Archive for November, 2008
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Big bully companies suck
November 28th, 2008
I’m pretty upset and while I usually try to reread my posts before publishing them, today I won’t. The frustration must go.
I received an email (maybe some of you did too) from Scott Annan, great guy at Mercury Grove. They’re working on a new project called Dex. The problem is that they received a “Cease & desist” letter from another company called “Dex Media”.
“Dex” is a popular word. Many companies use that word. There is a Dex skateboard company, a Dex insurance company, numerous other software companies, Medical equipment, Dex clothes, Imaging, Concrete work, etc.
I don’t know what’s wrong with Dex Media but they don’t like the Dex Application. Too similar it seems…
Changing the domain name is the easy solution but this type of cyber bullying should not even be possible. Some people register domains like FordSucks.com and that’s fine. It’s called liberty of expression in a free world.
The fight over nissan.com is a good example of this democraty. The good guy won over Golliath. Help Scott spread the word. Even though he might not win, people will know how pathetic DexMedia’s business practices are.
Posted in Rant | Comments (0)
Startup Drinks - Tonite!
November 26th, 2008
Better last minute than never… As seen on MTW, there’s a Startup Drinks today (Wed the 26th) at 5:30pm. The meeting will take place at “Le Reservoir” which is located on 9 Duluth East. This is between Sherbrooke and Mont-Royal stations.
Here’s the map:
Posted in Event | Comments (0)
How not to sell something
November 19th, 2008
This morning, I received this email. At first, I wanted to hide the company or the product but I told myself that a company this big deserves some critisism. I can’t believe this made it through the marketing department. It was obviously written by someone who knew the product very well and couldn’t explain it at all. Not a winning combination!
Here is the email along with my comments (or what I was actually thinking while reading it)
Dear AWS Customer, (thanks, what’s AWS again..? Oh Amazon Web Service - ok)
Today, we’re excited to announce the public beta of Amazon CloudFront (cool!), a new web service for content delivery (hmm..? You mean S3 version 2.0?). With CloudFront, you can distribute content using a worldwide network of edge locations that provide low latency and high data transfer speeds (is this distributed S3..?). CloudFront works seamlessly with other AWS services such as Amazon S3 (Ah so it must be different than S3..?), and like all AWS services, is self-service with no up-front commitments, no long-term contracts and pay-as-you-go pricing. (Sounds good, but what is it exactly?) You can sign up for CloudFront - and begin using it today - at aws.amazon.com/cloudfront. (Yes, but what is it??)
The initial release lets developers and businesses deliver popular, publicly readable content worldwide. (like my web server..?) CloudFront has a number of exciting features (Exciting yes, but what is it exactly?) that differ from many traditional (woah, is this http ng?) methods of content delivery. It:
- lets you get started easily there’s no need to contact a sales person or negotiate a contract. Anyone can get started in just minutes with only a credit card. (Wow! but what is it again?)
- works seamlessly with Amazon S3 - you can start delivering your files stored in Amazon S3 through CloudFront edge locations in a matter of minutes. (Cool! So it’s really not S3 then?)
- is simple and easy to use - a single API call is all that’s needed to get started delivering your content.
- lets you pay only for what you use there are no minimum fees and no long-term commitments. (So I don’t need S3 anymore then, or do I?)
- To Use Amazon CloudFront, all you need to do is store your objects in Amazon S3 (make sure they are publicly readable), then, make a simple API call to register your bucket with CloudFront. This API call will return a new domain name for you to include in your web pages or application. When clients request an object using this domain name, they will be automatically routed to the nearest edge location used by Amazon CloudFront for fast delivery of your content. No negotiations, no upfront fees, and no volume commitments. It’s that simple. (Oh, looks like I still need S3 after all…)
You can learn more about Amazon CloudFront and get started using the service at aws.amazon.com/cloudfront. (I don’t want to click there to find out more. I should know everything by now!)
Sincerely,
The Amazon CloudFront Team (oh well…! [deleting email])
So of course, I’m being a bit silly but the point is this email was sent to a lot of people who WON’T have a clue about their new service. Even I am not too sure what this is. It looks like an Akamai clone. If so then be more direct about what you sell. Give examples, show pictures, etc. If that’s not what you’re selling then you missed the boat completely and I won’t take time to find out if this unknown product solves a possible pain that I might have…! Right now, everything runs very well without this CloudFront so I guess it’s not THAT important, right?
Posted in Marketing, Rant, humour | Comments (2)
Another small Google Chrome bug…
November 17th, 2008
We see bugs everyday and this is not the first time I see a badly designed web page where the developpers are too lazy to make it work across all browers but I thought this one was funny because Google doesn’t like it’s own browser..!
I manage one of my domain using Google Apps and while going back to edit some stuff, I was stopped and shown this error message:
I really liked the extra warning they gave me: Continue at your own risk. Now I had no choice but to try…!
What could happen? Would I break something? This is something you normally don’t do on your computer (or at least you proceed carefully) but in this case, the data is “in the cloud” so I had to see for myself the kind of damage I could do using an unsupported browser.
Maybe I was totally careless and could’ve deleted the whole cloud? 
Nah, but this does bring in an interesting “theory”… Could a “cloud virus” infect a “cloud environment” ? What will happen with bot nets once we all run the Goggle OS? How will viagra spam be delivered? Is Google the Matrix?
Posted in Google, humour | Comments (0)
Job offer
November 7th, 2008
I’m working on a new project and as I’ve been told in the past: the first person to hire must be a sales person so here I go.
I’m looking for a very motivated, performance & result oriented sales rep to cold call professionals. The person will first start working part time and will slowly move to full time.
This is an ideal position for someone who wishes to get a 2nd job. It could very well become a full time job within 2-3 months.
- You will be working from home (or anywhere you want!) and will need to use your own phone.
- This is a 100% commission position but the commission rate is very high and I believe there is huge potential ($100k+ per year).
- You should ideally be fluent in French and English but this is not super important.
- You don’t need to be a techno-geek and you won’t be selling high-tech stuff, you just need to be able to “smile over the phone” and be friendly.
- And no, you won’t be selling junk or enticing people to join some sort of a money making scam, this is a real business..!
Send me your resume or email me for more details but please contact me only if you have prior and demonstrable “cold call” sales experience.
Thanks!
Posted in Startups, jobs | Comments (0)
Why is online shopping in Quebec so bad?
November 4th, 2008
Like most car owners, I had to buy new winter tires (thanks to our government). I went online searching for online tire dealers in Quebec.
Nothing. Nada.
I expanded my search to Canada and found a couple of dealers. I then expanded by research to the USA and found many dealers. Most offering very good prices, cheaper than local dealers - even when factoring delivery - which cost about 100$.
This is just an example. I’m sure you got frustrated by not finding what you wanted online. Why? Why is online shopping in Quebec so poorly developped? I’m amazed at how many times I have to order something on eBay or Amazon - from the USA - just because I can’t find it here.
High speed Internet is easily available at a reasonable cost. Credit cards are common. If I had a store, you can be assured that I would be online too. Why limit your market to your city?
What are your thoughts on this? Why do you think store owners are not online?
Posted in Quebec, business | Comments (7)
