Testing Blinksale

Blinksale launched earlier this week and I'm trying it out between more urgent work tasks (yepp, July is always pretty busy).

Here are my initial notes:

- There is very little information (screengrabs etc) on how the invoice output actually looks to the recipient
- A more detailed feature listing would have been nice
- Good price points
- The automatic ASCII invoice version is a brilliant idea (applies to invoces sent to webmail accounts)

More to follow later.

Park my ride

Working for a smaller company has many perks, including a place to park, something I'm reminded of when I see these images of the parking mayhem at Yahoo!'s Sunnyvale HQ. They are both amuzing and a bit scary. As late as a year ago I could always find a spot (not telling where...) when I visited the mother ship, but from these images it looks like the situation has gone from bad to worse. Maybe it's because of all those new Flickr people with their big rides ;)

Blinksale

Who goes live first - Writeboard or Firewheel's Blinksale?

Either way, there is so much great stuff happening at the moment when it comes to well designed, slick, smart web apps. I'm loving it!

Writeboard is up next

The people at 37 signals are bringing us a new "little thing" - Writeboard.

We're big fans of both Basecamp, and more recently Backpack, here at Orvet Digital. Both web-apps are a huge part of our business (especially the latter), and Jason Fried's words about Writeboard sound intriguing...

"What if a web-application looked more like a web-document? What if the whole “application” was a single document, a single URL? What if the interface was one page? No account, no preferences, no settings, no “navigation” in the traditional sense. What if you could email it around just as you do a photo or a file attachment?"

What the Dell

Customer Care Boards Closing on Friday, July 8 [] - Dell Community Forum

"Effective Friday, July 8, Dell’s Customer Care board on the Dell Community Forum will no longer be available. Customers seeking assistance for general order support, rebate status, warranty information or invoice questions, can visit Dell’s Order Status Web site or Chat with a Dell Customer Care representative."

While many IT companies are desperate to offer well managed and usefull customer care message boards, what does Dell do with its popular boards? They close them down. The first thing that pops in to my mind is that Dell might no longer care as much about the consumer or, for that matter, small/home business customers, as their big corporate clients. I have no way of knowing if this is the case, but the company's decision is baffling.

I mentioned in my June 13 post that Dell was the #1 home office brand according to an IDC report. It's my belief that the now closed boards had some part in making that happen.

According to CNET News, Dell spokeswoman Jennifer Davis said "...the closure was necessary because many of the issues that cropped up on the boards were of the type that should be addressed only by authorized Dell representatives and not other customers. Many of the answers, she said, required access to customers' personal information."

What about the issues that weren't of the type that Dell feels should be "addressed only by authorized Dell representatives"? Well, there's no mention of those.

I'm sad to see Dell treat their customers, and the board's moderators, with this level of disregard. Does Dell need to save money? Do they want to sell support packages? Or...are they simply afraid that people say negative things about their products on the mesage boards?

Suddenly Dell doesn't seem like that much of an "alternative" any more.

Updated July 18: Dell falls off the Cluetrain

What's Inside?

It's mid-July and I've been to busy to post lately. Sorry about that. Until I get back to my regular posting "schedule", here' sa brilliant post from David Berlind to enjoy.

HP's Threadlogs: How to Mess with a Buyer's Head 101