Archive for July, 2009

ShiftThis newsletter WP plugin – RIP (and good riddance)

Jul 31 | by Sam Deeks | blogging technique, history
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102 unwanted test emails finally spells The End for ShiftThis newsletter plugin

I spent $30 on this plugin.  Actually, $60 because I also bought it for a client. From the beginning, it was a complex nightmare to get working but I stuck with it.  It came with one basic newsletter template and no user-friendly means to edit or change it.  On top of that, the plugin maker found it easier to piss off his customers rather than provide an after-sales service.  Shame.

It also failed to move with the times (read incessant Wordpress upgrades).  Within a few months, it began sending random test emails – hopefully just to my address.  Then it lost all its graphic editor controls.  For the last couple of issues of my newsletter, I’ve had to copy and change HTML code.  It’s been a pain in the arse, frankly.

And this morning, my iPhone suddenly informed me that I had 102 new emails in the space of a minute or so.  Great.  Straight into Wordpress plugins and deactivate.

So long, ShiftThis WP newsletter.  Like I said, you almost made it – the Holy Grail of blogging; the working, workable blogger newsletter.  But you blew it.

So we had 11 beautiful months together.  And then it had to end.

Why?  You had the technical skills – that was clear from the start.  What you didn’t have was the social skills to make the most of social media.  From the very beginning, you treated your customers like an annoyance you could do without.

Can’t drag and drop widgets? That’ll be WP Shopping Cart messing things up, then

Jul 29 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, blogging technique, change
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WP Shopping Cart (Ecommerce) plugin and WP 2.8 don’t mix

Picture 2..but you’ll only have found out the hard way.  Like I did. Probably the first time you came to drag-and-drop widgets after upgrading (reluctantly if you’re anything like me) to Wordpress 2.8.

I’ve ranted about the enslavement to upgrades that you’re forced into when you start blogging (or making sites) with Wordpress.  No sooner than you get used to one version, some unknown entity decides its time to upgrade.  If you don’t things gradually stop working on your site.  Or your clients’ sites.  But even if you do, things inevitably and suddenly don’t work too.  Why? Because the people who make the free plugins you’re so dependent on haven’t caught up with the Wordpress upgrade.  They either haven’t had time, or worse, can’t be bothered since no-one’s paying them to keep up.

With Wordpress, things go down like a line of dominoes.   Just now, I noticed that the widget that comes with the WP AudioBoo plugin wasn’t showing on my homepage.  So I replaced that plugin with a more recent one.  Then I went to the widgets dashboard and tried to drag and drop the AudioBoo widget into my sidebar only to find I couldn’t.  Further exploration revealed I couldn’t drag or drop anything.  Ah. New problem.

Next step, Google and search for ‘can’t drag and drop widgets in WP’.  That led me to a number of threads in the Wordpress Codex where people had upgraded to WP 2.8 only to find themselves unable to drag and drop widgets.  10 minutes later, I had worked out that it was the Ecommerce plugin from Instinct Entertainment (!) that was messing up the drag-and-drop function in WP 2.8.

A few people offered crude, temporary work-arounds.  None of them solved the problem and all of them required a level of php expertise that would kill off all but the code-obsessed developer.

My solution? Lose the WP Shopping Cart plugin since I’m not really using it.

And where does that leave me? Stranded between WP Shopping Cart 2.5 and 3.7 and WP 2.8 and 2.8.2 with no real confidence that anything will ever work properly and a growing sense of the stupidity of the whole, idiotic endeavour.

I’ve really, really had enough running just to stay still.  It’s insane – a modern madness that I want no further part of.  There. I’ve said it. :-)

LinkedIn: Social media as ‘Walled Community’?

Jul 29 | by Sam Deeks | Twitter, critical approach to online media, what do you think?
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LinkedIn wants you to share stuff with it’s community first, your community second

I’ve said this many times before, but I think LinkedIn makes social media hard work.

Why? Not least because of its clunky ‘what do I do now’ functionality.  But also because it wants you to stay within its walls more than it wants to recognise the way you want to use social media.  It has something of an AOL feel to it.

I keep getting the occasional invitation to connect and the odd link from LinkedIn.  I go to there, accept the invite, say hello sometimes… and then sort of grind to a halt thinking ‘what can I do now?’

This morning, I got a link from an online reputation group I subscribed to in LinkedIn.  I went there, had a read and decided ‘I’d like to Tweet that’.  I clicked the ‘Share this’ button and found myself being offered the opportunity to share the link with people in my LinkedIn network.  Pity I wanted to share it with my Twitter network.

And there you have it.  Social Media as walled community.  This network versus that network – all vying to own the member pool.

So long as there’s revenue to be dreamed of and grasped, will there ever be a totally open social media network?  One which sets out to seamlessly interface with every other network of choice?

