alwayslookaround (and occasionally tell about it)

I rented a U-Haul truck a few weeks back to move some of our stuff into our new apartment. It was cheap expensive, quick time consuming, and easy complicated.

When I went to pick up the truck, I had to wait in the store for about 45 minutes. Horrible staff, completely disorganized, etc. Eventually I got to the counter, filled out the paperwork, was told to return the truck by 7am the next morning (yikes!) and went outside to get the truck. A U-Haul employee was out there and checked the gas level, mileage, and truck damage. I pointed out that one of the side view mirrors was cracked. No big deal for me, I only needed the truck for 6 miles total.

I had the truck back at U-Haul by 7am the next morning. There was a long line of people outside the locked gate, but no U-Haul employees. They arrived at about 7:45am and began checking-in returned trucks. When they checked mine, they claimed I broke the mirror. I objected, and they told me I would have to come back later to talk to the guy who checked the truck out to me. I came back and spoke with him later in the afternon, and he initially claimed he didn’t remember me. Then I got loud and reminded him of our conversation (about a stripped down bicycle chained to a street sign). Suddenly he remembered and marked down that the mirror was broken when I picked it up. Not too big a deal, but it was frustrating. My guess is that most people wind up paying for the same mirror over and over and over and over again. An extra revenue stream for U-Haul?

Last Thursday, a few weeks after my rental, I noticed a new U-Haul charge for $145 on my credit card. I assumed it was some mix up over the mirror, so I called to straighten it out. I assumed it was going to be a challenge to get it sorted, but I had no idea just how difficult. Every department I called told me to call a different department. And the chain circled a few times. I spent about 6 hours over a 3 day period making a countless number of calls. I did realize about half way through that it would probably be cheaper to just drop the issue and pay the charge, since it was eating up way too much of my time. But that’s not the kind of person I am. If I know something is wrong, whether it be a matter of $100,000 or $1, I’m determined to see the situation corrected. So I persisted. And I finally got to the bottom of the charge today. The $145 charge was for a parking ticket that was issued to the truck, but U-Haul couldn’t provide any other details. They told me to call the NYC Department of Finance to inquire. I did. Turns out the ticket was issued to the truck 6 hours before I even picked the truck up. I called U-Haul back with the details, assuming it would be an automatic refund to me. Foolish me. U-Haul tried to convince me that I had to fight the ticket. I protested, complained, and expressed my astonishment at their horrible business practices. Then I called back later, spoke with a different manager, and was told they would try to correct the issue “soon”. Another extra revenue stream for U-Haul?

Next time I’ll rent from Budget, no doubt about it. I’ve lost all respect for U-Haul. And I remain completely baffled by their business practices. U-Haul seriously needs a complete overhaul. And an investigation.

We finally moved into our new apartment about 2 weeks ago. It’s not “new”, but it’s new to us. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re happy to start settling in. There’s a ton of work to be done (understatement), but at least we get to transform the place into our own creation. I just hope we don’t go bankrupt in the process. :-)

During the move, we’ve been going back and forth between the New Jersey shore and Brooklyn. If you’re familiar with that route, you know the path goes across the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. I wasn’t familiar with it, and I hadn’t been across the Verrazano-Narrows in a long time. Imagine my surprise at the $9 toll to get into Staten Island from Brooklyn. Yes, $9. Unbelievable, but sadly true.

$9 is a hefty toll for even a beautifully upkept bridge, which the Verrazano-Narrows certainly isn’t (not to mention the long delays, horrible road conditions, and nasty pollution). I was curious about exactly where the money goes, so I started asking the toll booth clerks whenever I passed. Does the entire toll go toward maintenance of only the Verrazano-Narrows bridge? Is there a surplus? If so, does it go into a larger NYC fund? Does it go to only Staten Island? Nobody knew. The only response I got consistently was, “you always pay when you come to Staten Island”. Funny, maybe. But it didn’t answer my question, so I’ve been digging around. And today I found this article: congressional candidates duel over use of bridge toll (I uploaded a local copy just in case they take that article offline in the future: local version)

According to that article, the Verrazano-Narrows bridge generated a surplus of more than $267 million in 2005. That is a LOT of money. I’m torn between my own opinions of the situation, but at the end of the day I lean toward reducing the toll to an amount that doesn’t generate a surplus. And keep in mind that I’m a Brooklyn resident who has no need to drive regularly. If I were a Staten Island resident, and I had to drive back and forth across the Verrazano-Narrows regularly, I would be campaigning daily to have that toll reduced.

Always desired, often misunderstood, occasionally abused.  For many of us, it’s only 1 decision away.

Life is short.  Live it.

I’m a little late with my reaction to the article JenSense posted about the new TopicAds offering from CafePress, but I still feel the need to comment. There was also a ClickZ article about it, and I’m sure there are many other reiterations all over the blogosphere.

