Big Thinking for Small Business - Latest Comments

Re: Worst Unsubscribe Implementation Ever

George Bounacos — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:38:51 -0000

Hey, Alexander, thanks for posting. If you're using Gmail or a similar program for email, try marking the messages as spam. If nothing else, you'll train your email client to send them to your spam filter. Unsubscribe forms make me a little crazy. I don't mind a message that says "You're unsubscribed. You would really help us learn how to serve everyone better by answering these 3 questions. People tell us it takes less than 2 minutes."

That is at least respectful of customers.

Re: Worst Unsubscribe Implementation Ever

Alexander Zagoumenov — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:03:24 -0000

I think Dell has the worst unsubscribe process of all. I've been trying to unsubscribe forever but end up leaving as I don't have time to complete the entire form. Too much to read. So I just end up deleting these messages.

Re: Why Do Not Track Hurts Consumers

alanbleiweiss — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:27:45 -0000

News came just this week that the New York Times is going to roll out their $20 a month paywall next month. Many models are being tried all around regarding ways to monetize the web in new ways. And sure, there's going to be plenty of people who will ignore, not know about, or understand what's going on with ads that follow them around.

Personally, I'm intimately aware of the concept of cookie/machine-based tracking. And it's not so innocuous. It's based on identifying the fact that my someone operating my computer visited a particular site, not necessarily on me as an individual. Except Facebook already tracks my movement. Even after I opted out of the personalization - when I go to CNN, there's a box on the right showing what others on Facebook are interested in there. And even with my having opted out, the 1st result is always someone IN my network. So they're both tracking and can identify me as an individual.

Nothing exists that says ad networks won't do the same. And even when they don't, I have no willingness to allow just any ad network the privilege to track me as I surf the web. And I have no problem having to pay for access as a result.

Re: Why Do Not Track Hurts Consumers

George Bounacos — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:51:00 -0000

Yes and no. Sure, it's hyperbole to a large degree, but not exactly tongue in cheek.

This strikes me as the same sort of reactionary behavior you see on Facebook when someone self-identifies dozens of data points about themselves and then complains about privacy.

I do think that there will be growing backlash as microtargeting becomes more accurate.

The real issue, I think, is the difference between what is personally identifiable information and what is cookie/machine-based.

Do you think it's too early for mainstream media to try pay walls again?

Re: Why Do Not Track Hurts Consumers

alanbleiweiss — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:56:35 -0000

You're kidding right? You've got to be. Because this thinking is so myopic, so "free market rules regardless of personal preferences" that it's dangerously inaccurate. Google doesn't need to charge me, because they make billions on paid ads. Same with Bing. So throw out the "imagine if you had to pay to use a search engine" nonsense. That's just an outright sham.

As far as "imagine if you had to pay" being applied to other sites, sites that actually serve up display ads, which this is all about, well sure, maybe that day will come at some point down the road. And if it does, then that's because THAT is what the market demanded. By blocking tracking mechanisms.

THAT is free market in action.

Anything else just comes across as a shill article put out on behalf of the advertisers who don't know how to profit from the Internet.

Re: Google To Display More Product Info

Edgenet — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:43:12 -0000

Edgenet is excited to be working with Google to improve the quality & depth of product info displayed in search & shopping sites. If you'd be interested in getting more information from us to clarify what these efforts mean to the supplier/manufacturer and retailer, we're happy to discuss. Please contact us through Twitter www.twitter.com/EdgenetInc or Facebook www.facebook.com/Edgenet.

Re: Great Customer Service Mystery

George Bounacos — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:56:43 -0000

Thanks, Unmana. If small businesses truly have customer service in their DNA, they can create a lovely profit line. The biggest issue I've experienced is companies chansing the wrong customer satisfaction goals.

Re: Great Customer Service Mystery

Unmana — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:46:11 -0000

Nice post! I just wrote something similar on the company blog. Small businesses will need to compete on service, provide a great experience.

Re: Worst Unsubscribe Implementation Ever

George Bounacos — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 09:45:37 -0000

It was a page of 8 point type. I used an Internet convention of clicking the graphic to examine detail. Maybe you noticed it in the caption.

Re: Worst Unsubscribe Implementation Ever

Father Loppes — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 09:38:03 -0000

Maybe you should try posting an image that people can actually read....

Re: Social Media Is Here To Stay

George Bounacos — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:55:51 -0000

I agree. To me the fascinating piece is convergence. We've moved from Exchange servers that guard email contact lists to email in the cloud, to iPads, email on my TV and smartphones.

We've all always said that the desktop as equipment would have a shelf life of maybe a generation and we're nearing that point. 10 years ago I was desperately trying to get voice recognition to work at a startup. Today, it's good enough for commercial use.

It's an amazing time, and if you're going to continue building tools you have a fun but tough challenge in becoming platform agnostic. Think about web access via a Blackberry or Wii. How in the world do we optimize that and optimize for web browsers too?

Re: Social Media Is Here To Stay

Carter Cole — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:43:09 -0000

it will be interesting to continue to see this market grow...

Re: Gmail Becomes Perfect For Your Small Business

credit card application — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 04:30:41 -0000

Google is the best! They are considering small people to have use with their site. This is really a great help for all the people who have small business.

