaten the seller. If eBay wants to stop buyer blackmail, just follow through on all communication going through My Messages. Then, if you get a threatening email, you can click a report button, and the buyer won't be allowed to leave feedback at all. DONE. Nobody blackmailed or extorted. Feedback system can stay meaningful and honest.
• Advertise to bring buyers to the site. In 2008, I saw no ads on TV from eBay while I saw zillions from Walmart, capturing feelings about the economy. eBay could have jumped on that and didn't. Fewer buyers. Sales down.
• Get back in Google. Ever since eBay and Google broke up, I am seeing very few eBay items come up in Google searches. eBay says they are sending fixed price and Store format items to Google, but when I search, I am mostly seeing Amazon items in search results. eBay needs to fix that because that drop in traffic will help that drop in sales (while Amazon is up in sales).
• Don't change the View Item page the way eBay is saying that it plans to. Based on the incarnations I have seen of the View Item page, I believe that it will inspire fewer sales. There are too many distractions on it. The only thing that was wrong with the old one was that people didn't scroll down to see shipping pricing. SO FIX THAT and you're done. Don't re-lay out everything. Don't make designers design for a NARROWER space when the whole world is buying bigger screens. Our templates now look like bacon strips on huge monitors.
• Go back to the old fee structure. eBay is now taking too much of a % of sales. Most sellers can't afford it. In this economy, you need more sellers making more money, or you're putting them out of business. And what do sellers get for their fees? Right now, lots of scrambling and changes and trouble. Insertion fees aren't the problem. Stop lowering those. Insertion fees are a good barrier to entry for people who think they should put 50,000 items from drop shippers on eBay. It's the FVF that needs to come down.
• Stop with the self-fulfilling prophecies and junk science already. At this point, you have to offer free shipping or you'll be pushed down in search. You have to list things certain ways or you won't be placed higher than page 8 of search results. Whatever eBay wants to hand shoppers they float to the top of search. Then they can say, hey, that's what buyers want because that's what they buy! Well, if you hadn't put it at the top, maybe they wouldn't buy it.
• Get rid of off-site ads. You used to have one banner ad at the top that we could all ignore. Now, you have ads all over the pages. My question to any website owner looking to put ads everywhere is: which is more important? Keeping people on your site, or giving them lots of easy ways to leave your site? These ads are making it easy to leave eBay, which according to the numbers... people are doing, and in some cases, these ads are competing with sellers. Get rid of AdCommerce (for the third time), and get rid of all the other ads. Here is a good page to take from Amazon... every link on the site should keep you on the site!

eBay was better in 2007. Sure, it still had problems. Seller fraud and fakes needed to be fixed. An imbalance of power in feedback, and how meaningless feedback had become, needed to be fixed. VeRO needed to be fixed. And guess what. These are all still true. But things WERE better because you didn't have Best Match or DSRs making things difficult for good sellers, while being mostly meaningless to shoppers. Now is not the time to play Daily Deal or discussion forum upgrade. Now is not the time to fix things that aren't broken. Now is the time to fix what has been broken all along, and in some cases, is now worse. So we have the old, inherited Meg things to fix, plus the new John things to fix. It's a lot to fix, but it can be done.

I still shop on eBay. A lot. :) I always try buying there first when I am shopping online. And I still have the same % of bad transactions that I did before Best Match and DSRs. So to the buyer, this hasn't helped. These sellers are still frustrating. Clearly, DSRs and Best Match aren't keeping them away from me, so if that was the point, that's failing.

I do NOT want to see eBay try to become Amazon. I think Amazon and Zappos will handle that area quite well. eBay should be the eBay that millions of people loved and were passionate about. Shopping on eBay was fun and exciting! It can be that again.

I believe in Pierre, even if I didn't believe in anybody else at eBay. I believe in Pierre because people are basically good, and you can't be that into caring and charity, and not want to see this fixed. You can't watch your stock price drop below IPO price and be less than 1/3 of what it was in late 2007, and not want to do a lot to change it.

Posted at 02:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

How To Uninstall a Custom eBay Store

We've heard from some Frooition customers in our blog and via email who decided they didn't want to pay to have their eBay Stores "upgraded" (aka fixed). Since those Stores are going to break in a few weeks when eBay moves everybody over, some sellers have asked us to show them how to just uninstall these Stores.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/aswas/videos/19/

I shot a video explaining how to undo custom Store designs and custom Store home pages. This should answer everybody's questions, and help them uninstall what they have now.

Good luck!

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Handling Time: 1 Biz Day

I was recently tweeting with other eBay users, and told them that I was wondering when is the right time to email a seller and check on a purchase I had made.

Monday night, pretty close to midnight, I decided to take my own advice and buy a spare laptop battery. :) The seller promised "1 business day" handling time. I wanted to get it by this coming Monday because I leave early on Tuesday for another biz trip. So I upgraded to UPS 2nd Day shipping.

Someone tweeted that I should ask for a refund of my shipping upgrade because it should have been shipped Tuesday. I disagree, but as this is something that probably affects "shipping time" DSRs, let's talk about it!

I bought and paid late Monday night. The seller was probably sleeping. He wouldn't have seen the order until Tuesday, assuming he was all caught up and ready for Monday purchases! To me, Monday doesn't count as a business day since he wouldn't have seen my order that day.

I didn't expect him to ship on Tuesday. That would have been nice, but I didn't EXPECT it. He did NOT say, "We ship the same day that your payment clears our account." If he had said that, I'd have assumed a Tuesday shipment.

