This was brought to my attention earlier, but the comments are the really interesting and insightful parts of this article. Y'all should read it.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/wag_the_blog_a_presidential_st.html
25 September 2008
08 September 2008
News-worthy Events in Longview!!!!!
Um. Ho-kayyy. *Snerk*
http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/09/08/09082008_Starbucks_wedding.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=7
Anyone else find this amusing?
http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/09/08/09082008_Starbucks_wedding.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=7
Anyone else find this amusing?
05 September 2008
Alltel is the Worst Cell Phone Provider Ever!!!
Well, let me just say one thing about Alltel. DON'T EVER GET A CELL PHONE THROUGH THEM!!! Not only can you not share your texting minutes like they advertise, but there are often issues with dead spots where there shouldn't be dead spots, roaming (and having to pay roaming charges on a national plan-stupid) issues, and many other things that are not necessarily something you really want to have to deal with regarding your service provider.
That said, this is what happened to me. I received an email from Alltel letting me know that I could upgrade early. To a Blackberry. Cool, right? Wrong!!!
It seems that my mother is a more valued customer than I am. Which is strange since her cell phone is on MY family plan. Her name is nowhere on the account. The first line listed, the main line listed, on the account is mine. It is different in many ways from my mother's and my father's. So, at the end of the email, is a notation that the upgrade is only available for my mother's phone. When I called Alltel to see if the change could be made to my phone, I got this really difficult to understand hispanic woman (I think--she was difficult to understand!) who, when she stopped speaking from the prompter on the computer was easier to understand, suggested that my mother could come and get her own account through them, but that it still would not make a difference in what line is upgraded. So I sent an email, hoping that at least someone would see it and, basically, fix the issue:
I am not sure where this should go, but I have a question and a complaint. I received an email today that said that because I was such a good customer, I could go ahead and upgrade to a Blackberry (which is what I was planning on doing in October) instead of having to wait. However, at the bottom of the email, it said the offer was valid only for the number ending in 9823. I have a family plan that my parents are on and that number happens to be the number for my mother. She does not want the upgrade. But that is neither here nor there. She is not actually the customer. I am. I called the number it said to call on the email to ask about it, and all I was told was that my mother could come and get her own account with Alltel, because I had mentioned that my parents were going to get their own service after the contract was up, but that my phone could not be upgraded. This is the most incredibly annoying, ridiculous thing I have ever heard. My parents are planning on using their local phone service after this contract expires to get cell phones so I don't have to pay so much for them. If I can't upgrade without them still on the contract, fine. However, I was told that even though I pay the monthly payments for the service through Alltel, I could not get an upgrade until October. So what is it? If I upgrade in October, will I still have to carry the family plan that I have already, with the other two phones on it, or can I drop them without any penalties? Why can I not get an upgrade early on MY phone when I am paying for the service and not the person whose line is it is deemed valid for the upgrade and I got them at the same time, my line is the originating line, and it is under my name? Tell me why I should stick with Alltel after January, when my service contract is up, when I can't get satisfaction from anyone I speak to at Alltel and every time I ask a question that has nothing to do with me making a payment, it appears as though I am putting someone out. It's looking a lot like I will be going to AT&T when my contract is up unless there is a valid reason why these things are occurring.
Now, I know that there are issues with cell phone companies all the time. That's not the point, however. This is the reply I got--tell me if you see where they answered all my questions:
----- Original Message ----
From: "alltel@custhelp.com"
To: brandy_monts@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, September 5, 2008 1:48:02 PM
Subject: Upgrades [Incident: 080904-000993]
Thank you for requesting assistance from our online support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response
Thank you for choosing Alltel!
Subject
Upgrades
Discussion Thread
Response (Orlicia D) 09/05/2008 01:48 PM
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for choosing Alltel. My name is Orlicia and I will be happy to assist you regarding upgrades. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Unfortunately, promotions can not be transferred between the lines on your account.
