I’m BACK!

Wow, it seems it’s been over a year since I last posted something here, long time. To be honest I didn’t realize it’s been such a long time. Anyway enough moaning, it’s been some busy times.

Why so busy? Well I’ve been doing a lot lately.

First of all there’s a new company out there. It’s called Increvo. I’ve started it with a fried of mine to replace the old TanTan Prod. There are a number of reasons why we did that, but it’s mainly because we’ve extended our offerings and we wanted a new name and identity. Sure we could have rebranded the old one, but still a fresh start is good at some point in life.

Secondly there’s a new online store out there as well. And it’s not “just another online store”. We’re aiming at the small form factor computer niche(like netbooks, nettops, and tablet PCs). Be sure to check it out at: smallPC.ro.

Last, but not least, I’ve developed a keen interest in networking stuff and especially VoIP and other Over IP communications. You should see some nice VoIP products out there soon. Can’t tell exactly how soon as we’re only just test driving the technologies, but there should be at least a Beta version available in like 1-2 months time.

This is about it for the update. Fingers crossed for a product announcement soon.

Google strikes again

Hmm, I’ve just visited my Gmail box to find that Google is now offering PC to Phone calls. What’s the problem you might ask? Well seems like Google is taking on yet another field. I’d expect people at Skype to be, well, not so very calm with such a competitor in sight.

I don’t suppose they’ll have much problem getting a hefty amount of market share though. First of all they seem do be able to make stuff that actually works(unlike Skype’s service that just stops working whenever you need it most). Google Talk has proven itself  reliable (at least to me).

Secondly they own a mobile operating system so it would be interesting to see whether this will make it on your handsets folks, and with the free calls to the US and Canada  they’re likely to make a lot of telco operators angry should they decide to go for it.

It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves. Either a Wave type service or a Gmail type service. They’ve sure given it a head start with all those free calls. I wonder what’s it going to be called when you make calls. Googleing is already taken as a verb.

Adding a new page to your employers list in facebook

It should be simple right? Wrong. I’m either too stupid or it’s just plain complicated. It’s just not straight forward enough. There’s so much going on on the new page you’ve created and when you try to add it to the list of employers… bang it eats you. The page is nowhere to be found.

I though well I’ll go to the page and find the button that says: “Add this page to your employers” or something of the kind. It turns out there ain’t one.

I’ve given up for the time being. I’ll try again tomorrow, maybe it’s just that the new page hasn’t propagated through all their databases yet.(though I would expect them to inform me of that)

Google Maps + Vodafone internet = Nice combination

Navigation software providers have really got a problem. With Google maps now offering free maps for almost all mobile devices and street view + turn by turn navigation for android powered devices, and Vodafone offering 500MB of data traffic for roughly 4€/month I really don’t see a point in paying for GPS navigation software. Sure you have to download the map data off the internet, but that’s got its good part: it’s always up to date and with numerous points of interest from Google. Also Vodafone seem to keep to their word of offering mobile internet wherever you are. I’ve been driving through the mountains last week and apart from some really remote roads I seemed to have at least GPRS connectivity everywhere. Now that’s rather impressive.

Bottom line is I could very well find my way just relying on Google maps, that sounds promising

Google ads are not for your company’s website. period

Some time ago I noticed some google ads blocks on a competitor company’s website. Didn’t pay much attention to that, but only just recently another company’s website featured google ads as well.

What’s the problem with that you might ask. Sure it probably helps them make a few extra bucks (probably not more than 10 though), but the question is: Does it make you more than it costs you?

First of all a company’s website with google ads looks deeply unprofessional.

Secondly it drives people away from your site.

You want your visitors to click on the Google ads right? I mean that’s why you put them on after all. But guess what. That takes the user to another company’s website and it might be something the visitor is interested in(that’s what’s google is trying its best to do). The user is distracted from doing business with you and you’ll probably end up loosing the deal. In that case what’s the point of developing a website that’s supposed to get the customer to do business with you, if you’re doing your best to distract them from that by showing them ads of things they want. That’s like putting candy on the pedestrian street crossing. You want them to clear the road as quickly as possible concentrating on their own safety, yet you distract their attention from that. Eventually somebody’s going to get hit by a car.

At the end of the day you’ll probably loose more from lost customers than you’ve made from Google Ads.