I expect him to ship Wednesday since that would be within 1 business day of getting my order and payment. I would expect him to ship it UPS 2nd Day, and if he doesn't, I'd expect him to refund the upgrade charge for that shipping. And I'd expect to get it Thursday or Friday since it's going UPS 2nd Day from New York to the Boston area.

If all goes as planned, there is no reason I wouldn't give this guy all 5 stars and a positive feedback. So please, think about what "1 business day" means, and when the seller is likely to see your order. After business hours? Pretend you ordered it the next day, and give the seller that extra day. According to PayPal, I paid for it Monday night at 11:13pm east coast time. There is NO good reason to treat this guy like his first day of "1 business day" was Monday!

Be patient and understanding with your seller. :)

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

eBay Stores Traffic... What's Going On?

Some sellers were reporting that when they opted into the new eBay Stores experience, their traffic and sales were dropping. I asked eBay about this, and got some information. I'm going to share it in my own words, so this is not some sort of official statement from eBay. I'm just trying to help explain this stuff!

So let's look at some concerns, and what I've found out, so far.

Google Base. eBay submits your fixed price and Store format items to Google Base every day. It takes up to 3 days for them to show up. Auctions are NOT sent to Google. If you want to send those, go to Manage My Store, and find "Listings Distribution."

eBay Stores Traffic Reports from Omniture. Those WERE broken. Many were showing low or no traffic when you really did HAVE traffic. So it looks like for a month or so, traffic reports were not accurately reporting the traffic you DID have.

The eBay Store URL is now different. This is actually just temporary. eBay is using two different URLs to differentiate between opted in and opted out Stores. If you opt in, your old URL points to your new Store. Once everybody is opted in, BOTH URLs will work for your eBay Store. So for those of you worried that you need to change links or reprint business cards, you don't. Both URLs work for your Store. Just don't change your Store name!

Is there anything that would make traffic go POOF when opting into new Stores? The answer is that nothing SHOULD do that. With URLs staying the same or forwarding, that's not the issue. With items still being sent to Google Base, that shouldn't be the issue. eBay is using all the SEO stuff they had in "old" Stores with new Stores, so that shouldn't be it.

I am not an SEO expert, so I have to admit that this is not my area of expertise. But I will say that in theory, I don't see anything glaring that's hurting new Stores or keeping your items from being found in Google searches. It looks to me like eBay is going what they can to continue bringing traffic from Google to eBay items. And obviously, eBay gains nothing if your traffic and sales suffer. eBay makes money when you make money, so there's no good reason to work against your business!

I'm curious to see what happens in a few weeks when everybody gets opted into New Stores, but has the new Store under the old URL. Maybe that'll make a difference because of how Google ranks a Store with so much "history" and links. So just remember that you don't have to opt in early if you are concerned. Maybe this will all just work itself out in a few weeks. :)

Posted at 11:30 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

I Don't Want a Mini Laptop

I used to dream about a UMPC or a mini laptop... I still wonder if I'd like one. But ever since I got my replacement Lenovo last fall, I am thinking this is as small as they should be.

My Lenovo X200 Tablet is the size of a letter sheet of paper when closed (around 8.5 x 11 inches), officially, it's 10.8" x 9.5" x 0.83". It's fairly thin. No CD or DVD drive, so I have to get an external. And no trackpad... just the "pointer." But the whole screen is a touch screen, which is plenty cool. It weighs under 4 pounds, but feels like 2 pounds. It's very light. Lots of ports including Express Card, ext monitor, and 3 USBs. You can get a dock for if if you want. And I have 4GB of RAM in there.

The screen is 12.1" widescreen, so I have a good amount of real estate (1280 x 800 max). As a tablet, the screen swivels, and can even be folded down flat on top of the keyboard. It comes with a stylus pen that snaps into the side of the computer, so it's your mouse, and it's your pen for "writing" on the screen.

Sony has the sexy new P series, a laptop that they advertise by showing people putting it in their back pocket. OK, you have my attention!

It's under 2 pounds, and an 8" screen in widescreen. Eeek. They say it does 1600 x 768, but that has to be weird. That's like a slice of a web page, especially after your address bar, toolbars, and status bar. 9.65" x 4.72" x 0.78"(H). I think that's the size of my wallet. :)

So I'm starting to not feel so hot about these really tiny computers. I like the comfy keyboard on the Lenovo, and can't imagine having to do heaps of typing (as I do) on these smaller keyboards. Are they touch screens? Probably not. The Sony looked like it had very few ports. No microphone jack?

I love portable, but I'm even starting to think the screen on my Windows Mobile cell phone is too small. I'm starting to really want functionality, and especially when I think about real web usability or something like Photoshop, I think the microscopic laptops just won't cut it. The coolness factor is high, but I don't want to drop $1K or $2K for coolness!

I like the Lenovo X200 Tablet. It's not cheap, but it's really light, really portable, the touch screen makes it really easy to use, and very reliable.

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Measuring Twitter User Value

The MrTweet service will recommend other Twitter users to you. It now also "grades" you. As I'm writing this, it rates me as follows:

• 18 Tweets per day
• 65% Conversation (and says I'm "very engaging")
• 18% Links (and says I'm "good connector")

Twitter Grader ranks me...

