Banks. Banks are king at getting new customers and forgetting about their current customers. Every fantastic offer you see your bank advertising has “Not for current customers” tacked on the end. “0% APR with 6 months to pay and a free rabbit hutch!” they shout and then whisper “For new customers only.” They spend millions of our money on getting new customers and forget to spend anything on us.
Sometimes you wonder if reviewers are simply meeting word counts when they make statements like this:
For example, a search for feeds related to ecology retrieved only 41 items–quadruple what Google Reader found, but Bloglines turned up 383 and Newsgator Online dug up 68
The use of “only” tells me that 41 is bad while 383 is good. What about quality though? Did the reviewer spend a few minutes going through Bloglines’ 383 results? Rojo’s 41 might be 41 brilliant sources while Bloglines’ 383 sources might have just 3 quality sources.
I am complaining because this isn’t some part-time reviewer but a paid reviewer on CNet. If they aren’t going to spend the time doing proper reviews I am not sure I need to bother checking them against the millions of blogs out there offering the same but in a better format. No wonder their traffic is slipping.
And if you were wondering I prefer Bloglines to Rojo but think Bloglines’ “related” results are next to useless.
I am not a big fan of the personalised home page systems like Netvibes, Pageflakes and Google’s IG. I simply have not found much use for them and none have integrated into my daily life in any way.
Pageflakes though just turned the concept on its head by allowing users to share home pages. One user can start a page and then share it with others who can view it and customise it further. This doesn’t make it anymore useful as a home page but it makes it interesting as a team collaboration tool. With feed components one could display build status, shared email, shared documents, todo lists, project plans and a host of other info that a team needs to keep each other aware of.
I hope Netvibes includes this feature as I like their system a bit more than Pageflakes.
Just a quick one; If I get an email from you of a marketing nature that does not have an unsubscribe link in it then I am going to hit Report Spam in GMail. Even if I have signed up for that email months ago.
Telling me to go back to your site and use login credentials I have long forgotten to uncheck 15 checkboxes to stop receiving emails from you is also not OK.
An Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, visited us at the opening of the ArcLab Research and Innovation Center yesterday. The day went well though he was in and out faster than a wife dragging her man out of a pub. Apparently he had 15 other openings to attend to that day.
The mayor of Waterford was there as was Martin Cullen and various other dignitaries from WIT.
One thing I must comment on is that Irish speakers need to raise their heads more. The mayor kept her head up more than most but it looked like she was reading her notes via braille. The rest, even Bertie, kept their heads down as they read their speeches. I was also suprised when the building was blessed by two priests. Apparently it is the done thing in Ireland even though afterwards a few jokes were made about avoiding it becoming a religious day.
All in all an interesting experience and a good thing for the Waterford region.
Even if you hate Microsoft and wish its downfall, even if you use Linux or OS X religiously it doesn’t matter. A lot of normal folk are going to be burnt by Microsoft’s new licensing and they have no idea it is coming. You need to tell your mom and dad, your non-tech friends and your company IT that the licensing is terrible and that Microsoft has to change it before it releases Vista.
In a nice move by Apple you can now buy a red iPod nano and support the Bono backed (RED) campaign. $10 is donated to the AIDS cause for each (PRODUCT)RED you buy at $199.
