Yahoo! Sucks…Again

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It appears that Yahoo! isn’t just having problems with their Yahoo! Music Engine.  According to this article at MarketingVox they’ve had mega-problems with their search ad service for over a week.

As much of a pain-in-the-butt the music problem has been the ad problems are a much bigger deal, both for Yahoo! and its clients.  From the article:

Although ads continue to run and advertisers can now access their
accounts, some advertisers’ credit cards and bank accounts have been
and are still being charged continuously for amounts several times over
the budget they had set, advertisers have told MarketingVOX. Though
Yahoo in all likelihood will reimburse these greatly inconvenienced –
and in some cases bankrupted – advertisers, the process is not likely
to be pleasant.

And how is Yahoo! responding?  Again from the article:

…Yahoo’s Gaude Paez told MarketingVOX that the upgrade caused
"unexpected issues," and that their engineers were working around the
clock to fix the problem.

According to various advertisers, however, Yahoo has not proactively
contacted them to inform them of the ongoing problems, and others say
Yahoo has also not returned calls or responded to repeated requests for
answers.

I’m glad to know that I’m not the only who has a hard time getting a rise out of Yahoo!, and now I’ll expand on what I said in my original "Yahoo! Sucks…Today" post; I bet if Google had a music service it would actually work and I doubt we’ll see a snafu like this with their ad service.

My last thought on this: it’s one thing for them to screw up customer service on the music service, but I really can’t understand screwing up on one of their bread & butter "products" like advertising.  I think they’re about to get "Dell Hell’d."

WebJillion Cool Winston-Salem Based Blog

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Thanks to Joe for letting me know about Adam’s blog, WebJillion.  Joe and Adam work together at the Winston-Salem Journal and were the people responsible for getting their RSS feeds set up, among other online initiatives.

I’m particularly interested in WebJillion’s free IYHY mobile web application.  Here’s how it’s described:

It is an absolutely free web application that strips all the crap from a web page and gives you the good stuff when you’re
on the go — the content.

If
you sign-up for free with IYHY it will keep a running, editable list of
your "mobile bookmarks" on your account homepage. That way they’re
easily accessible when you’re on your mobile device. If you don’t
sign-up, that’s cool too, you can still use it for individual sites.

Nice!

***Update*** I just spent a little more time on WebJillion and there’s an even more interesting application called Temptation Blocker.  What an idea!

Reading List August 26, 2005

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  • How Blogs Pertain to You (iMedia Connecton via Micro Persuasion) – Had to mention this one since I’m quoted in it.  The article asks how small fry (i.e. me) get treated by companies when we complain, versus how blog heavyweights (Jeff Jarvis) get treated by companies  when they complain.  Good stuff!
  • As Blogging Grows Companies Eye Legal Pitfalls (Yahoo! News) – Corporate types wonder what their liabilities are when it comes to blogging.
  • Blog Tools Tackle Content Management (InfoWorld via Yahoo! News) – Blog tools are essentially stripped down content management systems, and some people are beginning to use them that way.
  • simplehuman Uses Typepad to Build Press Room (via MicroPersuasion) – A company called simplehuman used Typepad (same service I use for this blog) to build a press room.  My lesson learned: I need to either improve my templates myself or get a real designer to do it.

My Ego Might Just ‘Splode

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About seven months ago I wrote a post called "My Hometown Newspaper" that got a little attention here in Winston-Salem and in neighboring Greensboro.  The post was basically about how, because of staff blogs at the Greensboro News & Record it felt more like my "hometown paper" than the Winston-Salem Journal, despite the fact that the Journal was delivered to my house every day.

I heard from folks at both papers and a guy named Jay Rosen, an influential figure in the news business, wrote about it on his "Pressthink" blog.  The experience was more than a little surprising for me since I wrote the post in what I thought was a vacuum.  I didn’t think anyone read this blog except for me and my family, and then only after I begged them to.

Well it was an even bigger shock today when I was reading Steve Rubel’s MicroPersuasion blog and saw this paragraph on his post Listen, Learn, Lead to Succeed:

Palmer gives yet another example of two newspapers that get it. Earlier
this year, North Carolina blogger Jon Lowder made a quiet complaint
about his hometown paper, the Winston-Salem Journal, and compared it,
unfavorably, with the Greensboro News & Record – which is some 30
miles to the east. Both papers responded to Lowder’s original blog
post. In the Winston-Salem Journal’s case they also went ahead and
created an RSS feed just days after Lowder’s original post.

Gulp!