•  #17,862 out of over 1.3 million Twitter users
• That puts me in the top 1.4% of all Twitter users, which I think is good! :)
• 98.7 out of 100. They say this score is calculated based on how many followers I have, the power of this network of followers (not sure what that means!), the pace of your updates, and the completeness of your profile (not sure about that either!).

65% conversation for me seems about right, and what I'm shooting for. Sometimes, I look at people who follow me, and the first 2-3 pages of their tweets are all @ somebody. I often don't follow that person since I'm hoping that my Twitter pals ("tweeple" :) ) are going to say and offer interesting things.

So a higher conversation % doesn't make me more likely to follow you. Interacting with me is nice, but I'd rather you had some original thoughts you were putting out there, and not just instant message style discussions.

Want to follow my world? I use 4 Twitter accounts.

Other than that, I can only say I'm "very engaging" and a "good connector." :)

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

When Did I Become So Dangerous?

You know me! I've been blogging for nearly 4 years now, right here in this blog. I laugh at bad marketing. I enjoy good marketing. I point at companies I think aren't doing the right thing. I've called out people in my industry. I've called out big international companies. I've called out little local businesses you've never heard of because they were near where I lived. I've even called myself out!

It's what I do, and the about 85% of the point of this blog. The rest would be eBay news and commentary as well as news and info about As Was. Four years of this now. I didn't start doing this this month.

The Emperor Not Wearing Clothes Factor is huge. I like how people who are publicly threatening me want to lecture me in ethics. People blogging to tell me that professionals should stay out of others' business are in my business when they post publicly telling me what to do. :) Bloggers trying to tell me I have no right to comment about other companies where the other companies didn't ask my opinion evidently don't take their own advice... I didn't ask the bloggers' opinions about what I do. :)

Somewhere along the line, I became evidently very dangerous to some people. The people on these missions clearly feel that they need to spend time out of their day posting publicly to get my attention, and get their messages out to me. Evidently, what I've been blogging about for four years was FINE until it was about one certain company. When I blogged about the IMA, they jumped on my bandwagon. When I blogged about Frooition, it wasn't long before they wanted to show up in search for that word too, and there was a topic-less blog post throwing in some names, and magically, some links that had nothing to do with the topic. It's Google-riffic! Yet I was never told any of these posts were wrong. Nobody blogged about what a bitch I am when I told you I don't like the domain registrar Hover.

I have no agenda. I gain or lose nothing when I write a blog post saying look out for tricks my ex-landlord played, or look out for a domain registrar I don't like. I even plan to post poking fun at something I saw printed on a yogurt container! Many people enjoy my posts, and have thanked me for what I have shared or opined. I'm hoping to help people. But when all is said and done, these are my opinions without an agenda.

For those who still think I have an agenda, remember this: I gain nothing when a marketplace fails. I gain something when a new marketplace succeeds because my company can then create services we can do for those sellers. If you are looking for where I can benefit, I benefit when sellers have more places to sell, make their livelihoods, and hire my company to help them with it.

Nobody owns me. Nobody pays me to say these things. eBay doesn't tell me what to say. I get no reward from blogging or posting to forums. I'm not part of a cool club about blogging and posting to forums on a certain topic in a certain way. I don't send people out to blog or forum-post on my behalf. I don't get paid to blog or paid to Twitter. Doing my radio show costs me nothing, so I'm choosing to keep it ad-free for my listeners. I don't have paid sponsors for my radio show, people I might feel like I have to promote or defend.

I just suggest that people continue thinking for themselves. Take a look at what's being said, who says it, and what agenda he or she might have. All of the information you need has been aired in the public. There is no information you are missing to see what is really going on.

Posted at 06:35 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Linking to Your Blog from eBay

We had a question about 2 weeks ago, which was can eBay sellers link to their blogs from inside an eBay listing? We got an answer from eBay.

The short version is NO. This is because most blogs have links in the content or built into the design that either directly sell things, or take people to shopping websites that aren't eBay. So you can see how that wouldn't work for eBay. :)

You CAN link from your eBay listing to things like eBay Reviews and Guides. So if you're looking to compare products or give that kind of general info, you can use those and link there.

Where can you put a link to your blog? Not your eBay Store. But possibly on your About Me page.

The About Me policy page says (as of when I'm writing this blog post):

That means that you can't put things for sale elsewhere on the About Me page. You can't link to a shopping comparison site or shopping directory/online mall.

Since you can link to your own website from the About Me page, you can link to your own blog too. All of these links must comply with eBay's policies. If they do, they can go on the About Me page, but not in the listing.

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Apologies On Broken Links

Hi, readers. Just a quick apology.

Once in a rare while, I remove a post from this blog. Sometimes I put up one in its place, sometimes I just remove it. I understand that either of these may make the original URL to the post just go nowhere. I wanted to apologise for that.

Obviously, if a post comes down, it comes down, and that URL won't go anywhere anymore. If I repost an edited or new version, Typepad will save the new post with a new name, and then it gets a new URL. So the old link won't go anywhere.

Someone suggested this was some great, unethical attempt for me to deceive you, and be a horrible person, or something along those cuddly, understanding lines. It's really much milder than that. :) Though if it makes you feel good to imagine that I do this for some negative, hurtful, malicious reason, then I guess you should pursue that good feeling!

Always pursue the good feeling.

