I got this week the link to the following clip from a friend. And I was surprised about how social environments (in this case it is Zürich Main Station in Switzerland) can be included in a nice ad clip.
When you have seen the clip you see, that it is from Swisscom and there is a game going on under www.swisscom.ch/fanbuch .
Maybe you want to participate as well... I wish you good luck.
Image by Adam Pieniazek via Flickr
What is interesting about this case, is the fact that Apple cooperates with a company like AT&T that does not meet in any way the quality requirements of the product sold. Now it becomes clear that the customers are not willing to take this situation any longer and a similar case like the one with "Dell Hell" (see blog entry about Jeff Jarvis) where the customer's "revolution" is taking place on the web and having significant impact on the reputation of the concerned companies.
In my opinion it is now time that AT&T is doing something proactively about this issue. If they don't I expect Apple to get out of the exclusive contracts with AT&T.
However, we will see if there is any noticeable impact on the AT&T network during friday when Operation Chokehold may become true.
Image via Wikipedia
Today I have seen this interesting post from TechCrunch about Google with the title Achtung! Google Analytics is illegal, say German Government officials. The article summarises what the German news portal "Die Zeit Online" (online version of the famous newspaper "Die Zeit") has written in its article.
Of course did I read the original article on "Die Zeit Online" with the title Datenschützer wollen Einsatz von Google verhindern (in good old English: Privacy advocates want to prohibit Google Analytics).
Well this is an old discussion in good old Germany, which is overcautious regarding the data privacy regulation. I would say (and this a friend of mine has confirmed recently) that it is the country with the hardest regulations concerning data privacy in the web (e.g. for online shops, forums, blogs and whatever else there is on the web). So far this article was not surprising.
What was surprising indeed, was the fact, that the original article from "Die Zeit Online" was not accurate and really bad researched.
The fact, that Google is pushing its new Chrome OS into the market respectively it is only beginning to push it, is reason enough to think about the current and future situation of "traditional" operating systems.
TechCrunch has just published a comment from MG Siedler where he is talking about the squeezing of Microsoft
Basically this supports my thesis put in the earlier post about Windows 7
So we'll be excited about what the future (or Google) will bring us.
As everybody knows by now: Cablecom plans to re-brand itself to its owner UPC here in Switzerland before end of 2009. So this will be interesting how they then will operate and if the service will improve.
From my first impressions, through my latest experience and stories heard from friends or relatives, are quite optimistic, that there is a quality oriented service organisation emerging from good old and lousy Cablecom. I know that this is a contradictory statement to the one made earlier on this blog but I want to remain fair.
The stories and my own experience go all into the same direction: Service is improved by listening to the customer. So they really apologised for small mistakes and asked about how they could probably improve their service. In my case they called me after I have moved out of my flat into an area, where the Cablecom is not the provider for TV (and other services on base of a TV-Network), just to ask me what could have been wrong.
We all know that there are different approaches for marketing guys to sell a product. And one of the most successful in the last few years may be Apple's Steve Jobs in selling his iPod and transform Apple (for some) to a lifestyle.
Now a nice video has shown up on Youtube, where the user "justanotherguy84" has cut the presentation of the new iPod Series from Apple to show only the adjectives used in this presentation. The video is really made in a good quality and funny, but see yourself:
During my ride with the train today I had the chance to discover once more how foolish some advertisers must be. Today's example comes from HP, well known manufacturer of different IT devices. Among the devices they sell also relatively cheap / affordable notebooks (but also some high end devices).
However - I had to discover an advertisement in the current edition of a Swiss Weekend Magazine called "20 Minuten Friday", which is freely distributed at the train stations and covers different topics (mostly about fashion and glamour talk). Because they are lying around everywhere in the trains on the weekends I scan this magazine every weekend and read some articles from it.
And there it was - one of the most stupid advertisements I as an IT-Pro have ever seen in the last few weeks! But look for yourself at the picture below:
Following the principle of Jeff Jarvis (see this post here) I would like to write about my disappointing experience with the Green.ch (a Swiss ISP) phone support. Some short research has showed me also, that there are already existing complaints. Here a short excerpt (excuse me but the discussions are in German):
The story goes as follows:
On behalf of my customer I have opened a new Linux Hosting with Green.ch. This was already a pain, because I could not use the existing customer account (for other services from the provider). Instead I had to open a complete new one. The guy from sales needed about 15 minutes to get what I really wanted. But finally managed to answer all my questions.
So now the first trouble begins. My customer wanted to have an existing domain (bought on the market) for his new Internet presence. I had filled in the information correctly during the order and confirmed, that the customer is the legal owner of this domain.
The second mail I have got from Green.ch (the first was the confirmation of the order), had the content, that they somehow had different registration information and needed a confirmation of both parties (my customer and the former owner of the domain). Well the only point here is, that this has been done some (long) time ago and Green.ch has been informed. But for sure this has been on the existing user account. Since there is obviously no connection between the user accounts, this has not been detected by the staff.
When I looked yesterday evening, the 29th June 2009, the show of "SF Boerse" from Swiss Television "SF", I had to remark a little flaw. The moderator was talking about Novartis, the international pharma company from Basel. The talk was about defensive investment titles, which had a slower growth in the last few months than others. For this purpose the daily stock price has been shown with today's trend indicated.
Well at the same time was a info-bar at the bottom of the screen running. As luck would have it, was the stock quote of Novartis just in this moment visible. And it showed another trend respectively another daily change in percentage. But see yourself in the screenshot below.
Jeff Jarvis explains in his book What Would Google Do?, how new economic principles have evolved and how he has grown into/adapted to this new system. He uses therefore illustrative examples from the new media industry (e.g. blogs such as his own buzzmachine.com and many more) but he also compares to the old world, where control of content and scarcity have been the rule. And he gives many examples of how young, innovative companies have emerged from the classical media market or have taken the chance to gain some momentum in the internet because the classical publishers have been too slow.
This article here should be an extended version, since it is used as a discussion base for the course "Digital Media" at the University of St. Gallen, which will take place next week. So as Jarvis puts it in his book: "Free is a business model" I will provide here a summary of the first, more important part for discussion, so that all of my colleagues can profit from my knowledge.
So as mentioned here, the book is divided into 2 respectively 3 parts: The first part covers the introduction and the "Google Rules" (no not the 10 Things Google has found to be true). This summary will focus on this part. Second part is called "If Google Ruled The World", where it is about different industries and how the principles from the first part would apply there. The final part is called "Generation G".