Alltel strives to appreciate our existing Customers with various promotions. Understanding that you may not have received a promotional offer at this time, certain Customers qualify for particular promotions, which can have a variety of reasons. Length of service, location, and equipment eligibility are a few of them.
Feel free to routinely check http://www.alltel.com/phones/index.html for our latest promotions.
We regret that your are now considering disconnecting your service, because of this issue.
Again, I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Sincerely,
Orlicia
Alltel Online Customer Service
Customer (customer customer) 09/04/2008 11:25 PM
So, being upset, this was my reply:
Yeah, this is what I thought. You see, the information that you take into consideration is the same for all three phones on the account. It is obvious to me that Alltel does not really care about what their customers want or their needs. The first number listed on the account was the phone number to the phone that I have, and not the phone that is available for upgrade. It's not inconvenient, but it is annoying and honestly, annoyance is not something that I or any of your other customers need in their lives. The person who uses the phone is not your customer. The customer is the person who pays for the account. That happens to be me, not the user of the specific phone. The line that an upgrade should have been available for is the phone of the person who pays the account--or all three lines, since we are supposed to be able to "share." Unfortunately, I have come to find out that Alltel shares very little except annoyances, and therefore, although I won't be canceling my service because I would get screwed by Alltel in this way, I will be changing my service to AT&T in January when the service contract runs out. Thanks for nothing.
Very Much Sincerely,
Brandy Monts
http://wickedlywanton.blogspot.com/
I have decided to get an iPhone.
That said, this is what happened to me. I received an email from Alltel letting me know that I could upgrade early. To a Blackberry. Cool, right? Wrong!!!
It seems that my mother is a more valued customer than I am. Which is strange since her cell phone is on MY family plan. Her name is nowhere on the account. The first line listed, the main line listed, on the account is mine. It is different in many ways from my mother's and my father's. So, at the end of the email, is a notation that the upgrade is only available for my mother's phone. When I called Alltel to see if the change could be made to my phone, I got this really difficult to understand hispanic woman (I think--she was difficult to understand!) who, when she stopped speaking from the prompter on the computer was easier to understand, suggested that my mother could come and get her own account through them, but that it still would not make a difference in what line is upgraded. So I sent an email, hoping that at least someone would see it and, basically, fix the issue:
I am not sure where this should go, but I have a question and a complaint. I received an email today that said that because I was such a good customer, I could go ahead and upgrade to a Blackberry (which is what I was planning on doing in October) instead of having to wait. However, at the bottom of the email, it said the offer was valid only for the number ending in 9823. I have a family plan that my parents are on and that number happens to be the number for my mother. She does not want the upgrade. But that is neither here nor there. She is not actually the customer. I am. I called the number it said to call on the email to ask about it, and all I was told was that my mother could come and get her own account with Alltel, because I had mentioned that my parents were going to get their own service after the contract was up, but that my phone could not be upgraded. This is the most incredibly annoying, ridiculous thing I have ever heard. My parents are planning on using their local phone service after this contract expires to get cell phones so I don't have to pay so much for them. If I can't upgrade without them still on the contract, fine. However, I was told that even though I pay the monthly payments for the service through Alltel, I could not get an upgrade until October. So what is it? If I upgrade in October, will I still have to carry the family plan that I have already, with the other two phones on it, or can I drop them without any penalties? Why can I not get an upgrade early on MY phone when I am paying for the service and not the person whose line is it is deemed valid for the upgrade and I got them at the same time, my line is the originating line, and it is under my name? Tell me why I should stick with Alltel after January, when my service contract is up, when I can't get satisfaction from anyone I speak to at Alltel and every time I ask a question that has nothing to do with me making a payment, it appears as though I am putting someone out. It's looking a lot like I will be going to AT&T when my contract is up unless there is a valid reason why these things are occurring.
