Category Archives: Weblogs

Dell’s Blog is Pretty Darn Good

Leave a reply

Okay, I’ll admit that I jumped on the "Jeff Jarvis Dell Hell" bandwagon and I was fairly critical of the incentives package that Forsyth County (not to mention North Carolina) forked over to Dell to get them to build their plant here.  So I’ve watched their nascent efforts at blogging with interest and I have to say that I’m impressed.

They have multiple contributors to the blog and they are using it to deal with hot button issues  like exploding batteries and fairly mundane customer service issues like the accents of their customer service reps.  They’re also using video posts to good effect and from what I can tell they’re avoiding the trap of making it one big PR/marketing excercise.  To me the best sign that they have the right idea is that they accept both positive and negative comments, and in fact monitor them.  For instance the video post I pointed to has a comment from one user having problems loading the video and then another comment from a Dell person with a tip on how to download the video and a mention that they are trying to make the viewing process a little easier.  They even responded to comments that their original blog name, one2one, was also the name of a porn site and changed the name to Direct2Dell.

I’m liking what I’m seeing.

If POTUS Blogged

Leave a reply

Will wonders never cease?  The President of Iran has his own blog (found via Lex), and you can even read it in English if you click on the little AmeriBrit flag icon.  I tried to read it in his native language but all the little squiggly lines made my eyes hurt and I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to read left to right or right to left, which, oddly enough, made me think of POTUS.

Supposedly POTUS is reading while on his abbreviated two-week vacation, but I was wondering if given the opportunity, and the ability to type, he would be up for blogging?  Of course he would face challenges, like:

  • Determining the proper way to spell "nucular."
  • Figuring out that "PC" is not necessarily a Republican epithet, and thus does need to be turned on to get to that hairy little internet thing.
  • Finding a way to carve out some time to spend with Ted Stevens so he can get tutored on that whole "internet is a series of tubes" thing.
  • Having someone explain that "QWERTY" has nothing to do with gays or the military.

Once he overcomes those obstacles he’d then have to think of what he’d name his blog.  Here are some possibilities:

  • Touched by Bush
  • Heckuva Job Bushie
  • The Bushmeister
  • Dick?
  • Tony’s Pimp
  • Bring ‘Em On
  • Git’r Done
  • Decider Boy
  • Fool Me Once…
  • Bushwhacked

And what tags would POTUS use?  Well, there’s:

  • Boo!
  • What mistakes?
  • Ask Dick
  • Toastmasters DC Chapter
  • WMD! WMD!
  • Osama who?
  • I got Saddam Daddy!
  • Heckuva Job Rummy!

Suggestions?

What You Get When You Search My Name + —Hole

6 Replies

Warning: Semi-adult language to follow.

Yesterday I was looking at the stats for this blog to see if the article about Winston-Salem bloggers on the front page of the Winston-Salem Journal led to an increase in traffic over the normal three or four wackos who normally read this thing.  Sure enough the traffic about doubled, but I found something even more interesting.

You see the stats show where every visitor came from and the majority of visitors come from search engines.  If I click on the link it takes me to the search engine and shows me the search term that was used and the page on which my blog appeared.  Here’s a small sample of some of the terms, the search engine they were used on and where some page on my blog ranked for those terms on the search engines:

  • tyco chicken illegal aliens (Google, #1)
  • nudist blog (Google, #42)
  • inside of ant hills  (Google, #1)
  • battambang cattle industry 2006 (MSN, #3)
  • Ernest Angley (Yahoo, #14)
  • "ed cone" asshole (Google, #40)

Obviously I have a warped mind if I’m writing posts that pull in people interested in illegal chicken processors, nudists, wannabe anteaters, obscure indian cattle data and crazy televangelists.  But when I got to that last one I was kind of bothered.  I mean what had I written that woul equate Greensboro’s "blogfather" with a negative anatomical description/epithet?  Ends up that it was this post and the anatomical reference wasn’t even about Ed.

Side note to Ed: You might want to find out who is so motivated to go four pages deep in a Google search for that phrase; me-thinks there’s someone out there with a thing for you.

