Archive for July, 2007

Ok, my Vtech ip8300 DECT6.0 infoPhone was supposed to be in my grubby little hands by April, and it STILL doesn’t seem to have shipped. This is the phone with Yahoo! Local built in making it, as far as I know, the first home phone that is directly affected by web marketing efforts. Well, you could argue that Google 411 is also* (speed dial #1 in my car - I love that service!)

I am also looking forward to seeing how the phone accepts news feeds. Hopefully it lets you use standard RSS and not some proprietary limited portal set. I’ll use Yahoo! Pipes to make a nice small RSS feed for family information (e.g. school closings, forecast, traffic) that we can glance at from any room in the house. GEEKY!

But first I have to get the damn thing in my HANDS. Where is it?????

Hurry VTech, my old home phones are dying!!!!

*Little known fact:Â With Google 411, once you find the thing you’re searching for, you can say “map it” and Google will send you a link to the map!

When I read the story in the Merc about the guy who forgot his baby in the car (the baby died,) I was reminded of the situation where the University of Irvine professor did the same thing a few years ago. This is really, really awful stuff.

….Like many, the Warschauers were a two-career family. Mark Warschauer is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, a leading expert in the field of technology and learning. Hirata is an award-winning political-science professor specializing on Japan and East Asia. The morning of Aug. 8, 2003, Mark Warschauer was tired and stressed out. His wife was trying to wean Mikey, and he’d gotten up at 3 a.m. trying to get the bright-eyed 10-month-old back to sleep. When he drove to work that morning, he was “on automatic.” Mikey had fallen asleep in the back, dozing quietly in his rear-facing car seat. Instead of going to day care, Warschauer went straight to campus, parked his car and went up to the office……

Not only is this sad, it’s scary as hell. Kind of “I-think-I-just-dozed-off-while-I-was-driving-scary.” It’s scary because this level of busy-ness can happen to many people. Many good people. We can all have a long night. Perhaps even do an all-nighter with a little one and then go to work dead on our feet, totally sleep deprived. We can forget things. Important things. THE most important things.

Today I saw the ChildMinder system on Gizmodo. Yes, it’s sad to need it. But it is needed. If my girls weren’t too old now, I’d have this.

BTW: You’ll see this standard on cars soon enough. Just watch.

My wife and I decided to take an hour from our work day to get some ceiling fans for our house in a real store… Kentucky Lighting in Lexington. We are trying to buy locally a little more when it comes to house-items, especially heavier items like this. So we’ll give them a shot. We fully intended to buy while we were there. They have a terrific place. Easy to find, good location. It’s nicely laid out. Lots of parking, a big parts counter, huge selection, and seems well organized. Someone has put a lot of work into the place and it shows.

This is a profoundly rare event. The planets have to line up just right for it to happen, and it did. There we were, in a bricks and mortar store instead of a web browser or catalog, , during the day, without kids, and we weren’t in a mad rush. We have two dying ceiling fans at home, and a room that needs one. We are the most perfect customers imaginable.

It unfolded…

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I think, starting today, the “Worlds Biggest Web Host” , 1&1, now offers built-in Google Site Map Tools in their Package-level domain lists, making it extremely easy to create a sitemap for any domain hosted with their services. Too Damn Easy. They’ve had such tools in their “marketing tools” before but now it’s much more “in your face” while you view your domain names in the hosting. The “standard” webmaster tool settings creates a very basic Google sitemap 0.84 schema, uploads it, and says “thank you” . Bam, it’s that easy.

You do not have to drink the Kool-Aid folks (more…)

Kim Komando, hostess of the three hour call in radio show covered by 425 radio stations and sender of 5 million email newsletters weekly has recently pushed the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions “starter” program in her publications. As many of you know, I got my start in Yahoo! Store (waaay back in 1997) and have been working hard for Yahoo! store clients since then. The system is a very robust and power packed cart for the entry level merchant.

But, I encourage new merchants to remembe that just because the platform is easy doesn’t mean selling online is going to be simple.

Basic merchandising and sales 101 apply…..

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You know, sometimes business secrets don’t require much effort to find. The fruits of dozens of locations, millions of dollars in training development, and years of experience can focus on a single experience that’s presented right in front of you. And you are permitted to take notes.

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