Alsop's Small Thoughts

Hacker Dad, Slacker Dad

Michael is a friend of mine. He's also a total geek. And he has a 16 year old son, who is not really a geek. Friend. Geek. Father. What a combination.

After he decided to bond with his son by getting Guitar Hero for the Nintendo Wii, he discovered his son just beat his butt. So he got back by modifying the Guitar Hero and reprogramming it. On behalf of all the fathers around the world who have been beaten by their sons, I salute you, Michael!

Here's is Michael's summary at the end of the web site he created to commemorate his accomplishment: "Thanks to my son Alex for being a great kid. He's SO MUCH BETTER THAN I'LL EVER BE AT THIS AND SO MANY OTHER THINGS. By the way, when he found out what I was doing with his Wii, he commented that this was, by far, the stupidest project he'd ever heard of. He went on to comment that he had NO idea why I would waste my time on this. My answer: I did what I had to do to beat you (which is getting harder and harder as time goes by). Now I can beat you in my sleep. Take that!"

The Department of There Is No Justice Department

When I worked at New Enterprise Associates, one of my most successful investments and one of my most energizing experiences was working with Xfire and its outstanding CEO, Mike Cassidy.

The only really troubling part of that experience was when Yahoo! sued Xfire for infringing its intellectual property. It was a spurious claim; we could never figure out what motivated the claim, other than some mysterious political infighting inside Yahoo!

But, in the way of the world, they had more money to pay lawyers than we did, so the company settled with them so that it could be sold (which it was to Viacom). It cost the shareholders a lot of money. It really reduced my personal opinion of Yahoo! as a company, since it had been founded on what I perceived to be a principle of innovation and open competition in an information economy, rather than legal bullying, and had never previously sued a venture backed startup for infringing on its intellectual property.

Yahoo! recently posted this note on its site:

http://videogames.yahoo.com/multiplayer

The irony is that, of course, no one who was involved with suing Xfire back then is actually still on the "The Yahoo Games Team" to remember that Yahoo! sued Xfire, extracted its toll, and is now freely referring people to the site, claiming to have "no formal connection".

There is no justice.

American Express: Not So Free After All

Last September, I wrote a post about cutting up my "gd" United Mileage Plus card in favor of just paying American Express $400 for a platinum card. That way, I theorized, I would get the kind of service using what's known as American Express Platinum Concierge. In theory, you call a special toll-free number and they get you what you want for travel and entertainment services, which are American Express's specialties.

That's not actually how it works. You do indeed call a special toll-free number. And you do get a friendly service representative, called a concierge, usually without waiting much. But after that, it isn't what I was expecting.

1) When you call the toll-free number, you have to choose 1) for travel services or 2) for reservations and other services. If you choose 1), that service representative can't do 2) so you have be put back in the queue or call back if you want to get theater tickets in London after getting the air tickets and hotel reservations to get to London in the first place.

2) The friendly concierge for 1) is trained to do what any reasonably sophisticated traveler would do themselves to figure out how to plan the trip. For instance, I go to kayak.com to check out routes and fares and airlines, figure out what's the best and then start buying tickets. The American Express concierge does the same thing, although I suspect I get better information from kayak.com than whatever system she was using. And, here's the trick: You have to stay on the line while they're doing it. So it ends up being a race between how fast you could have done it yourself and how fast they can do it. The concierge lost the first time I tried to do this, because the service representative was not smart to understand the concept that I wanted to land in any English airport from Birmingham to London (which includes about six airports that take international flights from the US), since I would be driving from one to three hours after landing and was trying to optimize my departure city, not my arrival city.

I gave up after an hour on the phone. I was able to do the complex routing that also included flying on to Moscow and Amsterdam and back to San Francisco; it took me a couple of hours in front of my computer. But I got exactly what I wanted for a cost that was about half of what the first concierge was quoting. The concierge did not understand the concept of booking economy and upgrading with miles; did not understand that concept of landing at one airport and taking off at another (not to mention that big cities often have more than one airport); did not understand the concept of pretty much anything that an experienced flier understands from painful experience. So... I don't think I'll call American Express Platinum Concierge for travel booking again, just so I can spend twice as much time having someone who knows half as much as I do make me tell her how to do her job.

3) American Express has the concept of profiles, but they don't actually reflect the human beings they have to deal with. Bear with me: in my first experience, I learned that you can only charge to a Platinum American Express card. My trip was mixed business and personal travel and I wanted to be able to charge different pieces of it to my business American Express card and other pieces on my personal American Express card, which is the one that was Platinum. Nope, not allowed (even though the business card is also American Express!). So I upgraded the business card to Platinum, thinking that now I could get the concierge to charge some things to one and some to the other, depending on whether they are personal or business.