I tend to think that editing a post days, weeks, or months after you've written it is actually more deceptive than just removing it. If I remove it, OK, you have a broken link, and that stinks. But if I edit it to say something totally different, that's going to throw off comments. I have seen some blog posts that were edited literally months later. I went back expecting certain content, and the content, mood, and information had totally changed. In that case, it might be better for my link to go nowhere!

I think of it like an eBay item. If you bid on a gold watch, you don't want the seller to be able to go in and change it to a rubber duckie. It won't be your preference, but it might be better for the seller to just take the item down rather than changing it. :)

Again, sorry about some of the broken links.

Posted at 06:55 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Perfect Manipulation

I read a blog post yesterday that was the most perfect manipulation I've ever seen in my life. It was SO expertly crafted that I thought I'd write about it.

It was a blog post about a controversy that didn't exist, one that involved me. Here are the elements that make this blog post a deliberately-crafted manipulation, meant to make you feel certain things and believe certain things... things that aren't even true.

1. The post basically starts with my name and company name when the topic is not about me at all. I guess my name does well for search engine placement?
2. The post starts by calling me a friend to the writer. This sets you up to believe that maybe I agree with the author, or we discussed this content, or I approved of what he's going to say. Because we're friends, right? He tells you we're friends, so you think that he's not there to hurt me. He's going to help his friend, she says sarcastically.
3. The post then links to another blog post where someone decided it was a good idea to personally smear me by pulling quotes out of context from my blog and pointing at other disconnected things to try to discredit me and get you to think I'm a bitch. So this blog post written by my "friend" starts out with not only a link to the other blog post that seeks to discredit me, but a giant QUOTE from that other blog post. Let's make SURE that before you hear about anything in this "controversy," that you are GOOD and informed about what a loser one person thinks I am. :)
4. The blog post then actually AGREES with something I had said relating to this non-controversy.
5. But don't be suspended by that too long! The post continues calling me by name, and says "on a personal note..." It launches into PARAGRAPHS that include disinformation techniques like trying to talk me out of trying to "slow the growth" of another company.
   1. I have that power? I have the power to blog about some weird information I saw on a website, and SLOW the growth of a company? I don't remember seeing that power on Heroes. :)
   2. The post was written so that you would think that I was trying to do hurt another company. That's now your impression, among other falsely planted impressions.
   3. And with "a personal note" from my FRIEND (of course), you should imagine us sitting together on a dock, his arm around me, as we have this heart-to-heart... this important, personal talk that he had to put publicly in his blog. :)
6. The post says some nice things about my company. But don't be suspended by that too long! That's in there just enough so that you'll keep thinking that the author and I are friends or colleagues of some sort.
7. You don't get the chance to make up your mind about me when the first data you get are anti-me things. You don't get to decide how you think about what statements I made that the author is responding to because he never quotes my statement. He "responds" to things I never said, and he quotes someone smearing me... but never quotes what I said that is supposedly such a hot controversy that he had to write this. 
8. So you just went for "The Ride." You were taken down a deliberate path of carefully-chosen words, and the perfect order of things.
9. Hey, blog post author, don't forget to get YOUR linked company name worked into this hot hot article! Get my name in the tags, your company name in the tags, everybody's name in the tags. This is all about search placement, isn't it.
10. In the comments and discussion under the blog post, the author even went further, and agreed MORE with what I had been saying or trying to say. I think he and I are in nearly total agreement about this non-controversy and my original statements and observations.
11. Also in the blog comments? A comment from the CEO of the company I supposedly want to hurt. He seemed to be saying that he understood my original comments, and could see how I had the opinion I had. He said he didn't see any controversy, but was happy that traffic to his site spiked because of all the fuss. 
12. So there is no problem. There is no controversy. The author and I are in agreement. The CEO of the other company understood what I was originally trying to say. But you won't notice any of that based on how the original blog post is written. If you go down the writer's path, you are left thinking I'm a total loon, out to hurt some small company so I can protect eBay. NONE of this is even close to true. Zero.

There's one thing I have learned throughout my life, and that is that it's very hard to defend yourself against something you never said or did. If you can quote me, or I actually did that, then I can explain it. I can clarify it. Or I can retract it and apologise. But what do you do with something you NEVER said? Should you apologise or retract something you never said? Then people will think you said it, so that won't work. I want people to know I never said that.

I'm talking about this because I want people to be really careful when they read things. Everything has an agenda. My agenda here is to ask you to really think for yourself. Watch how things are written. Wonder what people gain from what they write or how they wrote it. Look at how information is presented... even if it seems factual, can you notice a path or storyline that is meant to make you feel a certain way about a certain person or topic?

Practice this by watching Dateline on NBC. Many of their shows have the exact same pattern. That pattern is specifically carried out to make you feel certain things at various points in the story.

1. They start by introducing you to a person. What a good person with a good family and good future. Nothing bad should EVER happen to this person!
2. Something bad happens to this person. As the viewer, you are outraged. They didn't deserve that! They are so good and had a good future!
3. Dateline will continue to show you how they or their family fought against some larger system (investigators, police, military, big corporation, etc...) to try to make things right or better.
4. It will look like the victim or his/her family is winning, and justice will be served.
5. And then the victim or his/her family gets f***'ed by the larger system! Pwned! You are OUTRAGED again! How could this happen in today's world!?
6. Sometimes, Dateline has the happy ending. Sometimes the ending hasn't come yet. But you are often left feeling outraged rather than satisfied and happy that justice was done.
7. You went for Dateline's ride. :)

The blog post author wanted me to drink his Kool Aid too, DM'ing me on Twitter before he posted this. As for what he said, well I'd LOVE to tell you since it's freaking outlandish. But thanks to the ideas of good internet etiquette that I'm choosing to follow, I won't quote what he said in private messages. I'll just say that based on the notes he was sending me, I knew he was going to post something that would make me never speak to him (again... he was already on his second chance after a previous situation that made me lose trust).