Now, I know that there are issues with cell phone companies all the time. That's not the point, however. This is the reply I got--tell me if you see where they answered all my questions:
----- Original Message ----
From: "alltel@custhelp.com"
To: brandy_monts@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, September 5, 2008 1:48:02 PM
Subject: Upgrades [Incident: 080904-000993]
Thank you for requesting assistance from our online support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response
Thank you for choosing Alltel!
Subject
Upgrades
Discussion Thread
Response (Orlicia D) 09/05/2008 01:48 PM
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for choosing Alltel. My name is Orlicia and I will be happy to assist you regarding upgrades. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Unfortunately, promotions can not be transferred between the lines on your account.
Alltel strives to appreciate our existing Customers with various promotions. Understanding that you may not have received a promotional offer at this time, certain Customers qualify for particular promotions, which can have a variety of reasons. Length of service, location, and equipment eligibility are a few of them.
Feel free to routinely check http://www.alltel.com/phones/index.html for our latest promotions.
We regret that your are now considering disconnecting your service, because of this issue.
Again, I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Sincerely,
Orlicia
Alltel Online Customer Service
Customer (customer customer) 09/04/2008 11:25 PM
So, being upset, this was my reply:
Yeah, this is what I thought. You see, the information that you take into consideration is the same for all three phones on the account. It is obvious to me that Alltel does not really care about what their customers want or their needs. The first number listed on the account was the phone number to the phone that I have, and not the phone that is available for upgrade. It's not inconvenient, but it is annoying and honestly, annoyance is not something that I or any of your other customers need in their lives. The person who uses the phone is not your customer. The customer is the person who pays for the account. That happens to be me, not the user of the specific phone. The line that an upgrade should have been available for is the phone of the person who pays the account--or all three lines, since we are supposed to be able to "share." Unfortunately, I have come to find out that Alltel shares very little except annoyances, and therefore, although I won't be canceling my service because I would get screwed by Alltel in this way, I will be changing my service to AT&T in January when the service contract runs out. Thanks for nothing.
Very Much Sincerely,
Brandy Monts
http://wickedlywanton.blogspot.com/
I have decided to get an iPhone.
03 September 2008
It's Not Just Me!!!
My friend Melissa says that it's strange and wrong to buy just one song and not the complete album (well, she prefers to go to the store and buy the actual CD--she's old-school like that, or in her words, "that's how she wagon-wheels"). Because she is such a music person (she knows every song ever made, the individuals and their backgrounds, and even why they made certain songs!), I figured that I was different. I don't necessarily buy CDs, and would rather go through and buy a single rather than a bunch of songs that I am not going to care for. In other words, I have a problem with paying $15.00 for a CD when I only like one song on the CD. Now, there are certain artists that I will buy the CD for, just on principle--NKOTB, Gin Blossoms, Josh Groban, etc. But I have a really eclectic taste in music--I may like one song from an artist and hate the rest. In the time before iTunes, I would have just not bought the CD at all. ITunes has given me the freedom not only to just pick a few songs that I like, but it allows me to hear other songs from independent artists (which I find I enjoy more and more) than you get in a retail store. But I thought I was different. I thought that I was unusual in this because Melissa is so adamant about gathering every song possible to her. It's nice to know that other people are just as selective as I. Check out this blog that was on Yahoo. Apparently, certain record labels do not want iTunes to sell their music because they are not getting enough money. Personally, I don't care how much it costs as long as I can get just one or two songs--so, if they would take the cost of the CD and divide it up into how ever many songs there are on the CD, I wouldn't mind paying that. This blog is a rant against the labels, but I find it as an afirmation that I am not the only one out there. Here is the entirety:
Not Selling On iTunes
Posted Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:14pm PDT by Bob Lefsetz in The Lefsetz Letter
Isn't this how the labels got in trouble to begin with? By making customers buy an entire, overpriced CD to get the single, the only track they wanted, often times the only good track on the album?
