What would your response be if I asked you for the following:
- Name
- Username
- Password
- Email Address
- Phone Number
- Your Friend’s Email Addresses
- Who you have a crush on
- Regular updates on where you go to eat & drink
Am I the least discrete stalker on Earth? I think that depends on what I plan on doing with your data. One company you may have heard of ?¬¢√᬴¬Æ√á∆ÃÀô Google ?¬¢√᬴¬Æ√á∆ÃÀô is asking users for this information under the brand Dodgeball.com. What are they doing with that information?
Dodgeball.com - as they describe it ?¬¢√᬴¬Æ√á∆ÃÀô is “mobile social software.” The site is designed to build social networks based on popular bar and restaurant locations. The site allows you and your network of Dodgeball friends to update each other on what bars and restaurants you’re at using short text messages from your cell phone. Started in New York City, the service it is currently rolled out in twenty two cities in the United States. The company was acquired by Google in May 2005.
Here is how it works:
A person registers with Dodgeball.com, then sends a text message from their cell phone to verify their phone number. Once that’s done, Dodgeball users simply send a quick text message to Dodgeball from restaurants and bars they visit. Here is a photo of my most recent SMS message to twincites@dodgeball.com from my Treo 600 phone:
Notice the most recent SMS message is for the Chatterbox Pub. That message was a “Check-In” and earned me a spot on the Twincities.Dodgeball.com homepage:
But Dodgeball did more than simply display my mug on their homepage. They also broadcast a text message to all of my friends in my Dodgeball network, telling them where I was.
Had any of my friends been within 10 blocks of my location, I would have received a text back from Dodgeball with their locations. It also has a dating feature that tells your “crushes” when you’re nearby.
What makes this useful?
It’s a fun way to give techie shout outs to friends.
It’s faster and easier than calling your friends to organize a night out.
It’s a great way to discover new restaurants and bars. For example, I’ve never met Aaron L., pictured to my left on the check-in image. While using dodgeball.com, I’ve figured out that we have similar tastes in restaurants and bars, which enticed me to try the Chatterbox Pub last night. I’ll definitely be going back, and I may even meet Aaron there some day.
What does Dodgeball gain?
While the business model is not clear today, but they?¢Ç«®Ç—¢re clearly building a network that?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s attractive to advertisers. The opportunities for local and personalized advertising are tremendous given the detail of data provides by participants in the Dodgeball network.
While text messages are limited to 160 characters, they should have space to add, ?¢Ç«®?ÏTry Bombay Sapphire?¢Ç«®¨˘ to texts sent to people on their way to restaurants or bars. In fact, they could customize the ads based on the type of establishments people are visiting. A gin & tonic may not be the most appealing ad may be a better ad for chicken wing lovers.
Or target the ads to specific locations: How about a Leinenkeugel?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s Honeyweiss ad targeting Maxwell?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s customers with an offer for a free appetizer if they tell their waitress a code word? (example: Join your friend Ed at Maxwell’s [12th & Washington] and receive a FREE APPETIZER for saying ?¢Ç«®?ÏDominick the Donkey” to the server.)
Online to Offline Conversions: What will Google do with this data? What happens when people use the same email address for Dodgeball and personalized search on Google. Could Google track online ad performance based on offline restaurant and bar visits by Dodgeball members?
If the idea of publishing your dining patterns on a public web site freaks you out, this probably isn’t the site for you. But, if you are a social buterfly who likes hooking up with friends all over town at fun spots, Dodgeball may be worth trying.
Salesforce.com has recently experienced some downtime, causing serious frustration for their users during a busy time of year (when isn’t, really?). What can businesses learn from this issue?
Salesforce.com is a web based customer relationship management (CRM) program used by more than 18,700 customers and 351,000 paying subscribers from mostly small to mid-sized businesses to help managed their contacts, sales cycles, and post-sales relationships with their customers. This is a fairly revolutionary business because they’ve managed to convince businesses that they’re better off storing some of their most valuable and mission critical data on Salesforce.com’s servers rather than keeping that data in-house.
While their growth has been impressive, there have been some occasional bumps in the road, including rough updates and occasional outages. Due to the mission critical nature of the application, loyal customers can quickly become royally pissed off when the site doesn’t work. Other web based businesses experiencing recent extended outages include Typepad, del.icio.us, and Bloglines.
What is an acceptable amount of downtime for a mission critical application like this? Salesforce.com states that they have greater than 99% uptime, but with 365 days in a year, mean they could be down for more than three days while still meeting that metric. An even worse case scenario that meets the “greater than 99% uptime” bar would be nine days of downtime per year during normal business hours.