Getting one blog post in search results can't be worth so much that you're willing to hang me out to dry. A real friend wouldn't blog in response to something I blogged, and start out with links and quotes to another blog post that served no purpose other than to try to make me look bad as a person and a professional. If you need to respond to something I wrote, you point counterpoint. You state your case, you quote what I said, you don't make assumptions (ask me first if you're not sure what I meant), and you can close with your own argument. I think that would have been fair. This post lacked fairness in many ways.

I'm sorry that this author wanted to manipulate you, the reader, with how he laid things out. I'm sorry that this is the way a blog post gets written about a "friend." I'm sorry that this author is sacrificing his own integrity with posts like these. And to the author, they say turnabout is fair play, but I won't do it to you. I never have, and I'm very unlikely to choose to do it. I could easily do it. I have so many negative comments about you from other people that I could build a post JUST like yours... introduce you as my friend, quote some of these people who sound like they don't really like you, hint at something you may have said somewhere (but don't quote it), mildly agree with you, make it look like you're hurting a good, small company, and then have that heart-to-heart on the docks where I try to remind you you're a good person, and so much better than the bad guy who's trying to hurt that poor, small, helpless company.

To my readers, I just hope you'll notice when people lead you down paths. A good writer leads you down paths. The question is are you left thinking for yourself, or have you been lead into a manipulated opinion or frenzy?

It's amazing that all of this fuss is about my post about astroturfing. Astroturfing is all about manipulation... getting the public to believe campaigns for or against something through manipulation, shills, and/or unethical practices. And then I read a blog post like that. I guess the whole idea comes full circle.

Posted at 05:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

I'm Not Your Problem

There are times when I come out and share an opinion (or sometimes facts) about something in my industry. Some people agree, some people don't. That's fine!

But one thing I noticed is that people who have no response to the content of what I'm saying just shoot straight for personal attacks. Over the last 2 days, I've been described by strangers as, "a scorned woman" (not sure over what), "jealous" (not sure over what), "on a short leash" (supposedly eBay controls what I say and do), and most interestingly, "queen bitch."

The first piece of "evidence" used for queen bitch? A quote taken out of context about what I said to a completely drunk girl who poured her alcoholic drink all over me at a concert. But the blogger wants you to read this and SEE the horrible person I am for my reaction to being covered with alcohol at a concert! This blogger is either a HUGE fan and reads everything I post, or REALLY had to dig long and hard to find something she could quote out of context to make me look bad. She had to go back to May 2008 for that post, and this is February 2009.

Somehow, I'm the bad guy for pointing out my opinions or facts, but you, blogger, you're the good guy when you insult and defame me. What I'm doing is so, so wrong, and what you're doing is so, so right. Can you please explain that one to me?

And these are the people from the "friendliest" marketplace? Really? Are you sure? Is this marketplace happy with this style of publicity? Is the marketplace happy that these are their loudest supporters, and the people most closely tied with this marketplace?

Evidently, if you can just discredit or defame me, whether what you say is true or not, then the problem goes away. Well, that makes the problem go away, right?

No it doesn't. Because I'm not your problem.

Let's say I post in my blog about something on a website that I think sounds potentially unethical. If I died an hour ago, does what's on that website or people's perceptions of it die with me? If the problem doesn't die with me, then I'm not the problem. I could fall off the planet, and unless the owners of that website change what it says, it could still be a marketing problem for them.

I could fall off the planet, and if the general public still thinks a marketplace is populated by wildly vocal people who evangelise on how happy they are... yet they haven't sold much on that marketplace, I wasn't your problem.

I could fall off the planet, and if the public continues to think that people who post positive things about your marketplace are "sponsored" or not genuine, then I wasn't your problem.

I could fall off the planet, but if you're not being totally truthful with your clients about the compliance of your eBay Stores, I wasn't your problem.

These are marketing issues. I'm pointing at them. I haven't called out any particular person. I've attacked nobody. I didn't call anybody out by name, and write a whole blog post about what an awful and mentally unstable bitch she is.

I know these people are only doing it to try to win an argument and make themselves look better. If they had a good answer for what I'm saying or pointing at, we'd hear that answer. But when it's all personal shots to try to make me look bad, then I guess they weren't able to come up with a valid, intelligent reply to my comments.

You can pretend I'm your problem, but I'm not your problem. I'd like you to fix your problem. You'd probably have more success if you fixed your problem. Defaming me doesn't fix your problem. The time you spent on that could have been spent fixing your problem. :)

Posted at 01:47 PM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Phelps Smokes Pot

The whole Michael Phelps thing makes me think about how we hold people up to a standard of perfection that NONE of us fit.

It also reminds me of a comedian's bit about how doing the Olympics stoned is MUCH harder than doing it straight, so the Olympics should be OK if you smoke pot. It was funnier when a comedian said it.

But here is my point. The people who are judging him and cancelling his endorsements are probably people who aren't perfect. They probably do drugs since most people do or have tried them. They might cheat on their wives. They may commit things their religion tells them are sins. And they're judging this guy?

