A Reply From Sprint.

Thank you for your reply.

I understand your concern regarding the $10 Premium Data Fee with
smartphones.

HTC Evo & Samsung Epic ’s features are custom made for data-loving
customers. These data-rich features are available to Samrtphones
customers regardless if they are in a 3G or 4G network. This will remove
the 5GB data cap when you are on the 3G network. Plus faster data speeds
if you live in or travel to one of the available 4G markets.

“3G Customers benefit just as much as 4G users when purchasing the HTC
EVO with the $10 Premium Data Fee. The embedded Premium Services allow
you to do more than ever before within the 3G Network. You can take an 8
Megapixal Video and stream directly to the internet, or stream a feature
length film to your HD TV. You can perform complex video conferencing
for yourself or a group. It takes social media to a whole new level.”

With Premium Data, you can fully engage in all the advanced features on
your HTC EVO Epic phones without the worry of exceeding data usage caps
while on the Sprint network, including:

* 1GHz Snapdragon processor improves all aspects of the device
performance: applications will launch faster, navigating on the device
is quicker; the multimedia experience gives you real-time communication.


* Dual cameras: An 8 megapixel primary camera with flash; and a video
camera great for streaming. Its HDMI capabilities allow you to record
and output HD-quality video to your HD-capable TV.

* 4.3'' display, one of the largest available on a smart phone,
maximizes your web browsing and video watching experience.

I have also arranged a call for further clarifications. One of our
representatives will call you within the next 48 hours from Sprint toll
free number (888) 211 4727.

We value your business and appreciate the opportunity to answer your
questions. Please reply to this email or visit sprint.com if we can be
of assistance.

Sincerely,
Marc N.
Sprint

Let Me Lay This Out For You.

Hi John,
I had just wrote up some thoughts on the general marketing of Sprint's
smartphone "Premium" charge while looking at various account details
today. I found two forms on the site that wouldn't process and
decided to punt instead of searching around for another contact page.
If you could pass along the following comments to someone who deals
with data plans or marketing or smartphones, I'd be very appreciative.
Thanks for your help,
Jeadly

----

I'm looking at the "analyze my account" page and understand everything
listed. However I would like to share some thoughts on the "Premium
Data" section listed after "data" and "4G" items. I agreed to the $10
additional data fee on my current phone in recognition of the
additional radio and 4G-like service it is able to take advantage of.
To now change that stance and say that 4G data is free, but that there
is some other ethereal premium data service, is disingenuous I feel.
There is in fact nothing "premium" about the data services I am
consuming, if not for their higher speeds due to an occasional 4G
connection. In reality you have classed my device as a
high-data-consumption device and are charging more because I am more
likely to use large amounts of data access. It is a misnomer to term
this segment "Premium" data consumers, when in fact it refers to an
amount of data. The crux of the issue is that you are selling
"unlimited" data access (an offering which keeps me subscribing to
Sprint) and then decide that certain devices need to pay for "more
unlimited" data access. This is, if you will excuse so crude a
simile, like charging fat people more for the buffet.

This is the help text that is displayed when I click on the "Premium
Data" section mentioned at the beginning:
"This phone can do it all and then some. Because we've boosted your
data experience with this phone's amazing services and features,
you'll need this add-on. Enjoy:
A wicked fast processor to make your apps run smoother and faster on
our Sprint 3G and 4G network
Top quality media experience with oversized screen, high resolution
video and HD recording
High-quality pics to snap and share with friends and family"

This makes little sense and is very offputting. My "data experience"
remains unchanged from my last phone, aside from the WiMax radio,
which is apparently not referred to in premium data. All the items
listed in this section are hardware benchmarks that have the potential
to create large files and make copious use of data. That is, a larger
data amount. I have paid a premium for a new device which connects to
the same data service.