Salesforce.com’s performance as of late is nowhere near the worse case scenario, and will probably improve significantly in reaction to the complaints and press they’ve received about their current glitches. People wouldn’t be complaining or writing about them if they didn’t find their service valuable.
Looking beyond Salesforce.com, here are some things to consider when reviewing outsourcing business applications to web based services.
Advantages of Using Web Based Applications
- Very low start-up costs vs. building a custom systems in-house.
- Fixed costs based on a subscription model.
- Software stays current since vendor can continuously add enhancements to the web based service.
- System is accessible from any internet connection.
- Gives small businesses access to people highly skilled in managing mission critical data.
- May integrate with other online or offline applications, such as WebEx, Treo Phones, etc.
Disadvantages of Using Web Based Applications
- May not communicate with other in-house systems.
- Could be a HUGE problem if the company was to go out of business.
- May not be customizable as an in-house solution.
- May be slower than a client application accessing data on your own network.
The technology trend here is toward web based applications purchased on a subscription basis. Businesses are figuring out that they are better off spending their time focusing on their core business objectives rather than building - or purchasing and maintaining - administrative applications other companies have mastered and provide through the web on a subscription basis.
Note: SalesForceWatch.com has published a set of tips covering Outage Prevention and Mitigation for Salesforce.com. This may help keep your staff productive rather than relying on tip #5 during outages: Solitaire.
A Technology Evangelist reader has shared with us some major frustrations he’s had with Verizon’s new FiOS service.
First, a FiOS definition: FiOS (fiber optic service) is the latest technology option for residential high speed internet access. Internet access is provided over fiber optic cables rather than coaxial cables or copper phone lines, allowing for faster data transmission at comparable prices to cable or DSL. Verizon is currently rolling out FiOS internet service in select markets across the United States.
Bill Kelm of BrokerBlogger.com decided to switch to FiOS from DSL in hopes of reaching faster download speeds. However, he has been met with disappointment and frustration both with setup and support. He has posted a three part series on his web site explaining the trouble he’s gone through trying to get is set up properly. A few highlights: Integrating the service with his network proved to be very difficult, the download speeds were much lower than anticipated, and once frustrated to the point of wanting to return to his previous DSL connection, he was told that he could not go back to DSL.
We at Technology Evangelist haven’t had a chance to test FiOS out yet, since it’s not available in our town, so we’re throwing the following questions out to all of you:
Have you tried FiOS yet?
Did you have any problems transitioning to the service?
How do the speeds compare to your previous service?
Do you have any ideas why a FiOS customer wouldn’t be able to revert to DSL at a later date?
Last week, I brought a Sony webcam home from work so we could test Skype’s new video chat features on a home connection. One problem: I forgot the CD with the driver at work. No problem, I figured. I’ll just download the driver from Sony’s web site. Sorry, it’s not available online. Only an acknowledgment that the product exists. I possessed a worthless piece of hardware and wasted thirty minutes on something that should have only taken a few minutes to straighten out.
Fast forward to today, where I was presented with the following display after purchasing a Belkin Pre-N Router for a friend:
It turns out that Amazon is now providing manuals as PDF downloads from within account “Digital Lockers.” Now that’s customer service. The Motley Fool recently described this last month as Amazon’s Secret Weapon since it can be used to store a lot more than manuals. Rob Hof of BusinessWeek has theorized that the Digital Locker will become home to a digital music service .
The Fool also sees a digital music service in the future, but a hybrid service may also exist: “One of the technology’s more obscure new features lets customers who preorder upcoming CDs download a streaming digital copy of the album before their physical copy ships.“
Great potential for improved customer service and growth in new markets.
To Belkin’s credit, they provide much superior than Sony their site where I can easily find and download manuals and drivers for the Pre-N Router:
I’ve mentioned previously that Amazon is doing a lot of things right. Add one more thing to the list.
What do you think?
Have you used your Amazon Digital Locker yet? If so, for what?
What businesses use the web most effectively for post-sale customer service?
Who frustrates the heck out of you?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Last week, I brought a Sony webcam home from work so we could test Skype’s new video chat features on a home connection. One problem: I forgot the CD with the driver at work. No problem, I figured. I’ll just download the driver from Sony’s web site. Sorry, it’s not available online. Only an acknowledgment that the product exists. I possessed a worthless piece of hardware and wasted thirty minutes on something that should have only taken a few minutes to straighten out.
