Dell, Jeff Jarvis and the Missed Opportunity

Type Dell and Jeff Jarvis into any search engine and you'll know that Dell is headed deep into a PR Crisis that will only become increasingly more difficult to climb out of. When the two ladies in the food court are commenting on the blog buzz, you've pretty well reached saturation.

Dell's reactions have been typical, almost understandable. They're using the old playbook and sticking doggedly to it. Corporations, large ones especially, are slow to react and even slower to change. While you can't really forgive them for the unresponsive and poor handling of customer service, you can at least understand how it's come to be and how it will be even harder to shake off.

What I totally do not understand - however - is the silence on behalf of the competition. What a golden opportunity that was wasted. When an A-list blogger is very publicly roasting your competition, do you not think this is the time for you to shine? Were I in the marketing department for any of Dell's competitors, my fingers would have been flying to try and be the first to email Jeff and offer him a laptop.

"Hi Jeff - sorry to hear about your difficulties with your Dell laptop. We still believe that customer satisfaction is important and would like to offer you one of our laptops along with our full service plan. We know you'll have a much better experience with our company."

For the cost of a laptop, any company could potentially have turned the 'Don't buy Dell' buzz into a 'buy X instead of Dell' buzz.

Apple is similarly squandering the gift that's landed in their lap. Were I doing PR for Apple - heck, even as the manager of an Apple store - my first step would be to give Jeff a phone call and ask him how he's enjoying his new Powerbook. Ask him about the negative aspects of his experience and see if you can use any of that information to improve your own business - and do it in as public and visible a way as possible. Paint Dell as the big, cold, unchanging corporation and Apple as the underdog who listens and cares.

If you are not monitoring the blogosphere for what is being said about your competition you are missing countless opportunities.

Fire from the Tap

Stories on Slashdot and Gizmodo are likely to have the blogoshpere chatting this weekend about the Aqueon.

The Aqueon is touted as being a fireplace that is fuelled with water. Using 220 volts of electricity, the fireplace performs electrolysis on ordinary tapwater, seperating the hydrogen and oxygen. The fireplace then ignites the hydrogen to form the flame and uses the oxygen add colour and brightness.

Unlike a regular fire which gives off carbon monoxide and other harmful elements, the only byproduct of the Aqueon's flame is water vapour. Without the need to vent the fireplace, the Aqueon can give off a full 31,000 BTU's per hour.

The initial price tag of $50,000 puts the Aqueon out of most people's hands. As well, the cost to run it is also a little prohibitive. Assuming the power flow is constant, the Aqueon would add about $0.75 per hour to your electric bill; well above the $0.20 per hour to run a comparable natural gas fireplace. There is also the question of whether the electrolysis process will produce harmful by-products depending upon the water's purity.

An encouraging step towards a clean way to heat the home - but for now the Aqueon remains little more than an expensive conversation piece.

Konfabulator - the comic

A week ago, the announcement that Yahoo! was buying Konfabulator stirred a lot of buzz through the blogosphere. The whole 'widget' thing isn't particularly something I'm interested in. What did catch my eye - however - is that Konfabulator chose to introduce their concept using Comics as Communication.

Too often I see technical folk stumble and bumble their way through a description of just what these things are. But here, in a few dozen panels we learn, not only what this little piece of software is and can do, but we get the whole backstory of its development and a nice introduction to its new life at Yahoo! Fabulous work.

What's more, the comic is by the incredibly talented and remarkable Vera Brosgol. I've been following Vera's work since I first stumbled upon 'Return to Sender' three or four years back. Konfabulator couldn't have picked a better talent to work with.

An Exercise in Search - You Are Here

My wife asked if I could remember the name of the little French elementary school where we had cast our ballots in last year's federal election. I couldn't, but I knew with the right search I could find it.

First stop was Google to find the web page for both the public and separate school boards. Tabbed browsing in Firefox sped meant I could easily pop between the two during my search. Now the school boards list their schools in alphabetical order. Fine if you know the name of the school - which I'm sure most parents would - but not so good, if you're an outsider to the school system looking for the name of a particular school. Clicking each and every school until I found the right one was not my idea of a fun night, so I had to find a better way.

I could do a site specific search, but that would require me to remember the name of the street the school was on... which I couldn't either. But I could get that easily with a quick look at Google maps. Start centered on my home and then shift the map so that it's centered on the school - easy to find with the satellite image. On a lark, I thought I'd give the local search a try. I type in 'school' in 'the map area below'. Voila. There's the school's name, phone number and direct link to their site.

Not bad at all for a beta. I've been using Google Maps for general directions and to check on the location of decent gas prices, but this is the first time I've used it for an actual search. I can see this becoming a very powerful tool - especially when combined with a mobile device.