I had a few mod points today and was reading posts with more scrutiny that usual and I feel like almost every post should be flagged "off-topic."
The article says apple is liked because of it's customer service and overall experience. Whatever your opinion of how corporate Apple is and whose interests they are protecting with DRM and who benefits from their chosen pricing structure in iTunes, it has nothing to do with customer service. Neither does switching to Intel.
I haven't seen any posts saying they don't like Apple because... or any specific references to bad customer service experiences, which is the point of the article. Regardless of your opinions of their products and practices one would have a hard time arguing that they have bad customer service.
I'm on my 3rd ipod in 18 months. Within 12 hours of submitting my problem online I had a box at my door that I could put my ipod in and ship back to them. I didn't even have to address it, just peel off the address label to me and behind it was Apple's address. I dropped it off at the shipper and 6 days later a new one was in my hands. Only reason I shipped it was to preserve my engraving on the back.
Second time I gave up on engraving and my ipod was replaced on the spot - 10 minutes in and out at the Apple store. And as an example of how well they do customer service, the NYC Apple store used to be impossible to get appointments at - in response to the demand the genius bar is now open 6AM until Midnight. How many other companies would go out of their way to make that change. It's small and easy, but it's effect on customers is huge.
I couldn't agree with the article more - they do customer service right.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a PC guy at home and work. Not an Apple fanboy
The government in this case hates money involved in a crime being hidden from them. It just happens that one of the people they are investigating uses gmail. They would have subpoenaed yahoo or hotmail if he used those.
Are we going to start skimming every legal brief that mentions Google looking for a government conspiracy?
Apple has touted milestones in iTunes just about everytime one has been hit (song downloads, video downloads). Does that make them immature?
I guess the billions served by McDonalds is also childish.
Being the dominant provider doesn't make a monopoly especially in search. It's as democratic as it gets. I can type in any url I want when I'm looking for information and google can do nothing to prevent that.
Now if Google became my ISP and denied my access to MSN or Yahoo search they would be behaving as a monopoly.
btw - I spell-check my posts in Outlook before submitting them and M$ capitalized the leading G in Google for me!
Reviewers aren't consumers (in this case anyway). They are being shipped pre-release copies of the movie for free so they can watch it and publish a review before the movie hits theaters.
This isn't some corporation putting undo restrictions on a consumer's use of it's product, it's a distributor making sure a copy of a film doesn't fall into the wrong hands before the theatrical release.
In the last two years the Weather Channel has been making a big push in this direction. They have been a technological innovator in the cable world especially in the way they push the local forecast to every individual head end that carries TWC. Leveraging that technology they have begun regional targeting and weather specific targeting.
An example of this is a tire company. On any other network when they buy national time one commercial for one tire is aired. With regional targeting rain tires can been served to the northeast and good weather tires to the south - in the same:30 seconds two spots run simultaneously in different parts of the country. Take that a step further and you really begin to see the value in the premium price TWC gets for these spots.
TWC links it's ad serving to it's local forecasts at each head end. If it's raining in your county you'll see a rain tire commercial, while your buddy up north on another cable system where it's snowing will see a spot for snow tires. An hour later when the snow turns to rain he's see a spot for rain tires.
While conceptually the idea of Google leveraging these trailers is conceivable Cringely's prediction is flawed. Google will not be able to sell targeting to the networks. National network commercials are still carried over the air. Cable operators simply retransmit them. The minute or two of local time is sold by the local affiliate, also over the air and then retransmitted. Neither the nets nor the affiliates would let a cable operator insert commercials over the ones they've sold and no technology exists to legally insert them over the air interrupting the original signal.
There may be some room in the cable only universe for cable MSO's to sell national advertisers more targeted spots in the 2 minutes an hour then get but the idea of Joe's Restaurant down the block spending money on production of a TV ad and then paying extra to target me seems a little far fetched.
At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners.
How can the writer make a statement as indicting as this without mentioning exactly what the US government provided reason actually? Admittedly I didn't follow the story too closely at the time but either the writer is assuming his other readers have or he's just irresponsible.
Regulation has nothing to do with distinguishing VOIP packets or controling volume, it's about capitalizing on a growing industry, and for the telcos asking for the regulations it's about leveling the playing field.
Have you ever looked at your (US) phone bill? I rely on my cell phone but keep a basic dialtone at home in case of power outage, tsunami, terroist act (I live in NYC) or some other catastrophe. Ove 50% of the $20/month I pay comes from surcharges, including:
FCC Line Charge 6.40
911 Surcharge 1.00
Federal USF Surcharge 0.66
Federal Tax 0.50
Surcharge(s) 0.91
NY State/Local Sales Tax 1.40
In theory VOIP can offer the same service at the same cost for half the price because of the regulatory surcharges and taxes. The phonecos are put at a competetive disadvantage simply because their bill includes fees the VOIPs don't. If you had a choice of dialtones and one was 50% cheaper than the other what would you choose? More importanly what would the average technologically ignorant consumer chose?
Has anyone here ever been to a club in NYC? Ever waited in a long line to get in only to find a half empty place when you finally enter?
The appearance of high demand/low supply can itself generate demand. I'd love to bash M$ as much as the next guy but this goes on in all sorts of businesses.
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I had a few mod points today and was reading posts with more scrutiny that usual and I feel like almost every post should be flagged "off-topic."