I'm not trying to tell you that it's wrong for smart phone users to
pay more for data service than dumb phone users. I'm saying you
should be more upfront in the plan designations you use. Don't sell
me an unlimited data plan for $25 and then add a mysterious $10
"premium" fee for using more unlimited data. (it would make more
sense if that $10 made the unlimited data faster) If you must, sell
unlimited data for $25 to dumb phones and $35 for smart phones.
That's much less confusing about what we're paying for and what we're
getting. Of course I'd much rather see you disclose the limits that
are in place, either physically or based on policy. If you want users
to pay more when they pass 500 MB per month, say so. And be honest
about the average speeds users can expect, not the theoretical
laboritory speeds that will never happen in practice. I think your
customers will respond much more positively to frank disclosure and
respectful claims of capability than snappy text about "wicked fast
services", infinite resources and intangible premium upgrades.

Contact.

Thank you for contacting Sprint. I am happy to assist you in regards to
your feedback.

I understand your concern about the character limitation in the email
box. You may reply to this email with the details of your concern and
let me assure you also that there will be no character limitation in
reply to this email.

In order to best resolve your issue, a Sprint Care Representative would
like to speak with you personally. You will receive a call from us
within 48 hours at: XXX-XXX-XXXX.

If there is a different number you prefer we call, please reply to this
email. We are looking forward to speaking with you and addressing your
concerns.

We value your business and appreciate the opportunity to answer your
questions. Please reply to this email or visit sprint.com if we can be
of assistance.

Sincerely,
John C.
Sprint

Feedback for Sprint.

Sprint recently decided that the extra $10 fee I'm paying for my 4G phone is not actually for 4G service. It's "Premium data" service. Which is confusing to me since the data is no different than it has always been, with the exception of 4G. I wrote up my thoughts in a, I think, wildly composed and respectful format and attempted to submit them for someone to read. It didn't work. I've found two feedback forms on their site, neither of which will accept my text. One of them says there are illegal characters, and the other has a character limit of 1200. So while I wait for them to answer my feedback about an actual email address to contact I figured I'd put it up here.

>> Form: Ask A Question-Manage
>> Topic: General Inquiry
>> SUB Topic: General Inquiry
>> =============================================================
>> Original Question:
>> Question: I wish to submit feedback that is greater than 1200
> characters
>> in length. Is there a contact email address on this site that is not
> a
>> limited web form?
>> =============================================================

So, I guess I haven't posted in a while.

And there's a reason for that.  Buzz steals all my snark, and there's none left for you.  I know, it sucks.  But there it is.  Here's a second hand whiff, maybe you'll get a contact high.  Also, I've had three travel mugs of coffee in the last three and a half hours.  Is that too much?  I think that's too much.  My brain thinks that's too much.  Screw him, I'm gonna get some coffee.

LW - Google Reader - Public

"You know the drill—I, for one, welcome our new female snake-Jesus overlords"

Female Boa constrictor reproduces without help from males - Boing Boing
There is, perhaps, nothing terribly shocking about a female snake, placed in an enclosure with four male snakes, giving birth to two litters of baby snakes. But what if those babies carry only their mother's genetic material? Parthenogenesis—breeding without the, you know, breeding—has been documented in only a small handful of vertebrate species, but it does happen. However, usually, it take...

RS - Those must have been some ugly snake dudes if she decided to go solo.Nov 3

KJ - I wonder if these snakes are sterile, like mules are supposed to be...Nov 3

LW - except mules are a cross between two species, which is why they are sterile. these are only half of one species ;-) although with that weird WW sex chromosome, i don't think they count as male OR female.8:46 am

Jeadly - Schrödinger's snake would be way more complicated than his cat. There could be a live snake, a dead snake, or a box with infinite snakes... Also, I am less okay with a box of snakes than cats.8:51 am

KJ - Just don't let those infinite snakes out of the box in Heisenberg's house. Then you'd have a REALLY big problem! :-P8:54 am

RS - I don't know what's worse, that you guys are talking about nerdy subjects like Shrodinger and Heisenberg, or that I'm fully aware of the references.8:56 am

LW - k - haha, funny. 
r - we're all nerds, get over it.9:08 am

Jeadly - Crap, now I'm trying to decide if I'd rather know where a snake is or which way it's lunging.9:09 am

KJ - Don't worry about it. Just follow Pauli's advice stay off the ground floor. They'll be there first before coming upstairs. Unless of course, the snakes get excited and jump up to the next floor. But chances are they won't be there long...9:27 am

KJ- Excuse me, Hund's advice...9:29 am

Jeadly - I like Pauli's reassurance better; there can't possibly be infinite snakes in your house. We're talking like a million or two - max... Unless there's some kind of photon snakes, which I spose is pretty reasonable considering the context. Damn.9:48 am

LW - uh, i think this is getting a little out of hand.10:08 am

Jeadly - What part of infinite self-fertilizing unobservable light-snakes is "out of hand"? 