Well, this got me to wondering what would happen if I searched "jon lowder" asshole in Google.  So I did and I found that the search returned about 160 results.  The top result was the same post that featured Ed and then number two was on Ed’s blog so I guess we’re even.  Number five was a post on Vie de Malchance, number six was on Billy the Blogging Poet, number seven was another Ed Cone post and number eight was Patrick Eakes.  These are all Greensboro blogs and people I’ve corresponded with so I started wondering if perhaps I’d done something untoward.

So I followed the links and found out that on Vie’s blog I was an innocent bystander and checking Billy’s blog I only find myself referenced in his blog roll so I guess I’m an innocent bystander there too.  On to Ed’s other post and I find that it is recent and interesting in terms of the comments, but I had nothing to do with it other than the fact that my name is on Ed’s blog roll.  On Patrick’s I find that I have nothing to do with it other than the fact that my name is on his blog roll too.

The dim light over my head is beginning to glow.  It appears that if you use two terms, supposedly unrelated, they can pop up in search.  So although I haven’t found an instance where someone has called me an asshole I’m certainly being lumped in with many assholes.  Obviously I’ve probably done the same on my blog so I’m going to use this space to issue a blanket apology to all the victims of my random a-holes and other nefarious comments.

Here’s a Good Example of How Blogs Change Business Practices

Leave a reply

Dell caught some severe hell over the past year or so and I have to agree with many of their detractors that they were slow to react.  They seemed to be stuck in an old-world customer service/PR paradigm that was a little incongruous for a company that built its business on a "revolutionary" business model.

Well they might have been slow but Dell is beginning to hit its stride.  They’ve launched a customer service blog called Dell one2one that is a great example of how a corporate blog can change the way business is done.  When the blog launched it was criticized by some blog purists and PR/customer service gurus, but just like every other person/entity that ever launched a blog I think the Dell-ers just needed some time to develop their sea legs.  After reading it for a few weeks I think they’ve developed a nice mix of PR (using the space to refute some negative statistics about them) and product updates (here’s what we’re doing about fill-in-the-blank issues).  Basically they’re beginning to open up a window to their operations and if they’re careful and don’t become too defensive I think they’ll find that they will engender more customer goodwill in the process.  Simply by admitting that they’ve made mistakes and do indeed need to improve their customer service (see here) is a huge step in the right direction.

On an anecdotal note I’ve noticed that more people are stepping up to defend them when stories about exploding laptops appear, or at least point out that it’s really more of a battery issue and less of a computer issue, so any company that is supplying customers with computers, PDAs, phones, etc. will have these instances occur. Until recently everyone seemed satisfied with only blaming Dell as if it’s the only manufacturer that has these problems.  I think Dell’s willingness to be more open with its practices is allowing people to see the positive along with the negative, and by admitting that they make mistakes and explaining how they’re working on fixing them they are stopping the negative momentum. Remember it’s human nature to complain about bad service to multiple people but never mention satisfactory service at all so by using its blog effectively Dell is able to answer the negative feedback and then point out positive developments as well. 

A lot of businesses can learn something by watching how Dell goes about this, because if they fail there will be a lot of "this is how you don’t do it" stories and if they succeed they’ll blaze a trail that others can follow.  My money’s on the latter.

Bloggin’ in Winston-Salem; Blogger Needs Some of That “Carolina Neighbor Code”

Leave a reply

The Winston-Salem Journal ran a front page story on people blogging in Winston-Salem.  I was interviewed as was a woman named Lucy Cash who writes a great blog called Life in Forsyth.  It’s kind of cool to make the paper in any form, but the front page is really cool!

On a sad note, I emailed Lucy to introduce myself and she replied this morning saying that she’d reply in length later but that her father had died this morning.  So what should be an exciting day for her has unfortunately turned very somber.  Anyone who has read her blog knows that her dad has been sick, so I’m guessing she’ll get a lot of what she calls the "Carolina Neighbor Code" which will include home cooked meals and a bunch of hugs and offers of support.  That’s one of the great things about living here.

