Joe Beaulaurier’s Blog

Apparently someone at Comcast sees Plaxo as something other than a company that builds their business by spamming their users’ address books. I can’t count the times I received an apologetic email from a well-intentioned friend who had wandered into Plaxo-land only to discover they had just unleashed an undesired email barrage to their entire address book.

Comcast to acquire contact manager Plaxo - Yahoo! News

“Comcast is looking at Plaxo to become the social media backbone of its products.”

Maybe it will now just die and go away. I can only hope.

UPDATE: Sheesh, I forgot that Comcast doesn’t really understand what spam is. No wonder.

Tags:   plaxo spam comcast spammer spamming emailNo Comments.

Lee Odden posted a new status on his Facebook profile recently that says he’s ignoring content coming via Facebook except for direct messages. His short explanation, “so much noise” says it all.

It’s got to be a challenge when you’re someone of Lee’s level of online popularity. A challenge to not blow off those who wish to associate themselves with you, while at the same time choking off the noise they bring to the party so that you can actually benefit from the platform. Heck dealing with social media noise is even a challenge at my meager level of participation.

Tags:   Internet · networking · online · social network · social networking1 Comment

We are constantly handed oblivious and/or indifferent customer service staff (heck they get paid and keep their jobs whether you’re happy or not) and it’s so easy for customer complaints to turn into PR nightmares since the public can now publish their versions of customer non-service on high-traffic/-visibility sites on the Internet. So if you are getting no satisfaction with the customer service department, doesn’t it make sense to take it to the PR department? After all, you’re giving them the courtesy of letting them know they can “deal with me know, or deal with me later.”

Tags:   customer abuse · customer service · pr · public relationsNo Comments.

This really needs no introduction except to point out the time stamps.

8:14:33 AM		System	Please hold and the next available agent will be with you shortly.
8:14:43 AM		System	Anthony has joined this session!
8:14:44 AM		System	Connected with Anthony
8:14:44 AM		Anthony	Thank you for contacting Sprint. My name is Anthony. How may I assist you today?
8:15:22 AM		Joe Beaulaurier	I recently discontinued my acct. Although my bank acct has been charged, I have no way to get the statement for the final billing.
8:16:20 AM		Anthony	One moment please I will look into this for you .
8:16:22 AM		Joe Beaulaurier	Can it be emailed to the email address on the account?
8:19:09 AM		Anthony	I apologize for the wait however I will be right with you .
8:23:59 AM		Anthony	On how long ago did you discontinue your account please?
8:24:20 AM		Joe Beaulaurier	two weeks ago.
8:24:49 AM		Anthony	One moment please let me see if we can still access it .

It’s 8:29 and I’m still waiting… meh.

Tags:   customer abuse · no customer service · sprintNo Comments.

There’s a widget on Yahoo!’s obsolete Mash property that is a fill-in-the-blank means of describing ones self. Here’s my attempt at it:

If I were an animal, I would be a sloth
My best features are missing
My Celebrity look-a-likes are sad
What I’m most likely doing now flying under the radar
What I’ll most likely be doing in the future ducking and dodging
My hobbies include walking around with a rocket launcher on my shoulder
If I were a movie character, I would be unemployed
What’s most likely playing on my iPod iPod? I don’t want to be told where to buy my music. I have a Sansa
My nicknames are boring
Things I’m most likely to say uh, um, err, d’oh, meh
Something I can’t leave home without my car
The soundtrack of my life zzzzzzzzzzzzz
My style is lacking
My talents are missing

Tags:   I · me · myselfNo Comments.