LB's Rambles

Zune Offense

So you own an older (2006) model Zune mp3 player, the 30G type which Microsoft is phasing out. And you are trying to get it to work right now, to play some New Year's tunes. Only it seems to have frozen.

It's not you,  Bunky. It's your Zune. Seems those fun-loving engineers at Microsoft managed to miss a bug which strikes the Zune as it tries to handle a leap year (who knew? 2008 was a leap year!) and results in crashing the device.

PC World has the full story. It'll all be better tomorrow (though that's not gonna bring back the music for the party tonight). All you'll have to do tomorrow afternoon is let it run down, then recharge it, then reboot it, then resync it...

Whoops. Gotta go start a new playlist on my iPod...

Good for TiVo!

I mentioned yesterday that TiVo seemed to have bought itself a problem with poor customer relations, after HARO founder Peter Shankman complained about a rep who wouldn't refund a questionable charge on his bill.

Apparently, TiVo got wind of the problem (and the postings on Shankman's PR Differently blog), got in touch with him, and made it right. Details here.

Happy ending? I'd say yes. It shows that TiVo does understand the underlying truth here: in an era of instant communication and massive social networking, poor customer service can really hurt your brand. Good for TiVo for making it right.

Here Come the (Would-Be) Censors

Here's a truly vile idea being advanced by one Andrew Burnham, who holds the title of Britain's Culture Secretary. Reuters reports that the secretary, in an interview with London's Telegraph newspaper has advanced the idea of shutting down some content. He doesn't express it quite that way, of course. Heavens, no. This is not censorship, he says.

He said some content should not be available to be viewed.

"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."

Uh huh. That's called censorship. Unless the secretary says it's not. Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the secretary?

Blogging at Samizdata, Perry de Havilland isn't buying any.

But I agree when he [Burnham] says "If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that Governments couldn’t reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now." Yes we do need to revisit that and remind everyone that if the history of the previous century teaches us anything, it is that governments cannot be trusted. Free speech cannot be left to the sufferance of political systems and venal politicians like Andrew Burnham. We need to smite any attempt to encroach on the internet at every level and distribute technical 'solutions' to every initiative the state comes up as widely as possible regardless of what laws they pass.

We simply will not cooperate.

I doubt that we've heard the last of this.

UPDATE to add - Hat Tips: Instapundit and MediaPost

"A Question of Proof"

This week's Classic Mysteries podcast features a review of "A Question of Proof," by Nigel Blake, the pen name of the one-time English Poet Laureate, C. Day-Lewis. As you might expect, it is an exceptionally well-written mystery from the so-called "Golden Age," with wonderfully realized characters and a fine murderous puzzle to be solved: Detective Nigel Strangeways investigates the murder of a particularly obnoxious student at an English boys' school. While it doesn't take him very long to figure out who has committed the murder, his difficulty, as the title explains, is to come up with some proof.

It is an ingenious story, and it is well worth your time to read and enjoy it. You can listen to the full review here - and, of course, you are welcome to join me at http://www.classicmysteries.net to continue discussion this book and other fine mysteries as well.

Customer Relations "Stuck on Stupid"

I've said it before and said it before and said it before: in an era of social media, when recommendations and condemnations flash back and forth almost instantaneously, there is nothing more important to a company's continued success than good customer relations - and nothing more damaging than treating the customer like dirt.

Now TiVo has fallen into the trap, allegedly ignoring a promised "lifetime" subscription sale until after collecting a couple of monthly payments from Peter Shankman BEFORE honoring their promise. A conversation with TiVo Customer service produced only an indifferent or helpless response. The amount of money involved is trivial - but the nuisance is not.

As many of you may know, Peter Shankman is the founder of Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, with more than 42,000 readers - most of them either in PR, advertising or journalism, and most of them very tech-savvy and influential with other tech-savvy people. In the first few hours since he posted his complaint via his website and Twitter, he's had dozens of comments - all siding with him. TiVo is taking what is probably an unnecessary beating.

This is not a smart way for TiVo to be doing business. Customer service people and their corporate bosses need to learn how social media works. The customer may not always be right - but you'd damned well better make the customer feel as if he/she IS right or pay the consequences in the form of lost potential and real customers.

The Year That Was

A heck of a lot happened in 2008. In case the year and its (mostly) momentous events was too much for you to keep straight, humorist Dave Barry lays it all out for you. Up to you whether you laugh or cry...

The Internet Overtakes Newspapers as a News Source

A new study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds that, for the first time, more people say they rely on the Internet as a major source for their national and international news than say they rely on newspapers.

According to the report, television is still the leading "informer" out there - 70 percent, but 40 percent rely on the Internet, compared to 35% for newspapers. (Yes, there's overlap.) If you restrict that only to people younger than 30, the Internet is actually tied with TV, at 59% apiece.

The revolution continues.

New Year's Resolutions for Editors

Okay. Less than a week to go until our New Year's resolutions are due. Jim Ylisela over at MyRagan.com offers six resolutions for editors that are worth sharing. Please note that they are all negatives - what NOT to do in the new year.

Let me add here that, having been both an editor and a writer (sometimes both at once), I can sympathize with the person who said, "Asking a writer for an opinion about an editor is like asking a fire hydrant for its opinion of a dog." (That's actually a paraphrased quote from Christopher Hampton. The things you can learn from Google!  ;-)

Blogging from the Newsroom

Should journalists be blogging as a part of their job? Depends on the journalist and the organization. But Katie Allison Granju - a successful and very good newsblogger - argues that a specialized blogger, working from within a news organization's newsroom, can be a very good thing indeed. And she has a warning for organizations that continue to resist just about any change and sneer at bloggers:

Far too many publishers, reporters, editors, anchors and producers still see blogging as some sort of second-class, redheaded stepchild. Bloggers aren’t real journalists, so the argument goes, and they certainly don’t belong in the newsroom. But as real journalists and journalism professors continue to grapple with what exactly it is they do these days, bloggers are out there just doing it—without the angsty navel-gazing or handwringing. Bloggers certainly can be real journalists, albeit ones who fall into their own category within the profession. The sooner the powers that be accept this new reality, the sooner they can begin reaping the benefits.

Hat tip: Instapundit

"May I Have Your Undivided Attention?"

In a word...no. At least, that's how I read a new eMarketer report which, in turn, quotes a Roper survey that finds huge numbers of multitaskers out there in the Internet audience. 59% say they talk on the phone while online. 59% watch television while online. And the long list continues, all the way down to a relative handful who say they read books or magazines while online - something I must admit I would find difficult.

The bottom line, of course, if you're a marketer: don't assume that your online audience is giving you its undivided attention. It isn't. And clever online advertising - scratch that, clever ways of reaching an online audience - are going to have to take that divided attention span into account.