In short, the TopicAds release is nothing new. Yes, tagging is hot. It’s also extremely useful. But it’s been something used in the online publishing world for a very long time. I previously worked as a Product Manager for ad serving solutions (both advertiser and publisher solutions), and the publisher platform I worked on called this ability “keyword targeting”. The ad tags placed on the publisher page had a parameter for the “keyword” (a.k.a. “tag”), which could be input either manually or automatically by the content management system. Likewise, the publisher could associate keywords/tags with every ad entered into the ad serving system for delivery. When the page was served and the ad tag called the ad servers for the most relevant ad, the keyword/tag descriptors would be the main driver for determining which ad should be served on the page.

I’m not knocking CafePress. Quite the opposite, actually, since they have obviously done a great job marketing their new feature. And they are heading in the right direction by introducing this ability to their affiliates in an easy to use manner. I just hate seeing the industry react as if this were some terrific new breakthrough concept. It’s not.

Also, let’s keep in mind what CafePress sells - shirts, mugs, mousepads, and baby bibs. Not exactly the most exciting product line.

I’ll tell you what would be really exciting though, and would be relatively easy to do. It’s actually something I considered orchestrating myself, but I just don’t have the time (read as: I just don’t have the funding :-). Take a contextual targeting solution (maybe Chitika, who can probably be snatched up pretty cheaply), feed it with every affiliate advertiser/merchant/product/service/offer available (which could be done pretty easily via data feeds from CJ, TradeDoubler, LinkShare, Performics, etc.), and then get it running on every blog network out there (as well as individual blogs). On top of the contextually based advertising, give all the blog/page owners the option of recommending their favorite product(s) from the arsenal of product offerings available from all the affiliate merchants. Pay the blog/page owner a percentage of the sales revenue (not click revenue) for the products they choose to manually select and recommend to their readers. Readers are most likely loyal fans. Loyal fans/readers usually have some level of compatibility will the author. So chances are that the recommended products will have higher sales conversion rates than the contextually based ads.

The key to this would be the UI. The blog/page owner would need a way to easily browse and select all the product offerings. It might be somewhat of a challenge to build such a great UI, but it is definitely possible. And there is a ton of revenue potential.

The first interesting announcement is that Toronto will offer city wide wi-fi broadband access. Another great city takes a great step in the right direction. Sadly for me, it’s not NYC. Or any US city (I’m still a believer!). I can only hope Vancouver hops on board some time before the 2010 Olympics, which would be perfect timing for me.

Especially noteworthy about the Toronto plan is that they will offer the service free for the first 6 months. Their hope is that people will realize how valuable the service is, and then subscribe to it when it changes over to a paid service plan. Very smart move, as we all know from the old “this one is free, but I’ll have to charge you next time” routine. Yes, they’ll come back for more. And hopefully they’ll tell their friends about it too. :-)

The second interesting announcement is that TiVo and Verizon have signed a deal to allow TiVo users to set their recording from their mobile phone. Nothing too surprising, since it’s already very clear that the convergence of internet/digital media/mobile is already well on its way. What is surprising is that the deal looks like it will help Verizon more than it will help TiVo. Could TiVo users pave the way for speeding up the development of mobile offerings? My bet says they can help a little. But I thought the same thing about Japan and Europe paving the way for better and faster US mobile developments. Lack of a single network standard has continued to foil that plan. In any case, I like the move by Verizon. Now if only they could get their customer service act together…

You know it happens, but here you can see how drastic it is…

(1) go to this site: www.fluideffect.com
(2) click the “portfolio” link
(3) agree to the terms
(4) click the “before/after” link under “portfolio”
(5) use the “click to see before” link for each photo

While you’re there, the “composite/manipulation” link is also worth checking out.

When you swipe your metrocard, the machine makes the same sound no matter what the outcome is. So although there are 3 possible outcomes (successful swipe, need to swipe again, no fares left on card), there is only 1 possible sound. This is definitely a confusing set-up. I can’t even tell you how many times I have seen people think they swiped successfully, only to walk into the non-moving metal bars that they thought would move to allow them through. It’s simple Pavlovian logic - people respond to sensory stimulation. As such, why doesn’t the metrocard reader emit one sound for a successful swipe, and a different sound for an unsuccessful swipe? Simple logic.

If you don’t think this is a big deal, you have obviously never seen a long line of impatient commuters waiting behind someone who tries to walk through after an unsuccessful swipe. If you want the experience, just hang out at the Canal Street A/C/E stop any weekday at around 6:30pm. And seriously, when you add up all the wasted time, it’s significant.

By the way, an amusing (but pitiful) piece of MTA trivia - none of the MTA decision makers ever ride the subway. That’s not a guess, it’s a fact told to me by a friend who knows an MTA decision maker.  It’s something they joke about internally. Maybe they should be paid less as an incentive for them to actually use the system they are orchestrating.