Don't Put That In Your Mouth.

I read the Food Inc book last year and just finished the movie recently. Its really hard not to feel motivated to change the system and simultaneously helpless to do so.



Although it occurs to me that one of the easiest ways to change the top food producing companies is to shop at Walmart. If Walmart's customers demand responsible organic food, then Walmart will demand the same of its suppliers. And even the largest GMO grower in the world can't afford to ignore Walmart.

One of the biggest messages to take home here is that you need to pay more for your food.

Cut the Crap!

Check this business out:

I just went by the Quiznos (Not the good one, that's closed. The one that seems to survive only by under-staffing with employees that work exclusively in the human equivalent of 7 inch vinyl played at 33 RPM.) to use my two for one coupon when this nifty little bag caught my eye at the register. Its a smaller sized tote bag that nicely fits two subs without exce

ssive wiggle room. Now, I'm not normally one for impulse purchases, but I've thought on numerous occasions that the plastic bag they give me for a sandwich is fleetingly useful at best. Though I hesitate to eschew a bag altogether because, frankly, their subs are known to leak; especially since they've taken to not wrapping them but sliding a small paper bag over the length. So BAM! for 99 cents I've got myself a reusable sammich bag, I won't feel bad about throwing out plastic containers 10 minutes old, and my normal totes won't get all juiced up inside. Win-freaking-win.

Oh, also I get a free soda every time I bring it back to Quiznos. So there's that for you cynics with your cynicism and your loathing. How do you live with yourselves?

Update: I'm not trying to say that Quizno's is the best company in the world or anything, but at least they made an effort. That said, I think I may need to smack someone with a pickled herring. In the course of trying to find official publication of the reusable sack program I found this nugget on the "Be Green" Quizno's site:

If you can't read the tiny asterisk footnote on "biodegradable" and "compostable" let me reprint it so the hilarity isn't lost.

"Not biodegradable in a landfill. Not compostable in a home compost pile or device. Requires special facilities which may not exist in your area."

What. The. Hell. How did you geniuses come up with a paper material that will not break down in the two most likely places it'll wind up? Its paper for god's sake!

Making the Most Out of a Bad Situation.

I got an update from GoDaddy in the emails today. Apparently it isn't all champaign and booby commercials over there.

Dear [HAPLESS CUSTOMER],

On July 1, 2010, VeriSign®, the registry for .COM and .NET, will increase prices – .COM will go up 7%, and .NET by 10%.

The increase will be passed to registrars like Go Daddy and then, unfortunately, to consumers like you.

As of July 1, we will be forced to raise registration and renewal* prices for these two popular top-level domains.

If you wish to avoid this price increase, you can renew your domain names by June 30 and add another year to your current expiration dates. You have the option to register or renew for multiple years and lock in long-term savings. Of course, should you have any questions, please give us a call at 1-480-505-8821.

Thanks as always for being a Go Daddy customer.

Sincerely,

Bob Parsons

CEO and Founder

GoDaddy.com

Oh no, Bob! I can't believe that they're doing this to you! Of course I agree that you should also raise your prices to make up for an arbitrary supplier cash demand. Its almost extortion! Shameful! I mean, I bet your profit margins are razor thin as it is; I've been seeing less and less of your ridiculous, condescending and mildly offensive advertisements on the telio-vision. Hmmm... let me see if I can find some contact information for Verisign and ream them out good for what they're doing to you.

• https://investor.verisign.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=431292

Oh. I see. They're raising prices to fortify, scale and secure a global infrastructure that's been 100% operational for the last 11 years. That's kinda impressive actually. What do you do again? Oh, yeah you're a middle man, taking a cut off the top for something that I could do myself fairly easily if not for the system you've positioned yourself to exploit. They also list the price increases they'll be instituting. .COM domains will rise from $6.86 to $7.34. A difference of 48 cents, or 6.99%. And .NET domains will go from $4.23 to $4.65; or 42 cents and 9.92%. Looks like your story adds up just fine.