So I click through to the article he’s referencing and find myself described thusly:

What happens when smaller fries harp online? Does corporate America listen?

Most of the time, probably not, but it’s interesting to watch when a
blog post actually catches a company’s attention. That occurred earlier
this year, when a North Carolina blogger, Jon Lowder, made a quiet complaint about his hometown paper, the Winston-Salem Journal, and compared it, unfavorably, with a newspaper 30 miles to the east, the Greensboro News & Record.

Okay, so being described as a "small fry" shouldn’t boost anyone’s ego, but I’m vain enough that I’ll take whatever I can get.  After all, I’m being compared to Jeff Jarvis who is one of the biggest bloggers out there, a true "A-List" blogger, so being a small fry in his company is kind of like being the wimpiest guy at the Mr. Universe contest…right? The article goes on to say:

 

Part of the post read, "I live in Winston-Salem. I have the
Winston-Salem Journal delivered every morning. But I don’t feel like I
know anyone there… I get all the N&R blogs via RSS. I don’t get
their paper… yet. But I still feel closer to the N&R."

There are a million and one wistful comments like this on the web,
but somehow this one got traction. For one thing, it was quoted by
NYU’s Jay Rosen, the author of the PressThink blog, a widely read site.

For another, both the Winston-Salem Journal and the Greensboro News
& Record responded to Lowder’s original blog post. Indeed, the News
& Record’s top editor posted a brief reply.

More remarkable still, though, was what happened at the
Winston-Salem Journal. Not only did the paper respond to the post and
supply contact information, but it went and created an RSS feed just
days after Lowder’s original post.

Now that’s customer service.

That last part is great, because the Journal was responsive, especially a guy over there named Joe who seemed to be the driving force behind their RSS efforts. (Joe has his own personal blog at http://www.joewrite.com).  I’m thinking that Joe should get a bonus or something since he’s getting his employers some pretty positive online exposure right now.

Finally, I’m once again bowled over by the power of blogs.  Think about this: the guy who wrote the article never interviewed me. He got a substantial part of his story from something that I wrote, so he didn’t have to interview me because my thoughts were out there for the world to see.

And think about this: something written seven months ago by a guy sitting in his home office in a pair of sweats has impacted two public companies, in whatever small way, over a seven month time span.  Now multiply that by however many thousand of people who are out there writing away and you have a very interesting phenomenon. 

 

Reading List August 25, 2005

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  • Link Selling: A Case Study (John Battelle’s Searchblog) – Should websites accept advertisers who aren’t interested in clicks, just in taking advantage of the website’s PageRank?
  • Google Gets Better. What’s Up With That? (New York Times) – A review of Google’s latest product releases, Google Desktop and Google Talk.
  • Thoughts on 9/11 (Patrick Eakes) – Patrick thinks that the National Geographic Channel’s "Inside 9/11" is well done, and I agree wholeheartedly.
  • User-Generated Market Intelligence (Business 2.0) – A new service called Jigsaw will aggregate the estimates of salespeople on the revenue and number of employees of private companies.  Using the "Wisdom of Crowds" theory this just might work.
  • Hatin’ (Half-life and times via Blog on the Run) –  A tech dude has some ideas about what to do with malware creators and none of them are pretty.
  • Touched (Chewie World Order) – Chewie links to the website of someone who seems to specialize in re-touching photos.  You can visit that site here.  Just click on any of the pictures and then run your mouse over the larger picture that appears and wonder at the powers of Photoshop.  Note, though, that even these people look great even in the before pictures, but a little augmentation takes them up a notch so to speak.
  • Location, Location, Location (A VC) – Why venture capitalists like to invest in companies that are close to home.
  • PR Pros as Eyes and Ears for Customer Service (Micro Persuasion) – Public relations and customer service are beginning to morph.

Reading List August 24, 2005

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Yahoo! Sucks…Today

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So I signed up for a free trial of Yahoo!’s unlimited music plan (YMU).  On the surface it’s a great deal; $5 a month for unlimited streaming music and $.79 per song you decide to buy.  That’s much better than the alternatives like Napster, and to top it off you can try it for 7 days for free.

I should have remembered that nothing in life is free.

To use the YMU service you have to download the Yahoo! Music Engine (YME), which I did last Friday  and then I used it for a day. I was offline all weekend, but when I booted up on Monday the YME wouldn’t load properly.  The program works with Internet Explorer (IE) so basically you have a YME interface around an IE browser window.  The problem was that whenever I tried to use YME I got an "Action Canceled" message in the IE part.  That meant I couldn’t get to the Yahoo! music site, which meant I couldn’t get my songs fed to my computer.

