Yesterday, I was in the car, listening, as old dudes like me tend to, to the news. And a piece came on that almost made me veer off the road. It described the biggest business change I can remember coming across in a very long time, and it comes courtesy of a couple of Valley-Girl speaking young women helming a company that seems to consist almost entirely of young, pretty girls.
What if you opened a retail store, but customers weren’t welcome to come inside?
That’s the premise being explored by Jennifer Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman, the founders of RentTheRunway.com. RentTheRunway has been described as “the Netflix of Fashion”, and it’s a fairly simple idea; at RentTheRunway, women can rent dresses and accessories that are too expensive or impractical to buy. Or just plain have some fun, girls!!!!!... READ MORE of this article, Fashion, Business Change,and Rent(ing) The Runway from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (367 words, 1 image, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)
I was honest in my comments. And I hope supportive. ... READ MORE of this article, In Praise of Chris Brogan and Video Production Values from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)
Now strictly speaking, that isn’t true. Dig through enough settings and you’ll still be able to turn off certain behaviors. But what Google has decided is that you (meaning they) are better served by there being one set of rules that covers all Google products than there being different settings for GMail, Search, Google+, Google Music, Google Docs, Google Analytics, and whatever other Google services you use. ... READ MORE of this article, Google Merges with Facebook. Privacy Ends Permanently. from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (914 words, 1 image, estimated 3:39 mins reading time)
Author: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Business Change & SEO Consultant | Category: business change
A few months ago, I came across this video. It’s funny. REALLY funny. Using not-a-real-App Jotly, you could rate everything. Why limit yourself to rating the place you’re at when we all know that restaurant reviews are fake, anyway? With Jotly you just … Rate everything.
Except, of course, for this: Jotly wasn’t real. It was a parody of all the rating/check-in/self-promoting web sites and apps that have become part of our daily lives, where we keep talking but say nothing. Rate Everything, indeed; we’ve been doing that anyway, so Jotly was just calling it like it was. We should rate less.
No more. Jotly is real. And I’m the 41st highest ranked Jotly user:
... READ MORE of this article, Rate Everything (Because Nobody REALLY Cares) — Jotly from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (404 words, 1 image, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)
On the other hand, when I told you about BitTorrent, SOPA, MegaUpload, and Piracy, it did occur to me that there might be an SEO angle to the story. As you can see above, it turns out I was right; Google sees us as #6 for all spellings/misspellings of the phrase “bittorrent sopa”, despite the subject having been written about in many places, most way larger than Answer Guy Central. And that’s what Search Engine Optimization can do. ... READ MORE of this article, More on BitTorrent, SOPA, Piracy and File Sharing—and SEO from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (465 words, 1 image, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)
The side effect? People who were using MegaUpload for legitimate, legal purposes have a big problem today; their files are simply … gone. ... READ MORE of this article, MegaUpload, BitTorrent, SOPA, File Sharing, Piracy, and You from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (785 words, estimated 3:08 mins reading time)
Author: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Business Change & SEO Consultant | Category: business change
In case there was any doubt in your mind, I Hate Texting.
And while the little experiment we’re conducting at hatetexting.com hasn’t changed (it still looks like 1996 over there), neither has the point: way too often texting, useful though it can be, is still an excuse for being rude masquerading as a tool.
And now we have a new example of just how much trouble texting can cause. And it comes from the medical world.
But these tools have become distractions. And it’s bad. Because now, Doctors are texting during surgery. ... READ MORE of this article, Texting Causes Botched Surgical Procedures from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (299 words, estimated 1:12 mins reading time)
Author: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Business Change & SEO Consultant | Category: business change
Some days, I wish I was a journalist. Or still a journalist. Or something that would make me feel as though I was contributing to a vocation that I’m starting to get really worried about.
Remember, computers are too hard. Turns out, as they become more and more like computers, SmartPhones are becoming too hard, too. ... READ MORE of this article, Half-Baked Reviews and The Decline of Journalism from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (777 words, 1 image, estimated 3:06 mins reading time)
Last week, this piece at TechCrunch asked “why AOL is still charging people for e-mail”. It made me think of a piece I write here a couple of years back; a woman couldn’t understand where her “Free Wi-Fi” had gone. ... READ MORE of this article, Ignorance and AOL, Customer Service and Cost Centers from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (311 words, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)
Despite the opportunity to exhibit our Search Engine Optimization abilities that inept Customer Service from Verizon Wireless provided, I might have stopped. But then Verizon Wireless moved the bar for bad customer service even higher.