Fast forward to today, where I was presented with the following display after purchasing a Belkin Pre-N Router for a friend:
It turns out that Amazon is now providing manuals as PDF downloads from within account “Digital Lockers.” Now that’s customer service. The Motley Fool recently described this last month as Amazon’s Secret Weapon since it can be used to store a lot more than manuals. Rob Hof of BusinessWeek has theorized that the Digital Locker will become home to a digital music service .
The Fool also sees a digital music service in the future, but a hybrid service may also exist: “One of the technology’s more obscure new features lets customers who preorder upcoming CDs download a streaming digital copy of the album before their physical copy ships.“
Great potential for improved customer service and growth in new markets.
To Belkin’s credit, they provide much superior than Sony their site where I can easily find and download manuals and drivers for the Pre-N Router:
I’ve mentioned previously that Amazon is doing a lot of things right. Add one more thing to the list.
What do you think?
Have you used your Amazon Digital Locker yet? If so, for what?
What businesses use the web most effectively for post-sale customer service?
Who frustrates the heck out of you?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Last week, I brought a Sony webcam home from work so we could test Skype’s new video chat features on a home connection. One problem: I forgot the CD with the driver at work. No problem, I figured. I’ll just download the driver from Sony’s web site. Sorry, it’s not available online. Only an acknowledgment that the product exists. I possessed a worthless piece of hardware and wasted thirty minutes on something that should have only taken a few minutes to straighten out.
Fast forward to today, where I was presented with the following display after purchasing a Belkin Pre-N Router for a friend:
It turns out that Amazon is now providing manuals as PDF downloads from within account “Digital Lockers.” Now that’s customer service. The Motley Fool recently described this last month as Amazon’s Secret Weapon since it can be used to store a lot more than manuals. Rob Hof of BusinessWeek has theorized that the Digital Locker will become home to a digital music service .
The Fool also sees a digital music service in the future, but a hybrid service may also exist: “One of the technology’s more obscure new features lets customers who preorder upcoming CDs download a streaming digital copy of the album before their physical copy ships.“
Great potential for improved customer service and growth in new markets.
To Belkin’s credit, they provide much superior than Sony their site where I can easily find and download manuals and drivers for the Pre-N Router:
I’ve mentioned previously that Amazon is doing a lot of things right. Add one more thing to the list.
What do you think?
Have you used your Amazon Digital Locker yet? If so, for what?
What businesses use the web most effectively for post-sale customer service?
Who frustrates the heck out of you?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
I just got Sprint’s new PC-5740 EVDO card for my laptop, which makes me very happy. For those of you who don’t know, EVDO (EVolution Data Only) is broadband service provided by CDMA cellular companies such as Sprint or Verizon. There are competing technologies out there from the GMS providers (T-Mobile, Cingular, etc), but they are lagging pretty far behind right now in the USA. With my new EVDO card I am able to get my laptop online anywhere that I have a Sprint data connection, which is a much larger footprint than a series of WiFi base stations. I’m online at pretty fast speeds, so all must be great, right? WRONG!
Sprint has decided to use something called an image proxy server. This server takes all of the images and HTML that gets sent to my EVDO card and compresses the heck out of them. The benefit of an image proxy server is that all of the images get compressed before I even try to download them, so it’s really fast. The downside is that my images look like poo.
Image compression on data connection cards is very common. If you went out and purchased a Verizon data access card right now, you would get a program called Venturi which compresses the images on the fly. The big difference here is that with Verizon I can shut off the image compression by shutting off Venturi. With Sprint, while I do have image compression software with my card, the actual server I am connected to back at Sprint is also compressing the image and sending me only partial image information. I can’t shut it off since it’s a Sprint server that I can’t control.
There are two workarounds:
1 – If you refresh your page the Sprint server will auto-send you the full image. This is actually quite nice. If 90% of the time you just need to browse as fast as possible but only 10% of the time you need the pretty graphics, then you’re just a button click away from getting the full quality pictures. Honestly, this is quite elegant and for most users is exactly what they want. I am not like most users.
2 – You can change the Agent type of your browser. For some reason (I’m sure it’s $$ related) Sprint sends the full image to Blazer Browser which is built into the Treo 650. If you tell your browser to announce to Sprint that it’s Blazer, then you will get the full images every time. For instructions on how to change the agent type of Firefox, visit the EVDO Forums. To change the user agent of Internet Explorer, you’ll need to be a bit techie. I had to hack around a bit to make this work, but it seems to do the trick:
Open your Registry Editor (START->RUN regedit)
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent.
From here you’ll want to enter 3 new strings / values:
Compatible / compatible
Platform / Windows NT 5.0
Version / MSIE 5.5; Blazer/4.0
Using these two techniques will tell both Firefox and Internet Explorer to say to Sprint servers, “hey, I’m really Blazer, give me the full image”. I know it’s a bit geeky, but it’s what works. For 95% of the users out there I would say to stick with the first workaround and just refresh your browser when you want the full image. Your Internet speed will be quite a bit faster, and you don’t have to hack around with your registry.
