As a user/subscriber of Plaxo services, one thing missing from their arsenal is 2-way syncing with Google (as of this writing, Plaxo only supports a 1-way download from Gmail — it won’t update Gmail contacts with my information on Plaxo). Today in my inbox I had an email from the Google App team announcing Google Sync for Blackberry:

As someone with a MacBook Pro (for business) running OS X and VMWare Fusion for Windows XP & Windows 2000, an iMac (for home), Blackberry (Business & Gmail access), and random access to the Internet anywhere else I go, it only takes one instance where you’re on a device without your latest and greatest contact information. My Gmail contact list was the last missing link in the plethora of address books spread across all of these devices.

When calling the DMV today for questions about transferring the title of a vehicle, I was greeted with the following message once I navigated through the automated phone tree:

“May I have your attention. We are experiencing a higher than normal volume of calls. Your wait time may be excessive.”

Excessive? Did they really say that? On the heels of a similar post by Yabia, I couldn’t help but post my own reminder that viewing your business through the eyes of your customer or a consumer is critical to providing satisfying service.

“Excessive” implies an amount or degree too great to be reasonable or acceptable

My beef with the above recorded message is the use of the word “excessive.” Excessive is so often used in conjunction with something overly negative (excessive speeding, excessive drinking, etc.), why on earth would you use this language with your customers?

Now, granted, this is local government — generally an area where I rarely find customer service going above and beyond the call of duty. This automated message is either a complete stroke of genius by realistically acknowledging that the wait time is totally unacceptable…or a sobering realization of the lack of awareness. My vote is for the latter.

Soften the blow

If your phone system doesn’t support the ability to tell a caller how long they will wait, then don’t mention anything about the wait time being excessive. At the very least, choose different wording if transparency is your objective.

It makes me wonder: what would life be like if we lived in a world where there was only one supplier for each product we used in our day-to-day lives? Would you also have “excessive” wait times?

My media consumption is transitioning more and more to RSS feeds. From the latest online & web marketing industry news, to sports updates, to friends & family blog postings, RSS is an everyday part of my life where I pick and choose what I want to read/consume and when.

TV needs its own version of the RSS feed

It then dawned on me: TV needs to be like this. Essentially, it’s what all of our DVRs are striving to be. In our house, we have DIRECTV HD which means we are locked in to the underwhelming DIRECTV HD DVR. DIRECTV is taking a step in the right direction with the ability to schedule your DVR online. The problem is that it differs from Tivo’s implementation of online scheduling (we have Tivo in another room in the house).

Proprietary DVR scheduling “protocol” limits potential

If I visit ABC.com (or any television station’s website), there’s no standard way for me to subscribe to a show. I have to separately go to my provider’s website to use their proprietary method of scheduling the DVR to record a show. This is the beauty of RSS feeds — they are the same no matter which client you read the feeds from.

I really hope the future of DVR scheduling moves towards a standard which allows all networks to use a common syndication interface which can communicate with a network-connected DVR or computer. At the end of the day, there’d be a standard way to subscribe to an episode, series, and set it to record new episodes and/or repeats.

Advertising opportunities

If there were a standard DVR scheduling protocol, just think of how this could be leveraged through online advertising. A few ideas:

1. A call-to-action could be included within a link or a banner ad to “schedule this show to record” by simply clicking on it and adding the “feed” to your TV scheduler. You could then directly measure campaign effectiveness to new “subscribers.”
2. Similar to FeedBurner, a measurement service could be provided so networks could understand total subscribers.
3. Standardizing on a protocol would also allow online video sharing sites (Hulu, YouTube, etc.) to provide feeds to a DVR when a new episode/show/clip is available from your favorite show/contributor. I’d love to see YouTube feeds in my DVR list — when I’m sitting at the couch is when I have free time to check out online videos in longer sessions.
4. Viral marketing would be much easier — forward an email to a friend: “Hey, record this one episode, it’s hilarious.” Recipient clicks and they’re done.

Hulu is a step in the right direction

I can subscribe to an RSS feed for new episodes posted for a show or channel on Hulu. The missing link is the ability to play this content through the television. It’s still not quite convenient (or comfortable) to huddle around a MacBook Pro 15″ or a 20″ iMac — but good enough for catching an episode you missed or while on the road.

Yes, this is vastly over-simplified

I realize there are technical considerations that need to be accounted for, however my ignorance to DVR and TV-scheduling technology allows me to demand features like this.

Apple just gets it. Today they announced the iPhone 3G, a thinner, faster, and more affordable iPhone. I continue to be fascinated by how they take difficult or time-consuming processes and make them easy. Take for example MobileMe.

How will Plaxo respond to MobileMe?

