http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/Mihail helped co-found Blogit -- the first subscription-based, blog-for-pay venue -- but is no longer involved with it except as a customer. He is an Internet entrepreneur and published author who has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, San Jose Mercury News, and on Salon.com and CNN etc. He started this blog on July 15, 2002 as "Ready, Fire, Aim", and writes about blogs, business models, technology and life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The name change reflects that fact that this blog is now public rather than being part of the semi-private Blogit network where writers get paid when they're read by the Blogit community itself. All views in this blog are my personal views.hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/602200So what's with Delta selling you tickets without assigning you a seat number? Either Delta has a ticket to sell -- and a seat that goes with it -- or it doesn't. Does anyone understand why it is OK for an airline to inconvenience passengers (beyond making us fly them) by not letting passengers print a boarding pass at home (since there's no seat number for them) even 24 hours before their flight? Instead, they make you print some sort of other document -- which says you have a confirmed...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/601300Some Delta's customer service personnel should be fired. In this economy, I'm sure there are may other competent folks out there who'd love to have a job and have at least basic customer service skills. Some of the current employees (especially the ones manning the SFO terminal 1 desk around 2 pm on Sunday, March 15) have obviously become too complacent. Their attitude needs a major readjustment -- if not total replacement. As we were walking to the terminal we were informed via telephone...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/596197Why has Virgin Atlantic turned its customer service phone system into a convoluted nightmare that makes it impossible to find a live agent at first try? Virgin Atlantic is/was? considered one of the shining stars when it comes to service as I wrote almost two years ago in this blog entry. Is Virgin Atlantic going the same way as most mediocre companies? Unless you're flying Upper Class? Is Customer Service now all about class, too? Try calling Virgin's 1-800 number and you'll understand what...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/596190I'm back. And ready to start talking about a growing issue that I've faced as a customer: The death of customer service. The only silver lining to this economic downturn, combined with the growth of user-generated content such as blogs, is that we as customers finally have power to really make businesses hurt if they treat us unprofessionally. I'm tired of restaurants and stores and airlines thinking that they can continue to get our business -- and refer us to some web page to provide...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/460544According to this WSJ story (subscription required), Guy Salter, deputy chairman of the British luxury-industry organization Walpole, says that "unless you're in the sweet spot 18-to-34 demographic -- or you're a new-luxury consumer in China or India -- you're probably getting better attention from brands like Apple, J. Crew, Amazon, Virgin Airlines and Starbucks, which are providing innovative new products coupled with great customer service -- the stuff that was once the purview of luxury."...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/460541This falls into the category of I had no idea! This year a mere ten designers still qualify as purveyors of haute couture according to this WSJ story (subscription required). "The term "haute couture" is protected under law by the French Ministry of Industry, and only those designated by the Chamber as couturiers can use the term -- which translates loosely as "high fashion," though the word couture technically means "sewing." (The legal protection does not extend to the use of the word...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/457434On Friday, April 6, 2007 we got a call in the evening at our home in the Bay Area from a cold caller who said he was calling from Lieberman Research Worldwide and wanted to ask us some questions related to DVDs. When I declined and asked him to remove us from his calling list he said he would do that only after we finished the 2 minute questionnaire. When I asked him for the phone number he was calling from -- he responded that the phone number was 1-800-943-GO FU** YOURSELF. Considering that...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/404799This Gozoof page has several recommendations from Gozoof users on resources for getting books published including literary agents guides, tips from authors etc.http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/401044This New York Times story (registration required) evaluates the value of a star, in the aftermath of the Tom Cruise-Sumner Redstone fireworks: “There is no statistical correlation between stars and success,” said S. Abraham Ravid, a professor of economics and finance at Rutgers University, who, in a 1999 study of almost 200 films released between 1991 and 1993, found that once one considered other factors influencing the success of a film, a star had no impact on its rate of return. Employing...