I have only had Sprint service for about 12 hours now, so I’m sure I’ll find more things that I do and don’t like. I’m of the opinion that the user should have the choice to enable or disable compression. Compression makes the service a lot faster, but it is not what I want! So far I would take the Sprint service over Verizon service for a few reasons: price, software and performance. Sprint is quite a bit less expensive than Verizon, and they include much better connection software that goes with the card. Verizon’s VZAccess software is a joke and should be completely re-written. Sprint seems to have better connection speeds, at least for the time being. You can see a nifty comparison of Sprint and Verizon speeds here. All I want is for Sprint to drop their image proxy server and work compression like Verizon.
We will continue to test Sprint’s EVDO coverage over the coming days and let you know how it goes. Most of the users at Technology Evangelist have been using Verizon’s EVDO service since it first came out (which is a while ago, maybe a year?) All of us will be comparing and contrasting the two services quite extensively. Come back often to see how we fare.
I just got Sprint’s new PC-5740 EVDO card for my laptop, which makes me very happy. For those of you who don’t know, EVDO (EVolution Data Only) is broadband service provided by CDMA cellular companies such as Sprint or Verizon. There are competing technologies out there from the GMS providers (T-Mobile, Cingular, etc), but they are lagging pretty far behind right now in the USA. With my new EVDO card I am able to get my laptop online anywhere that I have a Sprint data connection, which is a much larger footprint than a series of WiFi base stations. I’m online at pretty fast speeds, so all must be great, right? WRONG!
Sprint has decided to use something called an image proxy server. This server takes all of the images and HTML that gets sent to my EVDO card and compresses the heck out of them. The benefit of an image proxy server is that all of the images get compressed before I even try to download them, so it’s really fast. The downside is that my images look like poo.
Image compression on data connection cards is very common. If you went out and purchased a Verizon data access card right now, you would get a program called Venturi which compresses the images on the fly. The big difference here is that with Verizon I can shut off the image compression by shutting off Venturi. With Sprint, while I do have image compression software with my card, the actual server I am connected to back at Sprint is also compressing the image and sending me only partial image information. I can’t shut it off since it’s a Sprint server that I can’t control.
There are two workarounds:
1 – If you refresh your page the Sprint server will auto-send you the full image. This is actually quite nice. If 90% of the time you just need to browse as fast as possible but only 10% of the time you need the pretty graphics, then you’re just a button click away from getting the full quality pictures. Honestly, this is quite elegant and for most users is exactly what they want. I am not like most users.
2 – You can change the Agent type of your browser. For some reason (I’m sure it’s $$ related) Sprint sends the full image to Blazer Browser which is built into the Treo 650. If you tell your browser to announce to Sprint that it’s Blazer, then you will get the full images every time. For instructions on how to change the agent type of Firefox, visit the EVDO Forums. To change the user agent of Internet Explorer, you’ll need to be a bit techie. I had to hack around a bit to make this work, but it seems to do the trick:
Open your Registry Editor (START->RUN regedit)
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent.
From here you’ll want to enter 3 new strings / values:
Compatible / compatible
Platform / Windows NT 5.0
Version / MSIE 5.5; Blazer/4.0
Using these two techniques will tell both Firefox and Internet Explorer to say to Sprint servers, “hey, I’m really Blazer, give me the full image”. I know it’s a bit geeky, but it’s what works. For 95% of the users out there I would say to stick with the first workaround and just refresh your browser when you want the full image. Your Internet speed will be quite a bit faster, and you don’t have to hack around with your registry.
I have only had Sprint service for about 12 hours now, so I’m sure I’ll find more things that I do and don’t like. I’m of the opinion that the user should have the choice to enable or disable compression. Compression makes the service a lot faster, but it is not what I want! So far I would take the Sprint service over Verizon service for a few reasons: price, software and performance. Sprint is quite a bit less expensive than Verizon, and they include much better connection software that goes with the card. Verizon’s VZAccess software is a joke and should be completely re-written. Sprint seems to have better connection speeds, at least for the time being. You can see a nifty comparison of Sprint and Verizon speeds here. All I want is for Sprint to drop their image proxy server and work compression like Verizon.
We will continue to test Sprint’s EVDO coverage over the coming days and let you know how it goes. Most of the users at Technology Evangelist have been using Verizon’s EVDO service since it first came out (which is a while ago, maybe a year?) All of us will be comparing and contrasting the two services quite extensively. Come back often to see how we fare.