Re: How Google Just Changed Your Online Reporting

credit card application — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 04:25:17 -0000

All sites are really affecting everything in your life especially with the social networking sites. Google is really a large site that will make your online reporting affected. Google are getting all the readers to their sites that make your number of readers small.

Re: Google Proves SEO Is Ongoing Effort

Online — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:34:48 -0000

So many people think that Internet sites are a straight shoot to the top. Sure you have some Amazons and some Facebooks, but for each of those sites that had steady and continuous growth you have tens of thousands of sites that are riding the wave. The site grows, the growth slows, more blogs are posted or SEO steps taken and the site grows. The cycle repeats and repeats - few get the silver bullet of continuous growth where you just sit back and watch.

Re: Reconsider Vanity Phone Numbers – Fast Friday Fact

George Bounacos — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:39:05 -0000

Oh no, my BlacBerry is going away! :D

Hey, BC, the physical phone issue vs the touch screen display is a great thing to bring up. Good call. I missed it entirely. Of course a display would have the vanity numbers.

Like nearly everything else on this site, this blog was born of personal experience or someone's personal experience relayed to me.

Then of course Google's Click to Call with its routing rules (see our contact page here) make the whole thing moot!

Re: Reconsider Vanity Phone Numbers – Fast Friday Fact

CMW2525 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:23:54 -0000

I have actually heard this concern when I was working on a project at Motorola. What is actually dying off at this time is the type of phone pictured above, with all of the physical buttons. Over the next few years, most than 1/2 of all new cell phones from all manufacturers will be touch-screen models, and almost all of the phone-dialing buttons on touch screen phones use the international standard letter-to-button scheme that is found on the traditional old North American telephones. Personalized business telephone numbers may or may not slow down or die off as a result of more focus on web-site visits, but the ability to correctly dial a vanity type telephone number will actually continue to become a lot less difficult than it has been over the past 5 to 10 years, during the rein of the type of phones such at the one pictured. Just an FYI, and I'm glad there are folks out there thinking about ideas like this. Thank you. BC

Re: Oversharing Dangers

George Bounacos — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:34:01 -0000

You're right. There's absolutely no way to know. But when I see the monthly charges on the card and I see a payment for $75, I'm pretty confident in the assumption.

More importantly, though, is the fact that anyone wants to broadcast their credit card and checking account charges. I really think it's a dumb thing. Can you imagine going back in a time machine 10 years ago and telling people that their friends would lifestream their finances?

Call bullshit all you want. It's a horrible site, a rotten idea and I have to question the motives behind anyone who signs up for this service. If you participate, maybe you'll try to enlighten me and the readers because over on Facebook, I've got folks who know the web well who think Blippy is a blight.

Remember the pushback on Mint? Mint was only 1 to 1 with the company (now Intuit) and privacy advocates were screaming. For that matter, consumers were screaming when Amazon first introduced Purchase Circles that had no personal identifying information.

Are you a Blippy fan? If so, I'm totally interested in why.

Re: Oversharing Dangers

Someone — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:05:13 -0000

I call bullshit on this article.

> He pays the minimums on the credit cards he’s hooked up to the sit

There's no way to know that from Blippy

Re: Oversharing Dangers

George Bounacos — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:43:16 -0000

Absolutely. And if they have a good time at Wicked, maybe I can sell him the CD. Not only is the service just the height of narcissistic over-sharing, but he helpfully annotates comments like "Road trip with Joe and Kevin to go fishing". Ah, so you're a fisherman too. Lovely.

Re: Oversharing Dangers

topsecretusername — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:34:05 -0000

Then there's the stuff you can infer - if he's paying $40-50 to fuel his car each time, you know it's a larger vehicle, and given his age and other behaviors it's easy to surmise it's an SUV.

Or I've watched too many Criminal Minds episodes and think I'm a profiler.

Re: Download Patent, Trademark Data

George Bounacos — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:32:13 -0000

Absolutely. I remember a good friend, now deceased, who took an advanced CS degree in 1983. I asked him around that time why we just couldn't round off and multiply everything by 1000. He of course responded that the 24s would add up. He was right. But when you have a drawer full of 2 gig drives that are too small for most of what you want... :-)

Re: Download Patent, Trademark Data

JP Burke — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:26:27 -0000

Remember when a terabyte sounded like a lot of storage?

Re: William Shatner Wants To Punch My Friend

George Bounacos — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:51:18 -0000

I agree. I think we all have a strong reaction to something, and since the piece didn't require the language, it wasn't a smart risk for the payoff. Using the Big Deal guy with the tats and hat would've gotten the same message. It's all about "'what's in it for the customer". If Shatner says, I'll have Big Deal here judo chop them, then it's just plain dumb, but it's not "Buy from us and I'll take you off my beatdown list"

Re: William Shatner Wants To Punch My Friend

JP Burke — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:35:49 -0000

I agree that asking them back is an odd time to use humor in that way.

Probably better would have been something like "aren't there some prices you'd like me to judo-chop?" It might still have been slightly funny, but not offensive.

Considering it, I think I overstated your friend's sensitivity. I just don't tend to care about these things as much; for someone who does care, I can see having a stronger reaction.