Hang on a second... What increases will be "unfortunately" passed to consumers like me? (Consumers like me? I'm a consumer like me!) You didn't mention the changes in your rates specifically, so should I assume you'll just bump the renewal by 48 and 42 cents appropriately, like any trustworthy intermediary would? (your prices already seem fairly arbitrary; it'd be nice to see a break-down of the various fees, taxes, charges and over-charges like the phone companies are nice enough to mail me) Or maybe you mean that we'll see 7 and 10 percent changes in the prices we already pay. Lets see, before the 12 cent ICANN fee you'll renew my .COM domain for one year at 9.82, and you'll give me my .NET domain for 9.69 a year.

I really appreciate the special pricing by the way, I must be one of your best bros for you to lower them from the 10.69 and 12.99 normal rates for no apparent reason at all. Lets not even mention the prospect of you raising these normal rates by 7 and 10%. (Also, 13 dollars? You're charging 13 dollars for something that costs you $4.30? No wonder you can pay a million dollars to show people chimps jumping on trashcans.)

Okay, so if you raised your prices (and your markup) by the percents you mentioned (which I'm sure you wouldn't) .COM's would go up to 10.80, or 98 cents more and .NET would hit 10.65, 96 cents more expensive per year. Why in the world would you want to use someone else's price change to justify tagging your customers for an extra 50 cents per domain per year when you are making absolutely no changes to service and it costs you literally nothing?

• GoDaddy Regisrar Info

Oh, you passed 36 million registered domains this year and it looks like over 3/4 of them are .COM and .NET variety. So +3/4 * 36,100,000 is around 28,000,000 times 50 cents is FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS you could collect from your loyal customers every year while blaming the actual service provider and not contributing anything else yourself.

You've got to hand it to them, those weasels certainly are making the most out of an unfortunate rate hike. At best they're using the upcoming increase to drive long-term sales now, before the crushing hike. I really wish I could rent out Jon Stuart's "GO FUCK YOURSELVES" dancers, but taking my business elsewhere might have to make due in this case. I've had this article bookmarked since February maybe now I'll actually sit down and do it.

• http://smarterware.org/5117/how-to-ditch-godaddy-redux

Wasn't the Web Always Social? (now we just know people's names)

So facebook is launching new features. Too bad I never really bothered to learn the old features, that might make it harder to appreciate these. The jist I get so far is that sites can add a little 'like' Facebook button so that people can click on it and it gets added to their Facebook 'feed' and shared with their friends. Okay, that seems a lot like all the other sharing buttons that showed up on "web 2.0" (shudder) sites a while ago. You know: digg, stumbleupon, twitter, technorati, del.icio.us... there's more.

There's probably more to it than just pasting another share button on every site out there. I think I read that you can see a list of items on the site that your friend liked. Okay. Forgive my lack of excitement. This smacks of the same feeling I got when Apple announced its new iAd platform recently. GREAT, tremendous, revolutionary new features... for companies, but really not much change or improvement on business as usual for the users they're excited about leveraging.

I guess maybe that's not true. For people who use Facebook to share articles and web pages with their friends, this is a streamlined improvement over copying the url, opening a tab for facebook and pasting the link in their stream. But for the rest of us it seems like just another button littering the edges of every post. (at least on sites that add it)

I wonder why every site needs to code Facebook integration for this type of interaction. Its the user who wants to connect Facebook with the site, why can't they add something (maybe a plugin) to their browser that enables this for any site they're viewing. Then they wouldn't be at a loss when they happen across a site that hasn't rewritten its code to accommodate Facebook. This would also enable users to choose any service they want to share items of import with their followers; it could be a blog, maybe a twitter, a google reader stream, whatever they want. And we wouldn't need to add 200 little thumbnail logos everywhere.

But maybe that's my problem with how Facebook (or twitter) is approaching the "social web" to begin with. They obviously envision themselves as the central hub around which all information is traded. They can do this because we've all given them our social maps and they haven't given us a way to take them back (or somewhere else) so we stay. But the Internet isn't a wheel in which all spokes lead to Facebook; its more like a "web" where people and sites interact directly or through various proxies. There's no need to send everything back to a central repository.