I called back. I had already gone and gotten all my air tickets and hotels for the trip, so now i just wanted the concierge to find a town car to take me from LGW to LGH so I can get home at the end of the trip. I also figured I could get the concierge to get me some theater tickets while I was in London earlier in the trip. Nope! Concierge 1) only deals with travel and, when requesting a town car, only is authorized to deal with two American limo companies. (That's how you earn the discounts that American Express has so thoughtfully negotiated.) So Carey Limo came back (while I was waiting on hold) with a cost of $490 -- for a 45-minute transfer between two airports! That's almost more than my Premium Economy ticket on Virgin Atlantic from LHR to SFO!

4) Then I asked about the theater tickets and Concierge 1) said I would have to talk to Concierge 2). And when I asked her to update my profile with my second Platinum card, she said that I would have to have a separate profile for the second card! I assume that means I will also have to call back each time I want to use a different card.

So what was it that I wanted? Pay $400 a year for customer service because it's got to be better than the way that United Airlines and Citibank treat me when they give me miles? Oh, well. I guess I'm just not paying enough. I hear American Express has a black card.

My Favorite Wine Store

I had a remarkable customer service experience at my favorite wine store.

I shop at K&L Wines in San Francisco. I started shopping at the original store in Redwood City when I lived there. (Apparently, they've opened a new store in Hollywood in Los Angeles, so I assume they plan to continue expanding.) The coolest thing about K&L Wines is their inventory system; go to their web site, search for a wine (which is my habit any time I encounter a really special wine), and like any other online wine store, they will tell you if they have it. But then they'll tell you how many bottles they have in each store or in their main warehouse. Order a bunch of wines and they will consolidate the order in one store so you can pick them up in one stop. (They will ship them to you too, of course.)

That's all the reasons I already shop at K&L, but I had an experience recently that needs telling. I ordered four bottles of wine for a special event. The day after I picked them up, I got an email from a fellow named Eric Story: "I was in our back room, after you left yesterday, and came across an order with your name on it dating back to April 19th. In our computer it looks as though you have picked up the wine (6 btls. 2004 Varner Pinot Noir) in July of this year." Since he still had the bottles of wine, he was wondering how the computer showed them being picked up. So he asked!

Of course, I couldn't remember picking them up but I also didn't remember drinking six bottles of Varner Pinot either. So I picked the bottles up on Friday. Even then, I forgot to print the email exchange out, couldn't remember the name of the wine or his name, but he overheard me talking to the clerk who trying to help me and produced the box with the wine in it.

Mr. Story went so far beyond the call of duty in getting me my wine, I feel motivated to post about it. I love doing business with K&L anyway: They have a huge inventory, their inventory and customer systems are designed for great service, but they must also have a great culture that allows their employees like Eric Story to treat customers as well as I've been treated. (And the Varner is really pretty good, to boot!)

Free! Free at last!

See the picture? It's an amazing symbol of two huge changes in my life. First, I finally decided to put away the needle that frequent-flier miles have represented for me for the past, what?, 15 years? Second, because I swore off the United Mileage Plus Program, I could finally give the heave-ho to Chase credit cards! These two outcomes rank right up there with when I turned off DirecTV (after they shafted TiVo) and T-Mobile (after I got a Verizon EV-DO and was no longer tethered to Starbucks to get my wireless data. In fact, I've been enjoying coffee much more since I started going to Peets and, in Santa Fe, Holy Spirit Espresso!)

United Mileage Plus only has one credit card supplier and that supplier is Chase. It used to be some regional bank in Chicago, but that got bought by XYZ which got bought by ABC which got by Chase. I've had so many late charges from Chase, despite having a 30-day grace period; I've had my card turned off for shopping too much so many times; I've had such bad treatment from Chase customer service employees (from time to time), that I am just thrilled to cut up the card.

But I couldn't do that until I decided that I would forgo the miles that I got from this credit card. That was the lock that kept me tied to a company I really despised. I'm still mostly stuck with United Airlines since it flies more than 50% of the flights out of SFO. (Small changes lead to big ones, though: JetBlue, Southwest and Virgin America all started new, low-cost service out of SFO this year, giving us San Franciscans a whole lot more choice than we did just a few years ago. The only problem is they all fly to mostly the same places!) But at least now I fly on United when I want to (or don't have a choice) and not because I want to rack up free miles.