Is he a bad influence on kids? I guess that depends on how you raised your kids. I was always taught to stand up for myself, believe in what I wanted to believe, be honest, and don't follow the crowd. Those of you who know me would say those lessons sure took hold. :)

But they also tool hold as a kid. When I was a teenager, everybody was smoking, drinking, and at least trying some drugs and sex. I was doing none of it. My "idols" were the British and Australasian bands and musicians you'd classify as New Wave or New Romantic. They were famous coke-heads, smokers, tokers, and in some cases, heroin fiends. They had sex with anything that had a pulse, and discarded it an hour later. I didn't think I had to do any of those things.

Who do I think is a bad influence on kids?

• Dick Cheney for doing insane things from war crimes to shooting people in the face, and never getting caught. Bad lesson for kids when we're normally teaching them the bad guy will be caught and punished!
• Octomom, the woman who just had octuplets even though she already had 6 kids. I saw the interview with her. She had a fake nose, fake lips, and 14 babies. She'll sell her story to try to afford to raise these kids, and her own parents are speaking out against her. TV psychologists everywhere are saying that her kids obsession is to play out her bad relationship with her mother. I think she's a bad influence! Feeling empty? Change your face and have lots of kids who have to love you.
• Any celeb we give huge attention for being a total mess or something they don't want to be. We look at Jessica Simpson's weight more than her singing. Even if you don't like her singing, the attention shouldn't be on her weight. We look at Amy Winehouse's insane personal life more than her music. We look at Britney's wild ride more than her music. We glorify her teen sister's pregnancy. We teach kids that if you do these bizarre things, you could be in magazines! Everybody might talk about you and rally around you. I think Octomom was counting on that.

I think if we're worried about who is influencing our kids, we should give the kids stronger messages about being their own people... finding their own beauty and talents. At least Phelps said, "Yeah I did that," rather than all the athletes who try to claim they didn't take steroids.

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Analysing "eBay Alternatives"

Once upon a time, I told people to not bother with Yahoo Auctions, Amazon Z Shops, or Overstock Auctions. And most sellers I know either never bothered, or those who did saw very few sales from all that effort.

So what about now? Who should we be trying or avoiding?

When I analyse marketplaces, I am looking for innovation. I am looking for the site that will really draw shoppers with open wallets. With open source software, it's easy to just create a site that lets people sell. You can now have that set up in less than a day. But that doesn't mean anybody should shop or sell there.

It's like what Seth Godin said about the Microsoft Zune MP3 player. It's known to be hugely inferior to an iPod with fewer features and a design fewer people like. Seth's point was if you're not making an iPod killer, why go into the marketplace at all? If you don't have the MP3 player that'll make people throw away their iPods, then what are you doing?

I see it similarly. If you don't have the marketplace that makes me forget to shop eBay or Amazon at least some of the time, then why bother? What do you have?

I remember feeling that Overstock Auctions were just not innovating. They seemed to just be copycatting eBay in so many areas, and charging fewer fees, as if fees are the ONLY thing that could be better than what eBay is doing.

What about now? I have my eye on two main sites as possible eBay Alternatives or even competitors. Etsy and Zappos. I think Zappos will become a real contender to the eBay and Amazon space. I think they are doing SO MUCH right, with some innovation. And I think Etsy is doing a good job differentiating themselves and coming up with a niche. I would always like to see sellers given more chance to design and brand, but maybe that'll come with time. I think it's gaining popularity for sellers, but more importantly for buyers, who know what to expect there.

Marketplaces are all about traffic. What about some of the other ones, including up-and-coming ones like Bonanzle you may hear about in blogs and around Twitter? I don't believe yet. Sellers I know who are trying it have so far reported few or no sales. One seller I know said that so far, her buyers were other sellers, who then emailed her asking her to check out their "booths" (Bonanzle Stores/Showcases). I am not sure buyers know to shop there. I am a huge online shopper, and I'm not sure why I should shop there... especially when so far, Bonanzle sellers seem to mostly be eBay sellers. I could buy from them on eBay, where I know the law and I'm comfy. And if they're not on eBay, someone else with that stuff is. :)

Time always tells. It will be interesting to do a follow-up to this say in July or August when people are planning holiday selling, and see where sellers are focusing their time, energy, and inventory.

EDIT: Added after the first two comments appeared below.

If you are commenting about Bonanzle, please let us know if you are part of the Bonanzle Action Club. Thanks.

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

Tax Cuts Don't Work

I'm no economist. I'm a musician and marketing head. And I can't make sense of the whole idea that what the country needs is more tax cuts.

What did you do with that money that Bush sent you last year? What would you do now if the government gave you a larger tax refund or sent you a check? Pay the mortgage? Make the car payment? Pay the credit card company that was calling you every week? These are important things, but guess what. That money goes to banks.

Sending your "stimulus" money to banks (loans, mortgages, school loans, etc...) doesn't feed the economy.

• It probably didn't create a job, especially with so many banks outsourcing call centres to Asia.
• It didn't give the local cabinet maker an order, which made him have to go buy wood, supplies, and tools, feeding multiple businesses.
• It didn't give the steel factory an order. 
• It didn't book you a week at a hotel, keeping hotel staff in business, making that hotel buy food, and bringing tourism money to that area... maybe even giving an airline some money for flights. The airlines can then pay staff.