Sometimes it seems like some people (and companies) forget that there is an Internet underneath all these social sites. They rush to create their pages and claim space on Facebook's internet, forgetting that they own real URLs and real websites that don't need to hook into Facebook. You could send an email to your friend instead of a FB message. You could use one of hundreds of instant messaging clients instead of Facebook's. You could share your 'status' and 'feed' updates via RSS, or Atom on countless publishing platforms instead of Facebook and Twitter that are dominating media coverage.

In fact, the greatest single impetus for joining Facebook is to interact with the people on Facebook. They've introduced a lot of people to useful communication concepts but kept them in a subset of the real system. A subset where we all have to be on the same site to exchange information with each other and users on a different site are out of the loop. That's great for its users, as long as everyone they want to interact with keeps joining, but its really great for growing Facebook.

This is coming across as awfully anti-Facebook, which I'm not. It is a useful-looking site for a variety of users and aggregates Facebook data very nicely. I am against everyone in the world using, or needing to use Facebook. It seems very reasonable to me that I could use one site on the Internet, where I have a profile and a feed etc, to interact with the profiles of contacts at Facebook, sharing articles, commenting on stati, sending messages and invites, whatever else you kids do on the Facebook.

It seems reasonable because that's how the rest of the internet works. You can send email from yahoo to earthlink or aol or bob'semail.com and it works just fine because they all conform to a public standard. Its not some API that links back to one giant database owned by a single company. Imagine how amazing it would be for Facebook's users if suddenly everyone using a social platform could communicate. It would be as important as connecting together telephone exchanges around the world. But as far as I can see Facebook is not interested in improving their users' experience in a way that would reduce the rate of new inductees funneling in. They're more focused on developing an API that channels social information that's happening on the Internet into their own private system.

So this is a bit of a plea, no you don't have to stop using Facebook if you love it so much. Just be aware of what's really going on behind the scenes. Technology is in the state it is today because of diversity, competition, interoperability and consumer choice. I'm wary of a company who strives for a captive user base. Make no mistake the move to place a Facebook tentacle on every website is a land grab. They acknowledge that their users frequent other sites to read and interact, but they want a way to bring it all back home to their own constantly hungry data collection centers. So far they haven't decided to monetize this information in truly userous ways, but some day they will and you'll discover that data you thought was yours is actually theirs.

• Zuckerberg: “We Are Building A Web Where The Default Is Social”

More Options is More Confusing.

And the app store fragmentation continues. I imagine as the platform splinters apple will have a harder time holding everything together as it works now. I've felt the sting of alienation as their focus moved swiftly past my year old device when operating systems and hardware changed. Apps take advantage of microphones and bluetooth and cameras, things that my hardware was now suddenly lacking; somehow I didn't miss them when I bought it.

Apple's own prolific gadget releases are at odds with the concept of a simple computer that just plain works great. Each release is billed as the GREATEST THING EVER, and so it is. Until 6 months from now when the next GTE comes out and the people who want a simple experience that just plain works need to get that one.

It will be more complicated to write a piece of software that runs on all these different devices; moreso when apple releases iPhone 4 and iPad 2. And either publishers will put in more work and charge everyone more money (plus apple's 30% slice), or they'll leave behind the slackers who haven't upgraded their device in the last 8 months. The article is right, 99 cents seems an appropriate price for an "app"; maybe even $1.99. No sweat to shrug off if it was an ill advised purchase. But when you're pushing 10 or 15 bucks, that my friend is a full blown program. Frankly I'd rather have real programs on a real computer; though ironically enough most of my real computer software is open source. Real programs tend to be especially pricey if you're going to get the next GTE and have to re-buy all the apps that get re-released for it.

I was shocked at how much more cash I gave apple after I bought my iPod touch. They make it so easy and gratifying to fork over time and time again. You probably won't notice for 6 months, but iPad buyers prepare to spend as much on apps and media as you did for your device, possibly much, much more. And make sure to relish the early adopter rush and special sparkle your iPad has right now, because I promise apple is doing its best to wash it away.

Editorial: iPad app prices are out of control and will kill us all