By cutting up my United Airlines Mileage Plus Visa card, I've now committed to not getting free miles for using my credit card. Here's the trick to consumer freedom: Pay money for service! My ATM card from First Republic (which I'm still liking even though Merrill Lynch bought the bank earlier this year) is free with my checking account and serves as my Visa card when I need it. But I'm now paying $400 a year for an platinum American Express card. I get concierge service, which is actually useful, and I am a much happier person, which is more than useful.

I love the free enterprise system!

It Coulda Been Bond's 756th

Hey, I was there! I could have actually seen Barry Bonds set a new record, the most home runs during a lifetime. And the picture would have been great, a lot like this one. But he whiffed. The Giants won. That's something that hasn't happened a whole lot recently....

What's Wrong With iPhone

First, we spent $600 to get me one. Second, it is great for making friends, once people have figured out that's what you've got. Third, it IS beautiful. But iPhone is not perfect. Here's what's wrong with it:

    1) The keyboard doesn't work for big fingers. I read what Walt and David and the others said about how the keyboard works better than expected. I assume they have thin, graceful fingers that are well manicured. Mine are big, clunky and have uneven fingertips. Try as I might, I miss on about 20% of the key presses. I'm also anal so have to backup and correct and often miss again on the same key: usually, the P, L and A, all keys at the edge of the keyboard. So it's takes me at least 30% more time to type than on the Blackberry and twice as long as a regular keyboard.
    2) The priority setting between network and client and between one task and another is still to be worked out. I find myself having to wait for the device to check mail, find and register a WiFi network, open a message (usually spam) with lots of addresses in the To: field, and open the SMS application. It's not as snappy as something as beautiful as this device is should be, disappointing on comparison to a Blackberry and about on par with the Treo.
    3) Battery life is better than a Treo and worse than a Blackberry. The latter is true because Blackberry doesn't try to do as much. The battery life is actually remarkable for such a device with bright colors and display. Indeed, Apple introduced a new Macintosh battery manager this spring, largely as a result of the experience it had developing the iPhone, and my Macbook Pro instantly got 30% better battery life (from about two hours to a little more than three). So Apple clearly learned a lot about battery performance from developing iPhone. But it still needs to be charged overnight; it won't last through the second day if you use the phone, the SMS, WiFi and the other apps in a reasonable mixture.
     4) The camera suffers from being in the iPhone. Because the phone is designed for minimal physical complexity, the camera can't be more than a snapshot feature. No flash. No zoom. (Both features of Blackberry Pearl and Curve.) No lighting pre-set. (My favorite feature of digital cameras; hold the shutter release down halfway to set the lighting, then focus and snap the picture.) No video feature. No little mirror and a button release so you can take pictures of yourself!
    5) No apps to install. Yes, I know that Apple wants to keep it simple in its first release to improve reliability and useability. But no apps! There is already a list of apps that you can get to through the browser. The iPhone IS simple enough that you find all its functions really fast and start to want more within a week. I want more!
     6) No stored or remembered passwords. This also means no cut&paste, but it hurts most trying to enter passwords to enter web sites on Safari. This morning, I hung out at Perk Presidio to enjoy the sun (absent for several days). Logged onto the WiFi network at the Perk. It's AT&T's WiFi network!  You do remember, f course, that AT&T is the exclusive provider of cell service for iPhone, so you might expect that AT&T would put special effort into making their own network really easy to log into on the iPhone. Guess what: They didn't. AT&T's WiFi network is possibly THE most difficult network to sign on with the iPhone.
    Some genius in the WiFi group at AT&T decided to arrange the login fields across the top of the page: user name, drop-down list of service providers, and password. (Have you ever seen anyone separate the username and password fields with a drop-down list? Ever?) You also have to check a box saying that you have read the AT&T service agreement. If you don't do any of this, all the fields are cleared and you have to start over again. And iPhone's WiFi thingie will store WEP passwords, but won't store URL logins. It's a joke that will only help customers realize how poorly managed AT&T is as a company.

Funny story: I think Apple knew that I was going to write bad things about iPhone. I wrote a summary of the points I wanted to make in a Yahoo Mail message while I was sitting at the Perk. When I sent it, the message failed to send (it was the only one of several that failed). It then disappeared. Couldn't find it on the iPhone, on Yahoo Mail or anywhere else. So I might have missed a point or two from that original summary, but I am amazed at how sensitive Apple is to people's feelings about iPhone and how good they are at detecting and responding to those feelings in real time....   

iConfused iSyncing iPhone

Got my iPhone. Very cool. Excellent chick magnet. And it's actually useful. Or it would be useful if I could figure out how to synchronize my data! I've got copies of my personal data (contacts, calendar and notes) in nine different places: Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage, Apple Address Book & iCal, Yahoo Mail, Google Gmail, Plaxo, iPhone and RIM Blackberry. So far, I've used Microsoft Exchange as my absolute reference point: I rely on and make sure that I am managing that particular copy of the data and that copy is what gets synced out to Outlook, Entourage, Blackberry and (via Outlook) to Plaxo.