Pulling acts from iTunes is akin to winning the pennant but refusing to play in the World Series because the TV network and its advertisers would be unjustly enriched. Like being the world champion but not going to the Olympics because these same entities would profit and China's image would be burnished at the athlete's expense. Is that what we're going to see next? Michael Phelps suing China for a percentage of its gross national product? Since he focused the world's eyes upon the country?
iTunes was not launched as the definitive future of music acquisition but as an alternative to theft. Pulling music from iTunes just incentivizes people to steal, to learn new techniques for stealing. At the height of the original Napster grandmothers were downloading. The key is to develop a reasonable alternative that makes stealing not worth it. Raising the price is not a solution.
That's what labels want to do, raise prices at the iTunes Store. Why not tell that to GM! Ford and Chrysler too! Why don't we raise the price for SUVs! Make more on each one! Eureka, that's the solution! But at least most drivers only need and purchase one automobile. Whereas we're now in the golden age of music acquisition. Kids who might not have owned any music in decades past now possess thousands of cuts. And believe me, they didn't pay a buck for each. And this is good, the more people music own, the more enriched their lives are. Furthermore, the greater benefit to the acts' whose tracks have been stolen. File-trading kept Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and AC/DC alive. How else would kids have heard this music? And now AC/DC are going to go on the road and sell every single ticket. This wouldn't have happened without the easy, in this case free, acquisition of music online.
And unlike the Eagles, AC/DC is not a geriatric act. Kids like AC/DC. To keep them off the iTunes Store is an insult to the band's fanbase. Like forcing you to go to a liquor store to buy Coke, refusing to sell it in the supermarket. The Eagles may have sold millions of albums, but in the consciousness of America, their latest double album, Long Road Out Of Eden, is an incredible stiff. It had zero cultural impact. Are you only interested in short term money? Not the act's good will, career and legacy? Then make a deal with one retailer with a guaranteed payment. You're on a direct train to the graveyard.
The Eagles are unique. No one expected a new album and the band didn't need it, they're coasting on their hits, they can tour until they die. But what if you still have an active career? What if you need your music in the public consciousness? What if you are still building? To keep your music off the Internet is like writing a novel and refusing to publish it. Believe me, kids barely know what a CD is, and they don't want to go to a store to purchase it. I do my best to never go into a retail store, it's easier to shop online, where inventory is plentiful and one can easily find the lowest price and delivery is straight to your door.
As for delivering CDs via the Internet... That's like selling typewriter ribbons via the Net. Like delivering dot matrix printer ribbons. Why online would we want anything but files?
As for making users buy the complete album, a la Amazon... This just ends up frustrating the user base, causing revolt. The RIAA/major labels are hated by the average consumer, kids know artists get lousy royalty rates, and this is because of the backlash against overpriced CDs with only one good track and the useless anti-piracy scheme known as suing file traders.
Kid Rock is a career artist who is seen as an album artist. He happens to have the single of the summer. This is driving CD sales. How often is this formula replicable? If we're lucky, we've got one single of the summer, and it usually can't be predicted in advance. And oftentimes, it's by a one hit wonder. And, outside of the U.S., Kid Rock's music is available on iTunes...
And then we've got the strange case of the Rolling Stones. They sold essentially double the online singles of Pink Floyd and the Eagles, but only half the albums. Could it be that the consumer is smart? And knows that whereas Pink Floyd is the quintessential album act, with the Stones it's now about the singles? Maybe you've got to buy Beggars Banquet, then again, when was the last time the Stones played "Parachute Woman" in concert? In other words, if you want the customer to buy complete albums, you've got to make better albums!
I'd say it's best if music labels stopped trying to scam their way to profits. Yes, it's not the consumer who's underhanded so much as the sellers. They're looking for endless ways to rip off their customers instead of producing music so desirable that it sells itself.
Not Selling On iTunes
Posted Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:14pm PDT by Bob Lefsetz in The Lefsetz Letter
Isn't this how the labels got in trouble to begin with? By making customers buy an entire, overpriced CD to get the single, the only track they wanted, often times the only good track on the album?