As a die-hard Plaxo user, MobileMe seems to be a fairly significant threat to Plaxo. In the wake of Comcast’s recent purchase of Plaxo, I would imagine Plaxo will be find itself in a difficult position to continue innovating as it works through the transition to Comcast ownership and business processes.

Apple has quite simply leap-frogged Plaxo in features and functionality that I currently pay $60/year for with Plaxo: Address book and calendar syncing. Plaxo also has other bells and whistles such as contact “networking” features (a la LinkedIn) and Plaxo Pulse (a la Friendster — essentially a “life stream” of your data)…neither of which I pay the yearly fee for. Calendar and contact syncing is where the value is for me.

MobileMe goes beyond address & calendar syncing

Most importantly, MobileMe will also sync email, photos, and files. As I hop between an enterprise BlackBerry, an iMac at home, and a MacBook Pro for work (running VMWare so I can play nicely in the Windows world), the MobileMe synchronization is really the best of everything. No matter which environment I’m in, I’ll have access to my most frequently-used data.

MobileMe could be the ticket

While I’m not about to switch email addresses, the photo and file syncing are very nice add-ons for the $99/year fee with 20GB of storage. Google’s Picasa photo hosting only provides 2GB of storage (it’s free, though) and DropBox (for file sharing) is still in its infancy. Is this enough to convince me to buy an iPhone? Only if it’ll work with Enterprise email. MobileMe however looks to be the ticket when it comes out (with or without an iPhone). I’ll be testing the 60-day trial for sure.

Just used RedBox DVD Rentals for the first time this evening and what an impressive service:

• DVD rentals for $1.00/day
• Easy-to-use interface
• Online integration (rent online, pick up at your local RedBox location)
• Return the DVD to any RedBox kiosk (not just the one you rented from)
• Slick little DVD dispenser that casually spits out the DVDs in their hard-plastic cases

These are new to our area in Greensboro, NC but I know are popular in the Atlanta area (based on feedback from a few friends who pick up DVDs from the RedBox at their local McDonald’s). And what a business model this must be: Drop a kiosk in the store, feed it new DVDs each week for new releases, and watch the money roll in. I’d love to learn more about their infrastructure and how they keep tabs on the health of the machines.

The user experience on the computer kiosk is well-done, although I wish the system was a little more responsive (i.e. faster). It could use a slightly larger screen to view the DVD titles. These are very minor complaints considering how easy it was to walk up and rent a DVD for the first time. Our main problem the whole time was feeling “rushed” by the other people waiting in line to rent and return their movies!

The kid in me still loves chocolate milk. However, chocolate syrup has been missing from our fridge for a while now so I picked up a new container of Hershey’s chocolate syrup today while running a few errands. I was pleasantly surprised to see they had redesigned the cap on the bottle. Here’s a picture of the old style (remember how it would always not get fully closed and would get all crusty?):

Here’s the new and improved design which, so far, stays much cleaner, easier to open, and easier to use:

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make me happy. Oh, and by the way, Chip’s Ahoy has improved the labeling on their product so you don’t accidentally open it on the sides of the packaging (see my original post where I accidentally mauled the package):

In this era of Google-dominated web applications, it’s a rare find when another competitive service by a much more established company is actually better than Google’s. My wife and I are AAA members. AAA provides a service in which they will map out a road trip for your travel needs. This service is called a “TripTik.” Historically, this has been a service that you call AAA for and they send you a bound, printed copy of your driving plan, like this:

Like any company adjusting to modern times, AAA is moving many of their services to their website at AAA.com. This includes the TripTik service (you can still order a printed copy!).

AAA TripTik vs. Google Maps
One thing I do give Google Maps is the fast, convenient nature of their mapping tool — which is great for short trips and quick directions to that new restaurant or store in your area that you want to check out. For road trips, however, it falls short of the robustness of AAA’s TripTik service.

Google’s UI Advantage:
This post wouldn’t be complete without some discussion on usability and user interface. Google makes it extremely easy to quickly type in your start and end destination. Simply enter in the following:

minneapolis, mn to chicago, il

And voila! Your map is created.

AAA’s UI Disadvantages
On AAA.com’s TripTik, you have to first find the “Internet TripTik” link (small, fairly unnoticeable button…see it? It’s under the “Gas prices near you” tool on the bottom right-hand side of their homepage.):

There is no easy URL to remember like there is for Google Maps (maps.google.com). If there is one, they don’t advertise it, which is a bummer. A simple http://triptik.aaa.com that redirected to the full URL would work wonders! Here’s their full URL:

http://ww1.aaa.com/scripts/WebObjects.dll/AAAOnline.woa/2004?

association=aaa&poiKey=259&club=111&page=ITTServices&

sessionRedirect=1198155291293

Next, there’s the interface for entering your “start” and “end” destinations. This is also another usability issue compared to Google Maps in that you are required to type in your city separately from the state (you have to choose the state from a drop-down menu). This is another reason why Google Maps is better than AAA for “quick” directions & maps. It’s much easier to quickly enter a “start” and “end” destination within Google Maps: Type in maps.google.com, page loads instantly, type in “from city, state to city, state” and you’re done. The extra clicks and effort to fill in the AAA TripTik do not make it a viable tool for extremely easy and quick data entry.