I just got Sprint’s new PC-5740 EVDO card for my laptop, which makes me very happy. For those of you who don’t know, EVDO (EVolution Data Only) is broadband service provided by CDMA cellular companies such as Sprint or Verizon. There are competing technologies out there from the GMS providers (T-Mobile, Cingular, etc), but they are lagging pretty far behind right now in the USA. With my new EVDO card I am able to get my laptop online anywhere that I have a Sprint data connection, which is a much larger footprint than a series of WiFi base stations. I’m online at pretty fast speeds, so all must be great, right? WRONG!
Sprint has decided to use something called an image proxy server. This server takes all of the images and HTML that gets sent to my EVDO card and compresses the heck out of them. The benefit of an image proxy server is that all of the images get compressed before I even try to download them, so it’s really fast. The downside is that my images look like poo.
Image compression on data connection cards is very common. If you went out and purchased a Verizon data access card right now, you would get a program called Venturi which compresses the images on the fly. The big difference here is that with Verizon I can shut off the image compression by shutting off Venturi. With Sprint, while I do have image compression software with my card, the actual server I am connected to back at Sprint is also compressing the image and sending me only partial image information. I can’t shut it off since it’s a Sprint server that I can’t control.
There are two workarounds:
1 – If you refresh your page the Sprint server will auto-send you the full image. This is actually quite nice. If 90% of the time you just need to browse as fast as possible but only 10% of the time you need the pretty graphics, then you’re just a button click away from getting the full quality pictures. Honestly, this is quite elegant and for most users is exactly what they want. I am not like most users.
2 – You can change the Agent type of your browser. For some reason (I’m sure it’s $$ related) Sprint sends the full image to Blazer Browser which is built into the Treo 650. If you tell your browser to announce to Sprint that it’s Blazer, then you will get the full images every time. For instructions on how to change the agent type of Firefox, visit the EVDO Forums. To change the user agent of Internet Explorer, you’ll need to be a bit techie. I had to hack around a bit to make this work, but it seems to do the trick:
Open your Registry Editor (START->RUN regedit)
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent.
From here you’ll want to enter 3 new strings / values:
Compatible / compatible
Platform / Windows NT 5.0
Version / MSIE 5.5; Blazer/4.0
Using these two techniques will tell both Firefox and Internet Explorer to say to Sprint servers, “hey, I’m really Blazer, give me the full image”. I know it’s a bit geeky, but it’s what works. For 95% of the users out there I would say to stick with the first workaround and just refresh your browser when you want the full image. Your Internet speed will be quite a bit faster, and you don’t have to hack around with your registry.
I have only had Sprint service for about 12 hours now, so I’m sure I’ll find more things that I do and don’t like. I’m of the opinion that the user should have the choice to enable or disable compression. Compression makes the service a lot faster, but it is not what I want! So far I would take the Sprint service over Verizon service for a few reasons: price, software and performance. Sprint is quite a bit less expensive than Verizon, and they include much better connection software that goes with the card. Verizon’s VZAccess software is a joke and should be completely re-written. Sprint seems to have better connection speeds, at least for the time being. You can see a nifty comparison of Sprint and Verizon speeds here. All I want is for Sprint to drop their image proxy server and work compression like Verizon.
We will continue to test Sprint’s EVDO coverage over the coming days and let you know how it goes. Most of the users at Technology Evangelist have been using Verizon’s EVDO service since it first came out (which is a while ago, maybe a year?) All of us will be comparing and contrasting the two services quite extensively. Come back often to see how we fare.
Advances in technology make our lives easier in many ways. That is, until the power goes out. Then we realize how dependent we’ve become on power to simply make it through what most would consider a normal day. While I could live without some power sucking devices like television and radio, I’m a big fan of reliable power for refrigeration, internet access, and toast*.
Fortunately, some smart and creative people in the Netherlands and Norway are working on new sources creating new sources of electical power from exploding hot dogs. Well, more directly from the combination of fresh river water with salty oceans:
The new devices are based on a natural process — when a river runs into the ocean, a huge amount of energy is unleashed because of the difference in salt concentration.
“It’s basically harvesting the energy that comes free from a natural process,” Wetsus managing director Johannes Boonstra said in his agency’s laboratory in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden.
“You have the fuel for free and it’s very sustainable — no greenhouse gas emissions.”
Congratulations to the scientists involved for their progress to date, and good luck turning your inventions into the clean and reliable sources of energy they have the potential to be.
* Yes, I could toast my bread in my gas oven or create a fire.
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