Personally, I doubt it.  What do you think?

UK Summer weather forecast: Gloom. It’s official

Jul 26 | by Sam Deeks | business insight, media
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Global Gloom Warming: Summer is now like Winter only slightly warmer and with more leaves.

weatherYes, I’ve got the kids down with me for ‘Summer holidays’.  Yes, we’re looking at the weather forecast trying to work out what we can do.

UK parents, we all know that feeling, don’t we?  And, no, it’s not very accepting but, hey, I just need to let it out, ok?

Nothing but rain, rain and more rain. The tent, it seems, is destined to remain in the attic.  The tent that’s made exactly one outing since it was bought three years ago. I say ‘outing’ because it made it to midnight on a rain-lashed campsite in Cornwall before we abandoned the attempt and drove home.

Seasonal depression aside, have you ever noticed how the more you look at weather forecasts, the more unsatisfactory they turn out to be – both in terms of the lousy weather they predict but also the user experience?  BBC seems to have done away with its plain, easy to read chunky sun / rain / white cloud graphics and replaced them with a stupid animated sequence.  This appears to be an attempt to mimic the equally unsatisfying Met Office animated forecast: both seem to forget that you miss the forecast while fiddling with the playback controls.

Which (sigh) given the state of the weather every summer, is probably a blessing.  But I do think there’s a real online opportunity here.  Holiday companies, take note.  Create a decent forecast experience and a constant stream of depressed UK holidaymakers will be yours for the taking.

I just wrecked your business plan, Facebook

Jul 23 | by Sam Deeks | business insight, media, what do you think?
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Does Adblocker wreck Facebook and Google’s business models?

I installed Adblocker a while back and was astonished to find that it simply disappeared all Google ads and all Facebook ads – just like that. No fuss, no complicated set up.

As I sat there staring at the denuded landscape that is Facebook without those nasty, tacky, spammy ads I was struck by the fragility of Facebook and Google’s business model.

To get what I mean, picture yourself sweating in front of the investors in Dragons’ Den.

“…with hundreds of millions of subscribers, the ad revenue will net us $blah blah blah millions a year” you say.

“What happens if I switch this Adblocker thing on?” asks Theo Paphitis with that ‘you bet I’m going to try to break it’ look in his eye.

Shit, you think to yourself. ‘Maybe people won’t find out about Adblocker or maybe they’ll prefer ads…” you bravely venture, beads of sweat trickling down your back.

“I’ll tell you where I am-” interrupts Duncan testily, heralding your exit fyom the den.

What kind of business model is it if one click of a mouse can unravel it?

Swine Flu Kills Healthy People!

Jul 23 | by Sam Deeks | media, news, smile
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Look out Healthy People, swine flu wants to Kill You!

So says the Evening Standard headline I spotted at Paddington tonight. I love headlines – especially when they’re so deliciously over the top.

‘Swine flu kills healthy people’ is ’stating the bleedin’ obvious’ as Basil Fawlty might have said. It’s also the journalistic equivalent of ‘Defcon 4′. Logjcally, there’s only one place to go after that headline. “Official: End Of World”.

But it’s not just the apocalyptic that amuses me but those damn headlines that catch your eye like a virus you can never quite get rid of. Ones like the surreal and inexplicably pleasing “Fish Spillage”.

Years later, I still find myself trying to picture that event. ;-)

Good Hotel Guide, bad marketing move

Jul 19 | by Sam Deeks | business insight, feedback
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In slating TripAdvisor, The Good Hotel Guide creates a really poor first impression

Picture 2Someone forwarded me a newsletter from The Good Hotel Guide (which I hadn’t heard of before).  The first thing I notice is that it’s ‘Issue 2′.  Aha.  Newcomers to the world of online marketing and newsletters.

The lead story is a piece entitled ‘The perils of bad advice’ in which The Good Hotel Guide rubbishes TripAdvisor’s credibility after it was able to publish a bogus review under a false name and with a false email address.

Serious issue (and one I’ve raised here before – are you listening TripAdvisor?).  However, at the point of reading this we don’t know the truth of the claim or the details of the circumstances.  By contrast, what we do know is that the tone taken by TGHG in this review is.. well, smug – like they’re trying to make themselves look good simply by knocking the competition.

It’s not a great strategy – especially since when I go to their website all I find is a dull ‘editor’s picks’ blog with absolutely none of the functionality or ease-of-use that TripAdvisor has.  Looking for a great hotel in Devon?  You’ll only find what TGHG has chosen to list – and no idea why, other than their claim that it’s totally impartial ringing in your ears.