AAA’s advantage over Google
The meat of the TripTik service is its ability to map out detailed driving directions, including lodging information, notices on when to expect heavy traffic (when traveling during rush hour through various cities), and road construction details. These are all areas where Google Maps does not provide any guidance.

Additionally, the “printable” version of AAA’s TripTik provides a nicely-formatted PDF specifically designed to be printed on your home computer. Google Maps on the other hand will print like any normal web page would — adding page breaks where it’s most inconvenient. AAA’s TripTik PDF’s have directions in logical chunks so that it’s easy to follow on your road trip. Take a look at the screen shots:

(The yellow boxes indicate road contruction. Also notice the rush hour notification at the bottom of map #2)

AAA Internet TripTik trumps Google Maps for road trips…but not for quick, local trips
With a few minor changes, AAA could actually be a contender with Google Maps for quick, local directions and trips. Longer distances, where it’s important to know where lodging is available, where road construction is, etc. and it’s an excellent tool. I’m willing to look past the usability nuances for the much more detailed information for extended road trips.

Evaluate the usability on your website
Are there any areas like this on your website? Would a simple, easy-to-remember URL benefit your consumers or customers so they can quickly arrive at a tool they use most often (i.e. maps.google.com)? Or do you force them to navigate through your site to find the tools they need?

Subtle changes can go a long way in improving your site’s usability and customer satisfaction. It’s always good to solicit feedback from your web users and do frequent competitive analysis of “the other guys’” sites.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation feels it necessary to perform website maintenance on a Sunday morning. What I’ve always disliked about government web services is the lack of understanding of when citizens perform online tasks via government sites. This is what I was presented with today when I tried to renew my license plate tabs via the NC DOT website:

This would be completely unacceptable for a consumer website. I guess since the state requires registration and you have no other choice but to visit their site around their maintenance schedule or (gasp) go into a local DOT office, they really don’t have to cater to the schedules of citizens.

Website maintenance, regardless of industry, should be done during off-peak hours. Granted, Sunday mornings are probably not peak hours, they are still more prone to visits than they would be between the hours of 2AM and 7AM.

I recently upgraded from a Blackberry 8700 (on the T-mobile network) to an 8703e on the Sprint network. The primary reason was so that I could get a local phone number for business as well as access corporate e-mail, etc. Previously, I did not have cell phone service with my 8700, just enterprise e-mail service. Now I have the best of both worlds.

My main gripe right now is that the phone quality is really poor. I can’t tell if this is the design of the Blackberry or if it’s Sprint’s network. Calling my wife’s cell phone our or home Vonage line with my old Nokia 6820 on Cingular’s network results in a much better quality call that doesn’t drop. In a week of use, I’ve experienced poor phone quality and more frequently dropped calls. Apparently it’s also difficult for people on the other end of the line to hear me at times, whereas with my Nokia, they can hear me just fine.

Phone quality problems aside, my life is just about perfect with this phone. E-mail, internet, ssh client, AIM, Yahoo! IM, Google Chat, Gmail, SMS messaging, and the ability to look at Word/PDF attachments makes traveling much more convenient. It’s a great enterprise phone for the business user, but still lacks the following:

• mp3 playback
• video playback
• HTML e-mail support
• no camera
• web browsing experience is OK, but still is not a “true” browser, despite its emulation capabilities

I still am highly anticipating the iPhone. However, with just about all of my life consolidated into one device (I forward my calls from my old Nokia on my Cingular account to my BlackBerry, now), I may wait until the second generation iPhone instead. This is almost good enough for me to not really need the iPhone, but it still doesn’t quite do everything. I have yet to purchase a true iPod (I just have an iPod Shuffle), so the iPhone essentially solves that need, plus gives me the added benefits of being able to do just about everything else I could ask.

For now, The Blackberry continues to be an excellent tool for business use.

I posted last month about the upcoming arrival of our DIRECTV HD DVR. After a month of using this very heavily (between my wife and I, we watch/record about 20 total shows on a weekly basis), we have finally determined that this falls well short of our expectations and we are very disappointed in the product. Let’s review:

We’re previous Tivo customers
Our main DIRECTV receiver was a DIRECTV/TIVO combo receiver which allowed recording of 2 live programs simultaneously and the ability to watch a 3rd program that was already recorded. We also have a single, standard receiver for a guest bedroom. We’ve been DIRECTV customers for nearly 5 years now, having moved service with us from MN to NC as well.

