Category: Worst Practices

RE: Blogger Sees Red Over StarTribune’s Lack of Citation

As if I didn’t have enough reasons to grumble at the STrib – a reporter doesn’t credit their sources. Coincidentally, on a story covering questionable ethics. “Come on, Jackie. You called me about this on Thursday afternoon. We discussed the story, I pointed you to sources where you could find more info, including the email […]

Podcast Advertising Not Working for Me

1. The (second) battery in my 3G iPod is dying and I want to buy a replacement. A while back, an iPod battery replacement company was running ads at Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles. But that’s all I remember. At the time the ads were running, I didn’t need an iPod battery. Now I do […]

Unsocial Networks

The Head Lemur digs into Ning’s terms of service (similar to Flickr’s and YouTube’s, et. al) highlighting the problem: in exchange for free services “members” grant rights to their stuff to promote the “network”. “None of these sites are created for the people. These are, to the last picture, file, and pixel solely created as […]

It Only Makes Sense if You Only Sell Ads

“Except for one thing. There’s no ringtone for sale. Just like there were no bathrobes a couple weeks ago. Or Dundee statues before that. Or Timberlake boxes. Or Timberlake box song ringtones” – Doodledee Heck, TikiBar TV understands this: “Rather than charging a micropayment for your show, sell fans a nice fancy mug!” – Dave […]

Measuring What You Can’t Automate

“[I] think how much better it would be if we could just measure how much people care.” – Dave Slusher Like Dave, I don’t understand the fascination with measuring downloads. Well, I take that back – I understand it for producers trying to woo advertisers. I don’t understand why advertisers would want to base their […]

When Not To Do a Holiday Logo for Your Software

Earlier this week, graphic designers everywhere swapped out regular logos for Halloween-themed ones. Google, MacUpdate are just two I bumped into within my browser. Outside of my browser – TextMate – also changed it’s normally non-descript logo earlier this week to a glowing jack-o-lantern. The difference is huge. Each day, I ignore Google’s logo microseconds […]

How Not To Hire Someone

A while back, Fast Company published Keith Hammonds’ Why We Hate HR. Like myself, I’m sure you have some remarkable ‘Everything was going great, then HR…’ stories. Whether it’s ridiculous, time-wasting hoops (asking candidates to complete an application even though you have their resume) or just not doing a simple Google search on a candidate […]

Even the Almost Perfect Customer Experience Takes 15 Years

I bought a car last week. We’ve been looking for another one for some time and not been real happy with what’s available (anything under 20 mpg just seems irresponsible). My father-in-law has a fantastic, nearly 15 year old relationship with a dealership. He’s purchased every car I’ve ever seen him drive there. When Jen […]