But iPhone doesn't synchronize directly with Exchange. It also doesn't synchronize with Plaxo or anything but Apple's own programs, Apple Address Book and iCal as well as Apple's .Mac service. Plaxo doesn't synchronize with .Mac, Exchange, Blackberry or Entourage, but it does synchronize with Apple Address Book, Outlook, LinkedIn (hadn't even thought of that one!), Yahoo and Google (among others).

In the process of seeing what I have where, I've discovered that I have a copy of my contacts but not my calendar at Yahoo, but it is way out of date and I don't know where it came from. I have several copies of my contacts at Plaxo, including one copy where there is a duplicate of most but not all records; I can't tell where the records came from originally. I haven't checked Google because I'm beginning to think this is out of control.

I want one entity to take responsibility for maintaining -- permanently and reliably -- a single copy of my personal data. I want it backed up, logged, and secure. And I want everybody to stop pretending that they are the ones that do this and acknowledge that entity as the source point for my data, with which they will promise to synchronize according to some minimum standard. In other words, don't re-label my email fields or reformat my phone number without asking (both of which have happened somewhere along the line and been synchronized back into my core database).

My current conclusion: I'm going to have to remove (delete) all my contacts everywhere except in Microsoft Exchange and start over again with that one copy, in order to get to the point where I can have the same contacts and calendar information in all of my devices: Mac, PC, Blackberry, iPhone and the web.

Sprinting to the Finish Line?

Classic! I got a very nice card from Sprint that is (machine) hand written and says: "You're one of our most important customers, and we wanted to slow down for a minute and send a sincere 'thank you' your way. It's just a small sign of our gratitude and appreciation to you for choosing and sticking with Sprint."

The problem? I just cancelled my Sprint account and transferred my business to Verizon (while getting my new Blackberry 8830).

Oh, Don't Let Me Down, Mini!

Any regular reader knows how smitten I am with my Mini. I've even ordered a new one. But the post-ordering process has been a huge let-down, given the nearly iPhone-esque expectations I have for Mini. The Mini website (www.miniusa.com for prospective owners or ol.miniusa.com for owners; ol is short for Owners Lounge) is pure advertising agency, flashy and slow Internet 1.0 garbage.

You have to have an 8-character password, for instance, when the standard for non-financial sites is 6 characters. (Of course, my new standard password is 7 characters, so I'm constantly having to reset my OL password. And right now, I'm locked out because I made three attempts with the wrong password. Locked out?)

The log-in is at a special web page, rather than letting you sign in at the front door that's easy to remember. The whole site is designed around what were probably really "neat" animations four years ago. But they haven't been updated, even to reflect the new model cars.

Worse, what was a great idea when the car was introduced is now just embarrassing: You can track the car you order through production and delivery. Sort of. Actually, what you can do is watch an stored video of generic cars at different stages of production. So you're not actually looking at or seeing your car, just getting a kind of pseudo alert designed to make you think you're seeing you car go through production. No email alerts. You have to check in manually.

More telling, when I finally get to where I could check on the status of my car, I got the following message: "According to our system check, you currently have the Flash plugin version 2 installed. To properly view MINI Order Tracking, please click here to update your Flash plugin to the latest version. If you believe this message to be in error, please CLICK HERE to bypass the system check." It's bad enough that the system developers didn't know how to validate the Flash plugin; they tell the user to figure it out and bypass the error message manually. But I think that, since Mini implemented this site, Adobe Flash plug-in has gone from Version 2 to Version 8! The message isn't that I have wrong version; it's that the designers of the site were so clueless they didn't think that the version number would increase!

One thing non-technology companies miss about the Web is that they view as a one-time commitment. So Mini probably spent millions of dollars with their agency designing this web site when the car was introduced in 2002. But they didn't set up a system to update the site and deal with new technologies. Wouldn't it be cool, I think to myself, if there were web cameras set up so I could actually see my car being built? Maybe the next Mini I buy, in 2012?

PS: Turns out my Mini has already been built and is "en route". I wish they'd tell me where it is!