Hey, I wouldn't say no to a tax cut or the government sending me a check. Money I can pretend is free money is a better deal than any internet scam. :) But if people take that money and send it to a bank, then we haven't really stimulated the economy. The economy lives on spending, and it thrives on spending that "trickles up" to business-to-business spending.

It's about demand. When people stop buying, businesses don't need to produce as much. When they produce less, they don't need as much staff or supplies. They lay people off, and they buy fewer materials from their suppliers. The suppliers struggle, and have to lay off. They need fewer of their raw materials, so someone above them sees their revenue decline.

It's something to think about. One thing I kept hearing during 2008 was that the decline in housing was having huge effects on so many other industries.

• People not buying or selling their homes meant fewer people doing home improvements.
• Every company and industry associated with home improvement was then hurting.
• Everybody who supplied those companies and industries was then hurting.
• Fewer people wanting new landscaping, rippling out to their staff and suppliers.
• Fewer home pool redos or new installs, rippling out to their staff and suppliers.
• Fewer cabinet orders, rippling out to their staff and suppliers.
• Fewer tile, carpet, and flooring orders, rippling out to their staff and suppliers.
• Fewer window replacements, rippling out to their staff and suppliers.
• And the list goes on, and this is all from fewer houses being bought and sold.

It's amazing to think how a dive in what we think of as 'one industry' really rippled out to so many small and large businesses. That's why making sure that people have ongoing incomes to keep spending is how I think this needs to be fixed. Creating jobs, giving people salaries they can then spend, spiralling UP instead of spiralling down.

That's why I like the idea of infrastructure spending. Give people jobs improving our utilities. Let's have really awesome utilities that don't fail when 6 inches of snow fall. Let's get everybody on the internet. Let's make it easier to get around where we live without driving all these cars. Let's re-pave these awful Boston roads. :) These things improve lives, and put money into the economy by giving people reliable salaries. They can then care for their families, pay their bills, and have money for that Disney trip.

That's how I see it.

Posted at 07:58 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

eBay Scam Spam

Um, do I compete with the people sending these things out?

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-best-spam-submission-ever

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Understanding Venture Capital

I'm trying to understand venture capital. :) I don't always get it. I was in the web and online industry in the late 1990s during the bubble (and then the bust). I saw companies that seemed to have no business model and/or no revenue model get MILLIONS, which they promptly spent on big parties. :)

I also read up on VC companies and who they fund. Often, I haven't heard of any of these companies, even when they are in the web and online space. You'd think I'd have heard of them, and I haven't. So they have millions, they're in my circle, I'm usually the early adopter, and I haven't heard of them. I sometimes think that's not the best sign.

I went to an Open Coffee meeting last week, and it was great fun. Really nice guys (yeah, all guys). Some where entrepreneurs, some CEOs, some marketing guys, and some working for investors. Nice mix. It was a small group, so I finally asked someone to explain to me some of the investments I've watched in my industry that didn't totally make sense to me.

One of them said that when he talks with companies who are looking for funding, he asks them to write out an equation.

• What do you charge each of your customers? Let's say it's $1000.
• How many customers do you HOPE to have? He says he uses "hope" since although it's not realistic, it's a look at a best-case scenario. Let's say you're been getting 500 customers per year, so your big hope number is 5,000 customers.
• That would mean that you "hope" to have $5M in revenue. This isn't even your profit. This is just revenue. And let's face it, the best case scenario is probably not the one that will be the reality.
• He said that anybody getting more than that in VC money may be in trouble or may be getting too much money for this to be a VC success.

The guys at the meeting also said that traditionally, VCs were looking to make about 10X on their money. That means if they invest $10M in you, in a certain number of years, they would expect to get $100M from you in some way... maybe you go public, maybe you are acquired. They said that in this economy, some VCs are even OK with making 4X on their money. But that still means that if you got $3M, these guys will expect at least $12M at some point.

So I guess I still don't get it. It seems out of balance to me. I don't understand how a company with a solid business model can get millions of dollars in "help," and in some cases, not even be able to make a profit. I'm sure someone will explain this to me, but some of these gambles seem really bizarre to me.

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

What eBay Should Do With Best Match

Best Match. I hardly know someone who is happy with it, buyer or seller. In that case, something needs to change! Let's start with where it is now.

As of when I'm typing this, Best Match is the secret algorithm that determines what gets high placement in eBay search results. Here is what we do know:

• Seller reputation figures in. DSRs, disputes, and suspensions can raise or lower you.
• Multiple quantity available and "recent sales" now figure in evidently higher than seller reputation. Clients have reported to me that competitors who had worse feedback and DSRs showed up higher than they did in search when the competitor offered more quantity or seemed to have a recent sale.
• Strategy spotlights and "best practices" are self-fulfilling prophecies. eBay says that you should use free shipping because shoppers like that. That's a suggestion! When eBay tells the algorithm that items with free shipping get higher placement, then those are more likely to be bought, and there's your prophecy that these will sell more... fulfilled. So if you don't use the latest strategies, you can expect potentially poor search result placement.
• Paying for something like Featured Plus can raise you to the top of search results if your seller reputation marks don't make eBay want to lower you. We had a client who was "lowered" in search, and paid for Featured Plus, but only showed up at the top of page 8 as Featured. Not helping!
• eBay says that fixed price items have to "earn" their way to the top of search results. Featured Plus and Featured First let you pay to be at the front of the line whether or not Best Match might say you deserve it.

OK, that sounded a bit lumpy! What should eBay do about this? I believe that search results should be tuned to what shoppers really want rather than feeding them what we want them to do.