Does Google have too much power?

I read a friend’s twitter post a few minutes ago about Google deleting North Corea from Google Maps and it got me wondering: Does Google have too much power?

Deleting the country’s cartographic data from Google Maps might be annoying but I don’t suppose it does much harm. On the other hand, what if Google decides not to display search results that relate to a certain country, territory, etc.? Then it gets messy. Think of the economic impact of such a measure, and if it’s done carefully people might not even notice there’s a problem.

One might say: let’s make a law for that. Nope don’t think so, that usually ends up badly. The big problem is why isn’t there anybody to rival Google(for real) and balance the market. Yahoo is far behind in popularity, bing (from my experience with it) produces the same lousy results that MSN search did and there are no other serious search engines that I know of.

In conclusion: we better pray Google likes us.

The perfect present, sort of

Looking for the perfect present to send to your beloved one? Search no more. Hug e gram is here to help you.

It can really make you look stupid. And for $29.95 it’s really good value.

I tried hard to see how this is better than flowers, but I can’t see an overt advantage to it. Call me a conservative, but I can’t. Sure it can kill your relationship and ensure you get no other so it’s a money saver as well. See again it’s great value. You’ll never need to buy flowers again. Ever.

So here’s a tip: If you were drunk last night and got yourself into a relationship that you’re not looking forward to buy your new girlfriend one of these. She’ll be thrilled to wrap it around her waist. Did I say thrilled? Damn it’s got me as well. I meant terrified. Also make sure you record a nice message for hear to hear. You could, for example, remind her of your phone number so that she can quickly call you to end it.

Yppie. Time for celebration

I just realized I’ve hit the 10 posts milestone. It took me a while but that’s irrelevant I’m here.

Support is about speaking with people

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about PayPal and their support, which eventually led me to telling him how great support at Rackspace and Slicehost is.

I’ve had a number of interactions with the support departments of these three companies (I’ll just use Rackspace to reffer to both Rackspace and Slicehost since they have mostly the same approach and Slicehost is now owned by Rackspace), and they feel miles away.

On one hand you have PayPal, whom I have to admit have been responsive, but you don’t get the feeling that you’re speaking to a person. The e-mails are so strictly formated and composed. The wording is so strict and it really feels like patchwork from an extended FAQ list.

On the other hand you have Rackspace, where you get to live chat with a person. You immediately know his name (at least part of it), he/she calls you by your first name (which makes me at least feel more comfortable) and it really feels like speaking to human being. There also seem to be fewer procedures or at least you don’t notice them. You talk to the person on the other side, you explain the problem and then find a suitable solution for both parties. It all feels so much more flexible and friendly.

So what’s wrong with PayPal’s approach? It gets the problem solved! Yes that’s true both companies always got my problems solved, but when one contacts the support department it expects to talk with a human being. There’s supposed to be a person on the other end of the line that can understand your particular problem and find a solution that’s good for both parties. If I wanted patchwork of the documentation available I could do it myself (in a bit more time but still I could). Also it’s more likely for a person to contact you with his problem when he gets a friendly approach, and at the end of the day you want customers to contact you with their problems. Otherwise they’ll just end up being frustrated and move to your competitor.

That’s it for now. I could probably go on about it for a long long post (I’ve had quite a few disturbing experiences with support crews), but I’ll save the rest for another post

New business – coming right up

What could possibly be better than running your own business? Starting one

Yup that’s right, I’m working on some new business. I’m not out of the web business though (to competitors: better luck next time ). What I’m trying to do is broaden the services our company has to offer.

I won’t tell you much about what’s going on here or when we’re going to roll the product out. I can only say it’s going to be some tangible product so this time you’ll be able to take it and play with it. Actually no, you won’t be able to take it into your hand. It’ll be quite heavy.

We’re quite enthusiastic about it and we really look forward to getting the product production ready. It’s currently in development phase so there’s still a lot we’re learning, but we’re confident it’ll be successful. We wouldn’t have started working on it if we hadn’t.

If you’re the curious type you probably hate me by now for not telling you much, but I promise to get back with more and more information over time so stay tuned.

Oh and check out the “stay tuned”  panel on the right. You can now subscribe to my posts so you won’t miss any of them. (it would be a terrible loss to miss any )