Archive for October, 2006

What would be the worst day in the year to send a toilet tissue campaign? I mean, when would you NOT send 100,000 rolls of free toilet tissue to the doorsteps of homes nationwide for rotton little ones to wrap ’round trees.

But I kids you not. Today, October 31st, in the mail comes a Charmin Ultra sampler. ULTRA STRONG, Procter and Gamble say. So I guess it’ll be harder to clean off of the trees and cars.

The Moral of this story? Well, let’s skip the PR lesson and just don’t be a dirty butthole this holiday. Have a safe and happy Halloween.

If you want to check out how well your anger-management therapy is working, sign up for Microsoft’s bCentral listbuilder program. And then try to get support for it. I have tens of thousands of subscribers on the system and it’s going to be huge pain to move but they’re not getting another dime from me. This is freaking nuts.

If you submit their support form, you’ll get a cut/paste support response in a few days. This will be the stuff you already know. You will then have to reply to them saying that they didn’t answer your question, and then you will get a response asking for something like your username and password, or something that you’ve already provided.

Should you want to cancel, the fact that you’re logged in wiht your “highly secure system developed to the highest standards for privacy and security” Microsoft Passport to the account isn’t enough. You’ll need to call them on the phone… per this email:

“Thank you for writing to Microsoft Small Business Center Customer Support regarding your cancellation request. In order to protect the privacy and security of our customers, we require that all cancellations be handled over the phone in order to verify and validate account ownership.-your Microsoft Small Business Center Windows Live ID log in
-your telephone number
-and the full name of your Microsoft Small Business Center service for verification purposes

Thank you for understanding the concern we have regarding t he security of our customers. “

C’mon people, give me a big-assed cancel button and get out of my way. It’s too late for you to stick me on hold and talk me into something. I’m running a busy company.

But, alas, there is no choice. If I don’t do this, they’ll charge my client’s credit card AUTOMATICALLY and there is no way to opt-out. This whole system sucks. I cannot wait to get everyone onto verticalresponse.com

UPDATE: 10/27/06: The Final Chapter….

After successfully canceling the account, the agent told me, unprompted, that I was violating their terms of service by reselling the service. Huh? I had told him that my client was being billed directly (e.g. no markup) and that I was just helping her with the setup. I explained the concept of reselling to him. What in the world are they thinking to accuse me like that. I had told him I had (at one time) 15 clients on Listbuilder - wouldn’t that make me like a Gold-card customer or something?

So, rather than construct a good reseller program (like verticalresponse.com seems to have, according to the call I received after my first post) they decided to accuse me of being some sort of renegade.

Update: Posted on the bCentral Site:

As of November 15, 2006 Microsoft will no longer accept new sign-ups for select Microsoft Online Small Business Services.

… that kinda explains it.

bluppet [bluhp-it]
-noun

1. a person, goup, government, etc. whose blog, wiki, forum or website whose postings are encourage, prompted or controlled by a commercial or political interest without making said sponsorship immediately clear.

Use:
“Wal-Mart hired a bluppet for their Public Relations campaign.”
“I unsubscribed from his blog, he’s just a Bluppet for that candidate.”

Allume System gets It - When you want off of an email list, you just want the he** off. Allume makes great software but I’m getting too much email. So I decided to unsubscribe from their announcements. To my delight, they didn’t require me to do much.

They just gave me a button. Click. I’m off. Nice.

AND NOW…. The WRONG way, brought to you by DMXZone.com.

“If you plan to unsubscribe, we’re going to punish you GOOD!!!!”

1. Log in.
2. Try to remember my password
3. Send myself a password reminder
4. Check my email again
5. Log in
6. Open my profile
7. Unsubscribe
8. Enter a number to verify I’m real

Are you tired of all of those little blue flashing lights on headsets hanging on the ears of everyone you try to talk with? Are you tired of wondering if they are suffering from schizophrenia or on the phone?

No more mucking about. When I’m on the phone in my car or in a meeting, you’re going to damn well know it.

Pictured… my new bluetooth handset connected to my cell phone. No kidding. It stops meetings cold when I pull it out. Great fun.

You can get one here:

As you can see (blogroll below) I’ve added a rare entry to the Sweet Spot blogroll for the new Yahoo Search Marketing blog. Steve Mitgang - Senior VP at Yahoo is apparantly going to steer the gig. Steve is a frequent speaker and drives Yahoo’s advertising products, and has been involved in many top brands around the US.

I’m especially glad he’s doing the work because he cut his teeth on small business working on Sitematic - CRM software and services, and also NetObjects. And just to prove the diversity of the Search Marketing crowd, his degree is in architecture from Berkeley.

It sounds like Jen Slegg will be interviewing Steve on WebmasterRadio.fm soon.