After many attempts I got it restarted and used it all day on Monday.  Yesterday when I booted back up I started getting these weird "Scripting Error" messages, so I uninstalled the YME and then reinstalled it.  I stopped getting the scripting error messages, but I did get the "Action Canceled" message again.

Somewhere along the line I emailed tech support, but a day later I had no response.  Of course there’s no phone number, not even for paying customers (Note: YME is free, but the unlimited service is not and I have to be able to use YME to utilize my paid service).

So I decided to go to Yahoo! groups and see if there’s a group dedicated to YME.  Lo’ and behold there is, and there’s a crapload of messages there (1135 total, 135 in just the last 7 days), and almost all deal with problems with the service.  To his credit there’s a guy named Ian from the YME development team who posts replies there regularly, but the level of problems they’re having with this thing is stunning.  I’ve posted message number 1131, and hopefully Ian will be able to help me.

What’s bugging me now is that I had to put one year of service on my credit card to get the 7 day trial.  While it was working the service was great and I’d like to keep it, but I’m truly irked that even as a paying customer I can’t get around their buggy "free" program. 

And now I can’t find a phone number or any other contact info for canceling the trial before the 7 days is up, which is the only way to keep from getting charged for the service.  I ran into a similar situation years ago with MSN and it literally took me over a year to get the problem solved with them.

I bet if Google had a music service it would actually work:)

If something positive happens I’ll let you know, but for today Yahoo! sucks.

***Update***

I received an email from Mal at Yahoo! Customer Care on Friday, August 26.  Unfortunately the fix he suggests is one that was already posted on the YME group message board, so I’m going to have to reply and let him know it didn’t work.  So I heard from them…three days later. 

I’ll let you know when all is resolved.

Mayor of DC Has a Blog

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Anthony Williams, mayor of Washington DC has an official blog.  He’s off to a slow start (one post a week), but let’s give him credit for trying.

Let’s just hope he runs his blog more like his DMV (the only city agency that seems to work) and less like the city school system (so bad it’s a crime).

Reading List August 22, 2005

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  • The Best Way to Save Gas (Moore’s Lore) – If localized web services got better we’d all save money.
  • Dating the Next Recession (Moore’s Lore) – Dana Blankenhorn thinks the next recession will begin October 17, 2005 when the new bankruptcy law goes into effect.  He makes an interesting and compelling argument.
  • Writer’s Perspective on Amazon’s Pay-to-Download Short Stories (Boing Boing) – Amazon has a new service that allows you download short stories one at a time (I-Stories?), and at least one writer thinks it’s a good thing.
  • Online Bettors Find a New Love: Real Estate (New York Times) – Online exchanges are correctly predicting many new developments (election results, American Idol winners, the capture of Saddam Hussein, etc.) and now they are telling us that real estate "bubbles" in the cities that it is tracking are NOT ready to burst.
  • The Vagina…It Writes Letters (Pandagon via Blog on the Run) – This is a hilarious play on the Vagina Monologues, which I’ve never read but am assuming weren’t that funny.  Kind of reminds me of that ‘detachable penis’ song.
  • "Peak Oil:" Welcome to the Media’s New Version of Shark Attacks (Freakonomics) – Steven Levitt pokes holes in a NYT magazine article that predicts calamitous results from the rising imbalance of oil production and consumption.
  • What Do the Kansas City Royals and My iPod Have in Common? (Freakonomics) – On randomness or the lack thereof.
  • Anatomy of a New York Times Article (Blog Maverick) – Times really are different for reporters.  Mark Cuban publishes the email chain for an interview he did with a New York Times reporter and then links to the resulting article.  Let’s just say he didn’t like the results, and he’s making the process transparent for everyone to make their own judgement.  Why do I think the reporter might not come out on top?
  • Steal this Book (Reveries) – Warren Adler, author of "War of the Roses", thinks the printed book has had a great 500-year run, but it’s about to be replaced by "screen" books.
  • Foxification of Local News (BuzzMachine) – Roger Ailes is going to do to local news what he did to national news at Fox.

Pretty in Pink

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PinklockerroomThe picture to the left is the University of Iowa’s locker room for visiting football teams.  Pretty ain’t it? 

The reporter who wrote about it described it as "Barbie’s Dream House on acid, a pastel nightmare. You feel naked without a little dog in one arm and a handbag in the other."  Even the urinals are pink, or rather "Dusty Rose."

Photo courtesy of DesMoinesRegister.com where you can also read all about this ultimate shrine to manliness, or Pepto-Bismol.