I’m getting to the end of my rope with my Droid SmartPhone. The battery is getting flaky, it’s running apps way slower than it used to, and I just can’t deal with it this way for much longer. I’m ready to upgrade. ... READ MORE of this article, Oh, I’m Not Done With Verizon Wireless. I’m Not NEARLY Done. from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (511 words, 2 images, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)
While we do lots of things for businesses here at Answer Guy Central, when I write these posts I always concentrate on either customer service, business change, or search engine optimization. I’ve just experienced customer service at Verizon Wireless that was so bad, I’ve found both a way to write about all three and a compelling enough reason to do so. And while it’s self-serving to weave the Search Engine Optimization part of things into this story, I genuinely hope I can help effect some business change at Verizon Wireless if I do that well enough to get Verizon Wireless’ attention. ... READ MORE of this article, Broken About The USA? Verizon Wireless Customer Service from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (1138 words, 1 image, estimated 4:33 mins reading time)
Is it really almost two years since Chatroulette showed up, grabbed our attention for a few seconds, and then disappeared? Amazingly, yes. And while both that link to a piece here at Answer Guy Central and this story about the legality of Chatroulette continue to bring us traffic (That’s Search Engine Optimization, friends), Chatroulette itself has all but faded into memory.
Now, we get younow.com. and in a way it’s more horrifying that Chatroulette ever was.
Think of YouNow as kind of a Gong Show for the Internet, but as with so much of the web, unmoderated. If you remember that television nugget from the 1970s, contestants came on stage, performed various shows of talent—or lack thereof—and if they survived their moment in the spotlight without being gonged off had a chance at one low-value prize or another. ... READ MORE of this article, Chatroulette? That’s So Two Years Ago. Check Out YouNow.com from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (296 words, estimated 1:11 mins reading time)
Last week, Network Software Management company Arieso released this study , and it was immediately sliced and diced by one news outlet after another seeking an angle. Bloomberg announced that Siri and the iPhone 4S created a huge data hog situation, while PCWorld announced … the opposite. (Disclosure: I’ve written for PCWorld) ... READ MORE of this article, Data and Bandwidth Usage, Perception, Reality and Siri from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (314 words, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)
Author: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Business Change & SEO Consultant | Category: business change
A couple of years ago, Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis did something stupid when he unleashed a public tirade against an employee who’d had the nerve to stop working for him. It seems as though Calacanis learned from his mistake; he’s probably still not the easiest dude to get along with, but there haven’t been any more profanity-laced public tirades.
Not so for MG Siegler.
Siegler, formerly a writer at TechCrunch and now a venture capitalist working with for Michael Arrington, has said stupid things in public before. My favorite example of arrogance from this young guy who’s become successful through luck more than talent was when Siegler told the world that TechCrunch couldn’t survive without Mr. Arrington. As you might recall, Arrington had founded TechCrunch and sold it to AOL, and was later fired when AOL realized that journalism requires certain ethics be followed. ... READ MORE of this article, MG Siegler: Success and Fame Breed Stupidity from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (504 words, 1 image, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)
When I told you about Steve Madden’s enshrinement on The Answer Guy’s Customer Service Wall of Shame earlier this week, I pointed out a problem with not being specific. Yesterday, I experienced another customer service issue brought about by non-specificity, but this time it wasn’t overt; it was a matter of careless automation run amok.
Of course, on the customer service side of things, there’s no real difference.
I’m happy to report, first of all, that I had a chance to see customer service done the right way in the course of working through this issue: my e-mail host, Digital Housing and Administration, helped me fix the problem I encountered, immediately and effectively. I can’t recommend them highly enough, and Digital Housing does lots of things besides just hosting e-mail.
Then, there’s 1and1. ... READ MORE of this article, A Tale: Rotten Customer Service, and Great Customer Service from Answer Guy Central, your Business Change, SEO Consulting / Search Engine Optimization & Computer Support Source by Clicking Here (568 words, 1 image, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)
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