Pulling acts from iTunes is akin to winning the pennant but refusing to play in the World Series because the TV network and its advertisers would be unjustly enriched. Like being the world champion but not going to the Olympics because these same entities would profit and China's image would be burnished at the athlete's expense. Is that what we're going to see next? Michael Phelps suing China for a percentage of its gross national product? Since he focused the world's eyes upon the country?
iTunes was not launched as the definitive future of music acquisition but as an alternative to theft. Pulling music from iTunes just incentivizes people to steal, to learn new techniques for stealing. At the height of the original Napster grandmothers were downloading. The key is to develop a reasonable alternative that makes stealing not worth it. Raising the price is not a solution.
That's what labels want to do, raise prices at the iTunes Store. Why not tell that to GM! Ford and Chrysler too! Why don't we raise the price for SUVs! Make more on each one! Eureka, that's the solution! But at least most drivers only need and purchase one automobile. Whereas we're now in the golden age of music acquisition. Kids who might not have owned any music in decades past now possess thousands of cuts. And believe me, they didn't pay a buck for each. And this is good, the more people music own, the more enriched their lives are. Furthermore, the greater benefit to the acts' whose tracks have been stolen. File-trading kept Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and AC/DC alive. How else would kids have heard this music? And now AC/DC are going to go on the road and sell every single ticket. This wouldn't have happened without the easy, in this case free, acquisition of music online.
And unlike the Eagles, AC/DC is not a geriatric act. Kids like AC/DC. To keep them off the iTunes Store is an insult to the band's fanbase. Like forcing you to go to a liquor store to buy Coke, refusing to sell it in the supermarket. The Eagles may have sold millions of albums, but in the consciousness of America, their latest double album, Long Road Out Of Eden, is an incredible stiff. It had zero cultural impact. Are you only interested in short term money? Not the act's good will, career and legacy? Then make a deal with one retailer with a guaranteed payment. You're on a direct train to the graveyard.
The Eagles are unique. No one expected a new album and the band didn't need it, they're coasting on their hits, they can tour until they die. But what if you still have an active career? What if you need your music in the public consciousness? What if you are still building? To keep your music off the Internet is like writing a novel and refusing to publish it. Believe me, kids barely know what a CD is, and they don't want to go to a store to purchase it. I do my best to never go into a retail store, it's easier to shop online, where inventory is plentiful and one can easily find the lowest price and delivery is straight to your door.
As for delivering CDs via the Internet... That's like selling typewriter ribbons via the Net. Like delivering dot matrix printer ribbons. Why online would we want anything but files?
As for making users buy the complete album, a la Amazon... This just ends up frustrating the user base, causing revolt. The RIAA/major labels are hated by the average consumer, kids know artists get lousy royalty rates, and this is because of the backlash against overpriced CDs with only one good track and the useless anti-piracy scheme known as suing file traders.
Kid Rock is a career artist who is seen as an album artist. He happens to have the single of the summer. This is driving CD sales. How often is this formula replicable? If we're lucky, we've got one single of the summer, and it usually can't be predicted in advance. And oftentimes, it's by a one hit wonder. And, outside of the U.S., Kid Rock's music is available on iTunes...
And then we've got the strange case of the Rolling Stones. They sold essentially double the online singles of Pink Floyd and the Eagles, but only half the albums. Could it be that the consumer is smart? And knows that whereas Pink Floyd is the quintessential album act, with the Stones it's now about the singles? Maybe you've got to buy Beggars Banquet, then again, when was the last time the Stones played "Parachute Woman" in concert? In other words, if you want the customer to buy complete albums, you've got to make better albums!
I'd say it's best if music labels stopped trying to scam their way to profits. Yes, it's not the consumer who's underhanded so much as the sellers. They're looking for endless ways to rip off their customers instead of producing music so desirable that it sells itself.
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