1. I think that it should be clearer that you can re-sort your search results. I'd like to see what shoppers do if they are fully aware that they don't have to look at "Best Match."
2. I think that if eBay's focus really isn't auctions, or auctions are some sort of format that just gets mixed into this pile, then when a listing ends is mostly not relevant. 
3. I think that if I told an eBay shopper that by default, they are shopping by seller reputation and whether or not the seller is using what eBay says are the best strategies, they'd question that second half.
4. I think that in this economy, people are looking for the best deals. They want a trustworthy seller who has the best price. 
5. Most eBay sellers are great. But I have bought from people who were at the top of Best Match, and turned out to be total jerks. So I wasn't necessarily fed the best people. I still have to do my own checking and reading to determine who I'm going to trust.
6. Recent Sales don't necessarily mean that's the best item from the best seller. I don't believe in the wisdom of crowds. History has shown us some really bad crowds. :) So I think the whole Recent Sales should be gone. If you're going to do the wisdom of crowds, then show me what people who bought this also bought and loved. But let me find the right item first!

I just searched "John Cleese" on Amazon, and I can't tell how items are sorted. We know time ending doesn't matter there, and seller reputation probably doesn't enter into it if I can have all these items shipped from Amazon's warehouses. It wasn't by price since the prices were definitely in no particular order. It wasn't alphabetically. It wasn't by ratings. The first thing I was shown had an average 3-star rating from 2 people. The second thing I was shown had an average 5-star rating by 370 people! It wasn't by type of items since I had DVDs, then a book, then DVDs, then books, etc... It wasn't by how many were available "used and new" from other sellers since those numbers were all over the place. And it wasn't by when the book or DVD were published as those dates were all over the place.

OK I'm stumped! I can't tell how Amazon's search results are sorted. I don't know if they're sorted in the best way for me. Then again, Amazon combines multiple sellers' items into one result and listing page. eBay might have hundreds or thousands of listing pages for one item. So it's going to be different, and that's OK!

How would I do it? I'd make the default search results "price incl shipping - lowest first" or whatever you want to call it. I think most people shop by price. And anybody with all DSRs that are say 4.7 or higher might show up with some sort of logo of a top seller if we want to highlight those people. I'd then give people check boxes to ask if they want things figured into their search results.

I think that all in all, this needs more testing, and I'd like to see testing that's not just one choice. Like I don't want, "Here's our search results, what do you think?" I'd rather see them ask big eBay shoppers to design their own search and how they want search results sorted. I can't imagine that in 2009, eBay shoppers, given the chance to understand what's going on, want things sorted by Recent Sales.

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Where Twitter Is Going

Lots of people are blogging (and tweeting) about where Twitter is going, how will they monetise, etc... I'll throw my hat in the ring, and give you my predictions on Twitter.

1. I predict that Twitter will be like "email." We have lots of apps that handle email, and we can email from various devices in various ways. So in a sense, I think Twitter will sort of become a protocol, sorta. :)
2. Email can be free, but if you have your own domain, it's probably not free. I think Twitter will find ways to get people paying in, but I think they're more likely to come from licensing and API stuff than getting me to pay $5/month. I would pay $5/month, but I wouldn't want to pay Twitter AND pay people making applications. So I think it's more likely that Twitter will charge for API access, and we'll all pay for apps we like.
3. For many years, eBay charged people to use their API. I think Twitter will do that, and I think they might be starting. So that may not be a prediction. :)
4. Because Twitter can go through mobile phones and text messaging systems, I think it will get linked more to eCommerce. I mean buying something more immediately and more easily, possibly even bypassing traditional shopping carts.
5. Applications will have to consolidate or just do more. Right now, I have a mobile Twitter app (PockeTwit), Twirl (desktop client), twitterfeed for sending feeds to my accounts, qwitter if I care who stopped following me, MrTweet to suggest people I should consider following, and there was some other app I was playing with that let you schedule tweets. People use apps like Brightkite and Loopt to map themselves and try to find friends nearby. Plus some people use autogreeters and things like that. We have hashtags, and we have searching tweets for things we're interested in or people we may want to get to know. This is getting cumbersome, so I predict that systems will merge/consolidate, or just do more. And they'll have to do more if we're starting to pay for these apps (because they're being charged for the API).
6. People will find better ways to use Twitter. Right now, I rarely follow people because I want to make sure I can keep up with the updates, interact with people, and have them know I'm reading and paying attention. To me, it doesn't make sense to follow hundreds or thousands of people. It would be like signing up to 100 email mailing lists, and then not being able to make time or headspace to read it all. 
7. Part of using it better might be using multiple accounts based on what you like to write about. I use 4 Twitter accounts. Twirl and PockeTwit help me easily manage them all from one app, which is very helpful. 
8. Organisations will find better ways to use Twitter. At this point, many people no longer take the time to read blog posts, and people will either choose to not read emails, or those emails may get discarded as spam. With email and blogs not reaching people they way they used to, I think Twitter can rise up as a way that towns can tell people there is a snow emergency and not to park on the even side of the street. It's an easy way to quickly tell a large group of people something important.

I believe the Twitter thing is something I think will become more of a major platform rather than "just an app I use." I think it can be monetised, and I think applications will make it even better with more features. Those are my predictions. You may disagree! Where do you think Twitter is going?

Posted at 03:00 AM in Just An Observation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)