The article says apple is liked because of it's customer service and overall experience. Whatever your opinion of how corporate Apple is and whose interests they are protecting with DRM and who benefits from their chosen pricing structure in iTunes, it has nothing to do with customer service. Neither does switching to Intel.
I haven't seen any posts saying they don't like Apple because... or any specific references to bad customer service experiences, which is the point of the article. Regardless of your opinions of their products and practices one would have a hard time arguing that they have bad customer service.
I'm on my 3rd ipod in 18 months. Within 12 hours of submitting my problem online I had a box at my door that I could put my ipod in and ship back to them. I didn't even have to address it, just peel off the address label to me and behind it was Apple's address. I dropped it off at the shipper and 6 days later a new one was in my hands. Only reason I shipped it was to preserve my engraving on the back.
Second time I gave up on engraving and my ipod was replaced on the spot - 10 minutes in and out at the Apple store. And as an example of how well they do customer service, the NYC Apple store used to be impossible to get appointments at - in response to the demand the genius bar is now open 6AM until Midnight. How many other companies would go out of their way to make that change. It's small and easy, but it's effect on customers is huge.
I couldn't agree with the article more - they do customer service right.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a PC guy at home and work. Not an Apple fanboy
DUPES!
And before this announcement you familiarized yourself with the other 499 S&P stocks? I bet you couldn't name 100.
The government in this case hates money involved in a crime being hidden from them. It just happens that one of the people they are investigating uses gmail. They would have subpoenaed yahoo or hotmail if he used those. Are we going to start skimming every legal brief that mentions Google looking for a government conspiracy?
Apple has touted milestones in iTunes just about everytime one has been hit (song downloads, video downloads). Does that make them immature? I guess the billions served by McDonalds is also childish.
Being the dominant provider doesn't make a monopoly especially in search. It's as democratic as it gets. I can type in any url I want when I'm looking for information and google can do nothing to prevent that. Now if Google became my ISP and denied my access to MSN or Yahoo search they would be behaving as a monopoly. btw - I spell-check my posts in Outlook before submitting them and M$ capitalized the leading G in Google for me!
Reviewers aren't consumers (in this case anyway). They are being shipped pre-release copies of the movie for free so they can watch it and publish a review before the movie hits theaters. This isn't some corporation putting undo restrictions on a consumer's use of it's product, it's a distributor making sure a copy of a film doesn't fall into the wrong hands before the theatrical release.
In the last two years the Weather Channel has been making a big push in this direction. They have been a technological innovator in the cable world especially in the way they push the local forecast to every individual head end that carries TWC. Leveraging that technology they have begun regional targeting and weather specific targeting.
An example of this is a tire company. On any other network when they buy national time one commercial for one tire is aired. With regional targeting rain tires can been served to the northeast and good weather tires to the south - in the same :30 seconds two spots run simultaneously in different parts of the country. Take that a step further and you really begin to see the value in the premium price TWC gets for these spots.
TWC links it's ad serving to it's local forecasts at each head end. If it's raining in your county you'll see a rain tire commercial, while your buddy up north on another cable system where it's snowing will see a spot for snow tires. An hour later when the snow turns to rain he's see a spot for rain tires.
While conceptually the idea of Google leveraging these trailers is conceivable Cringely's prediction is flawed. Google will not be able to sell targeting to the networks. National network commercials are still carried over the air. Cable operators simply retransmit them. The minute or two of local time is sold by the local affiliate, also over the air and then retransmitted. Neither the nets nor the affiliates would let a cable operator insert commercials over the ones they've sold and no technology exists to legally insert them over the air interrupting the original signal. There may be some room in the cable only universe for cable MSO's to sell national advertisers more targeted spots in the 2 minutes an hour then get but the idea of Joe's Restaurant down the block spending money on production of a TV ad and then paying extra to target me seems a little far fetched.
I think the prediction in today's NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/technology/06onl ine.html makes more sense. Downloads an convergence of the TV and PC are where it's going to be at.
Or we could just wait and see what the announcement is. What is the point of specualting anyway besides driving traffic to /. everyday? :)
At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. How can the writer make a statement as indicting as this without mentioning exactly what the US government provided reason actually? Admittedly I didn't follow the story too closely at the time but either the writer is assuming his other readers have or he's just irresponsible.
So the telcos say "you can cap us if we can make it look like a tax." - Nice!
Regulation has nothing to do with distinguishing VOIP packets or controling volume, it's about capitalizing on a growing industry, and for the telcos asking for the regulations it's about leveling the playing field.
Have you ever looked at your (US) phone bill? I rely on my cell phone but keep a basic dialtone at home in case of power outage, tsunami, terroist act (I live in NYC) or some other catastrophe. Ove 50% of the $20/month I pay comes from surcharges, including:
FCC Line Charge 6.40
911 Surcharge 1.00
Federal USF Surcharge 0.66
Federal Tax 0.50
Surcharge(s) 0.91
NY State/Local Sales Tax 1.40
In theory VOIP can offer the same service at the same cost for half the price because of the regulatory surcharges and taxes. The phonecos are put at a competetive disadvantage simply because their bill includes fees the VOIPs don't. If you had a choice of dialtones and one was 50% cheaper than the other what would you choose? More importanly what would the average technologically ignorant consumer chose?
Apparently you've never been to McDonald's in Midtown Manhattan!
Has anyone here ever been to a club in NYC? Ever waited in a long line to get in only to find a half empty place when you finally enter? The appearance of high demand/low supply can itself generate demand. I'd love to bash M$ as much as the next guy but this goes on in all sorts of businesses.