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/389836According to this WSJ story (subscription required), one heir is trying to do GOOD. I think it's a great idea who's time has come, and if done right, the publication could reach many younger people (rich and not so rich) who want to do good with however much money they have to give. We're not philanthropists. We're not just wanting to give away money for the sake of giving money, nor for the social or other benefits some giving brings. We want our money put to good use. We want to see change....http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/389807Just as I've been thinking of this problem...related to the last film we received, "Good Night, and Good Luck" which has sat on our entertainment center for weeks...while we've paid for and watched a handful of other fluff/commedies. According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required): Netflix Inc., which boasts nearly five million members, often trumpets how its all-you-can-eat rental model is changing the way people are watching movies. But Netflix may also be changing the...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/378182According to this New York Times story on Netflix, which has over 1 billion movie ratings in its system (since it doesn't get rid of the movies you rate even when you leave and then return much later) and some five million households with accounts it is the long tail that's important (just as on eBay, Blogit and many other web services...the idea that there's a small market for every kind of item): Out of the 60,000 titles in Netflix's inventory, I ask, how many do you think are rented at...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/370660Although their online advertising is growing at a rate of 25-30%, newspapers still earn only about 5% of their advertising revenue from online ads. And while the larger newspapers kept or increased their circulation for the most part, newspapers' weekday daily circulation on average is down in the six months ending in March (about the same as the previous six months) according to this AP story in the New York Times (registration required): The Newspaper Association of America, analyzing data...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/368586According to this New York Times story: THE watchdog group Public Citizen ( citizen.org ) and the advocacy group United for a Fair Economy ( faireconomy.org ) issued a report this week [ available here ] saying that 18 superwealthy families are largely responsible for financing the lobbying campaign aimed at repealing the estate tax; the Senate is scheduled to take up repeal next month. The families, worth $185.5 billion, have financed and coordinated the campaign and have, until now, managed...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/359324Maybe it is a zero sum game. The early media and Internet darling, Friendster has stalled at about a million visitors, while other sites like MySpace and Facebook have led the increase in traffic on social networking sites. As this Media Life story puts it, a social networking site is only as good as your network of friends on it, and teenagers (and some of us who're older) can change their preference overnight as one site becomes hot while another gets boring to them. Maybe the Facebook guys...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/359322While I have started using Amazon's A9 search engine more often than Google, according to this CNET News.com story Google has continued to increase its market share of search: Google's domestic market share rose to 42.3 percent in February, up from 36.3 percent a year earlier, ComScore said. Yahoo's search market share in the United States fell to 27.6 percent from 31.1 percent a year ago, while Microsoft's MSN fell to 13.5 percent from 16.3 percent and Time Warner's America Online fell to 8...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/343215There are finally some sensible articles being written about Google in the business press rather than just the group love we were seeing. Until Google's latest quarterly earnings missed projections by a significant chunk of change and shaved off tens of billions off its market cap. As I'd written previously, Google has been cruising for a bruising (as my college roommate would have put it). According to this Washington Post story: Since Google reported its earnings, analysts have finally...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/343101A 24-year old Bush White House appointee to NASA has resigned after being caught lying on his resume according to this New York Times story: Mr. Deutsch's educational record was first challenged on Monday by Nick Anthis, who graduated from Texas A&M last year with a biochemistry degree and has been writing a Web log on science policy, scientificactivist.blogspot.com....A copy of Mr. Deutsch's résumé was provided to The Times by someone working in NASA headquarters who, along with many other...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/341965According to this New York Times story (registration required), a Silicon Valley company, Goodmail is going to help a few companies charge to deliver email to their email account holders: Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers. America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential...http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/readyfireaim/297900According to this WSJ story (subscription required), Amazon and Coinstar have teamed up to give consumers 100% of their coins back as an Amazon gift certificate for its full value. I converted some $500 in change collected over the last few years a few months ago so the 8.9% commission wasn't too bad considering I got almost $450 in cash at the end but I may have thought twice if I were converting only $50 in coins. Amazon, the company that has been synonymous with online shopping since it...