Winston-Salem Journal Expanding Blogs

Leave a reply

It looks like the Winston-Salem Journal is getting ready to launch more blogs and they’re looking for ideas about what they should be blogging about.  Here are some suggestions, although I doubt they’ll be welcome:

  • Where in the World is Vernon? – A blog that covers the escapades of our local gadfly Vernon Robinson.  I think this fits under the category "if it bleeds it leads."
  • What’s Your Church? – A blog that disects the peculiar local custom of asking people what their church is rather than the more ubiquitous US custom of asking what someone does.
  • Where in the World are the Democrats? – A blog that identifies the three or four democrats that live within an hours drive of Winston-Salem and don’t work at the newspaper or within a school system (this includes universities).  Dixiecrats don’t count either.
  • The Nuts on Peanuts – A blog for the thriving "Peanuts" fan club that obviously exists in the area based on the number of people who sent in irate letters about the venerable comic strip being replaced.  This despite the fact that it’s been in re-runs longer than President Bush has been saying "nucular."
  • Chicken Pie – For newcomers and carpetbaggers there’s not enough information on where to find the best chicken pie.  From what I can tell you have to know someone who knows someone who’s great-aunt fixes a hundred a week in her vintage 1956 gas stove.  And she’ll sell them to you for $4 each but you have to pick them up.  We need a guide on how to find these culinary saints.

That oughtta do it for today.

Lots of Cool Stuff In a Little Space

Leave a reply

Instead of putting out lots of posts about the interesting stuff I’ve come across the last couple of days I thought I’d do a little digest.  Here ’tis:

That’s it for now.  Enjoy.

Fun with Google

Leave a reply

Here’s some fun I’m having with Google.  I’m searching to see how many times I’ve used certain terms on this blog.  For instance how many times have I used "I love" on this blog? Or how about "I hate"?  Here’s the results:

  • I hate – 19
  • I love – 28
  • What the hell – 15
  • Dumb ass – 4
  • Bush administration – 37
  • Stupid – 280
  • Brilliant – 19
  • Genius – 24
  • Moron – 15
  • Shit – 7
  • Damn – 30
  • F-bomb (spelled correctly) – 1

Conclusion?  I type a lot cleaner than I talk.

You Don’t Need CNN to See Lebanon Photos

Leave a reply

It’s not news that the internet has changed how we get information, but many people who aren’t techies or are over the age of 30 may not know about some mainstream web services out there that allow any person to disseminate his or her perspective of events to the general public.  A perfect case in point is the online photo sharing site Flickr which was purchased by Yahoo! a while back and how it is being used by photographers to get out pictures from the war zone in Lebanon.

For those not familiar with Flickr think of it as an online photo album that anyone can use for free and upload pictures that can either be made private or can be shared with the world at large.  What made Flickr revolutionary when it first launched is that it allows users to "tag" each photo with descriptive words which means that anyone can search for photos by those tags.  So if you want to find photos with the tag ‘lebanon’ you simply visit Flickr and use the search field and type in ‘lebanon’.  Here’s a string of Lebanon photos from a user named "arabist", but please be forewarned that there are some graphic photos there so don’t look if you’re squeamish.

Flickr is just one example of how a seemingly simple mass-market service can totally upend a traditional information paradigm.  It continues to be fascinating to me to watch how our traditional news and information purveyors adjust to their new environment of an audience that is increasingly attracted by other information sources and of course there’s a lot of debate about what it means to traditional media outlets, but I’m convinced it’s better for us as a society to be able to get as many images, or perspectives if you will, in addition to the traditional filter provided by the traditional media outlets.

Update: Here’s the blog of a BBC journalist in Beirut and it uses another free web service (Blogger, owned by Google) and here’s his Flickr stream.

Video of News & Record Citizen Journalism (Blogging) Meeting

Leave a reply

Sean Coon took some video of the citizen journalism/blogging meeting at the News & Record on Tuesday night (June 6, 06). His post is here and you can see the video either on his page or here at Youtube.

Vanity moment: Celeste and I are the two across the room (I’m in the blue shirt and Celeste is on the end to my right or your left).