DIRECTV HD DVR: The Good

1. Unlike the old Tivo Series 1 DIRECTV/TIVO DVR, the DIRECTV HD DVR is very fast at setting up recorded shows via the guide. Tivo Series 1 would force you through a couple of menus before you would have successfully set up a show for recording.
2. Setting up a season pass is just as easy: click record twice. You’re done. Tivo was a longer, more drawn out process, and I really like the DIRECTV HD DVR’S way of simplifying and making some assumptions for you (i.e. keep 5 most recent, delete as needed, etc.). You can always override the settings, but from our standpoint, we typically watch the recorded show within a week of it airing, so the defaults are good. Rarely do we record something and have it fall off the list without having viewed it.

DIRECTV HD DVR: The Bad

1. The system is too slow for the fast-forwarding speeds. On this system, there are 4 fast-forward speeds: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Unlike Tivo, the DIRECTV HD DVR does not have a skip button for jumping ahead in 15-minute increments.
• So, they have a speed of “4″ for fast-forwarding. This speed is too fast for any human to be able to react quickly to the choppy on-screen playback when fast-forwarding between commercials, so you’re guaranteed to overshoot the commercial break and end up several minutes into your program. So, we reserve speed 4 for jump far ahead in a recorded show.
• Speed 3 is typically where we fast forward. The problem again is that the play back is so choppy that we frequently overshoot the commercial break by several seconds. The timeline bar at the bottom doesn’t even update in real-time with the fast forward…it too is very choppy. It’s really difficult to easily fast forward on this system.
• Speed 2 is too slow for fast forward, but not fast enough…it’s what we use if we undershoot the commercial break.
• Speed 1 is very slow, but again, the screen is choppy enough to still overshoot your desired start point in the recorded show.
2. There is no obvious way to toggle between both live signals. On our previous Tivo Series 1 DIRECTV receiver, we could hit “Live TV” and toggle back and forth between live signals. Not with the DIRECTV HD DVR. This is a bummer for us football fans who have SuperFan on one channel and our favorite NFL Sunday Ticket game on another channel.
3. After finishing watching a recorded show, the DVR will drop you off right in the middle of any actively recorded show. This was a huge oversight. We watch several shows that are back-to-back. We’ll start watching one show about a half hour into it, finish it up, and then as soon as you hit the “stop” button, the user interface of the DVR shows you a live feed of what’s being recorded. This is frustrating when you don’t want to see any spoilers in the show you’re recording. This happens on a daily basis and seems to be a design oversight. Some real-life usability testing should have flushed this oversight out, but apparently not.
4. Out-of-sync video and audio playback. This has happened occasionally on our system, usually for a minute or two and then it “fixes itself.” Tonight, however, my wife swore the world was going to end because Grey’s Anatomy was entirely out of sync the entire show. We’re not talking a 1/2-second sync error, we’re talking the video appeared to be playing at a much faster rate than the audio. The audio track wasn’t even close to being in sync with the video. After several stops, starts, fast-forwards, rewinds, we gave up. We’ll watch this episode on iTunes, thankyouverymuch.
5. Lack of integrated features like Internet scheduling. Tivo Series 2 was headed in the right direction with the ability to schedule shows to record online, the ability to access Internet applications, etc.
6. Once a show is deleted, it’s gone. The concept of the trash can or recycle bin from a computer should be available on all systems where media is constantly viewed and removed. Occasionally, we accidentally delete shows on our DVR and want to retrieve them. Tivo Series 2 added this functionality in mid-2006, and we loved it.

There are several oversights with this product…it’s getting so frustrating (we still have our old Tivo Series 1 and it’s much nicer in terms of its intuitive menus and fast forwarding) that I’d seriously consider dropping DIRECTV in favor of HD Cable with a Tivo Series 3. I really wish DIRECTV had stuck with Tivo on this HD DVR. The Tivo experience is much more pleasant…the DIRECTV experience feels like a cheap knock-off. Certainly not as bad as Time Warner’s DVR, but also not in the same league as a Tivo…which is unfortunate.

A good lesson in product development and delivering a product consumers want. I feel this one has really missed the mark…it’s one thing to have an HD DVR, but I’ve invested a lot of money in our HD system, the last thing I wanted was a sub-standard DVR because it’s something we use every day. We’ll switch to HD cable by the end of 2007 if the DIRECTV HD DVR isn’t improved based on our complaints listed above.