If you’re going to slag off the competition, then be at least willing to take a fresh, objective look at your own offering before you do.  The bad news, GHG, is that TripAdvisor’s functionality is exactly what I – and most travellers – want.  Yours, by comparison, isn’t.

If I’ve got both your attention(s) here’s what I recommend: TripAdvisor – your need to make it a priority to use the technology better to improve the integrity of the reviews or your reputation will suffer.  Good Hotel Guide – until you can match or improve what the TripAdvisor has already demonstrated it can offer the online consumer, don’t try to impress that market by rubbishing the competition.

Hope that’s helpful ;-)

Spam: the quickest way to create a bad impression

Jul 10 | by Sam Deeks | Big Marketing Mistakes, business insight
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Got a ’special offers’ spam email from a Plymouth hotel yesterday.

As it happens, I wasn’t interested in their offers but more importantly I don’t like being sent marketing emails that I haven’t specifically opted to receive.

How did this hotel chain get my email address? What made them assume it was ok to spam me? The fact that I’d given my business card to one of their people at a networking event.

A common assumption that many small business owners make is that exchanging business cards constitutes an ‘opt in’ to each others’ mailing lists. It doesn’t.

If small businesses can be forgiven that misunderstanding (after all, the law regarding spam is a bit cloudy) what’s unforgivable is when they make the process of opting-out difficult or uncomfortable.  Failing to put an ‘unsubscribe’ link in marketing emails means people have no choice but to contact the business directly to ask to be removed from a list they never wanted to be on in the first place.  Not great.

If that isn’t bad enough, there is a final way to really make sure they piss off a prospect completely.  How?  By taking offense when the prospect asks to be unsubscribed.

A few weeks ago I asked someone to remove me from their list.  Their reply? “I’m disappointed you don’t remember giving me permission…”  I didn’t.  Notice how they imply that their spam was my fault?  That line was enough to make sure I never recommend them to anyone else.

Despite it being toothless when it comes to enforcement, the law on spam is fairly simple and I summarise it here (in case you need to be reminded).

If you can’t get your head around that then remember, with spam you’re just three moves away from reputation self-destruct.

1) Send me something I didn’t ask for.  2) Force me to go out of my way to stop receiving it and 3) Get annoyed when I asked you to stop.

How well does the WP app for iPhone handle pictures?

Jul 7 | by Sam Deeks | Uncategorized
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Better than the iPhone hanfles text!

The idea of blogging from your iPhone is a nice one except the ability to use the mini touch-screen keyboard is something of an ‘acquired’ skill.

Yeah, yeah, it’s a miracle to be able to do it at all, right? Intellectually yes. In every other way, no.

Why is it so unsatisfactory? It’s because most of us have become proficient with a full-size keyboard. We’ve been at it for nearly 25 years for one thing.

The problem with using a phone for writing anything more than a text or tweet is that for me, it’s simply a mis-application of technology. It’s the wrong tool at the wrong time for the wrong person.

There. Even writing this has left me with a greater sense of frustration than I started with. You’ll never know how many hundred times I had to correct mistakes but I can assure you, I do. The trauma, the techno-brutalisation will live on in me and – I suspect – remain hidden until the inevitable day I snap and throw my iPhone into the Thames.

There are two options it seems. 1) Don’t use a phone for writing 2) Do use one but don’t write anything with more than 140 characters.

There us a third, but I don’t relish it: spend another 20 years building up my speed on the iPhone keyboard.

East Midlands Trains customer service: Rachel’s not happy

Jul 4 | by Sam Deeks | change, feedback
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Rachel Elnaugh isn’t happy with her automated response from East Midlands Trains customer service

Former Dragon Rachel Elnaugh booked a discounted First Class ticket on East Midlands Trains only to find that she couldn’t use the First Class lounge.  It seems her First Class…wasn’t really First Class when it came down to it.

She tells on her blog how she complained to EMT – only to receive a bland automatically-generated customer service email.  You know the kind that begin ‘Dear Rachel Elnaugh’ and end ‘I hope you find this information useful’.

From a business perspective, selling ‘First Class’ tickets that skimp on the first class benefits and leave customers with a bad taste in their mouths isn’t a great move.

Failing to communicate properly with the resulting unhappy customer is an even worse move.  Businesses seem to forget that by the time a customer is into complaint mode, they are hyper-sensitive to the quality of customer service.

It follows logically that if there’s one place to invest in the best communication skills it’s the customer service people who deal with complaints.

Perhaps it’s the ‘monopoly’ mentality of rail franchise holders that makes them think they can ignore the public’s desire for good customer service.  The reality is that falling customer satisfaction levels is one compelling reason for DfT to withdraw a franchise.

Meantime, in the absence of a genuine listening ear, people – like Rachel – will continue to resort to social media to air their frustration.  You’ve been warned!