I posted yesterday about my friend Lindsay getting pressured by iPhone "repair specialists" iResQ to remove a blog posting she had made complaining about iResQ's poor customer service and the "SAME DAY - fastest service on the planet" repair that had dragged on for over two weeks.

Lindsay's blog is only read by a very small audience of close friends and family. But by pressuring her to censor herself, iResQ pissed off and inspired both serolynne and myself to write about the issue, and we each have much more substantial audiences (and also enough Google rank to show up in searches).

The dominos continued to fall, and our friend maradydd saw my post, and passed Lindsay's story on to the Internet giant Cory Doctorow and BoingBoing. Soon the story was live on BoingBoing, and what had been a minor blog post to an audience of dozens was now featured on a site with a monthly readership of over TWO MILLION individuals.

All of this happened in less than twenty four hours.


For years I have considered The Cluetrain Manifesto essential reading about how online connected markets work.

A few key thesis from the Cluetrain:

1. Markets are conversations.
6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

iResQ just got run over by the Cluetrain in a big way. Hopefully they are learning a lesson.

The general manager of iResQ has now gone out of his way to contact Lindsay to apologize, and to offer a full refund. iResQ has fallen on their sword. But have they learned?

Here is Lindsay's latest post:

Hooray for persistence, the amazing webspace that brings together friends, family and strangers, and the eventual triumph of customer service. The general manager of iResQ called and left me a humbling apology and offered a full refund of the money I paid to get my iphone's screen replaced. He was courteous, humbled, and apologetic about my prior experiences with the customer service department at iResQ . . . he in no way endorsed the attempt of another iResQ employee to retract his offer of a partial refund unless I removed my "letter of complaint" from my blog. . . . I was assured he will continue to work with his customer service department so this deplorable situation won't happen again.

Thanks to all of you who read my blog postings, commented, or empathized with my outrage! I hope this experience has turned into a learning one for a company which has a lot to lose by failing to make their advertised service turnaround times, providing less-than-adequate customer service and sending veiled threats to blog authors.

The power of the Internet - for great justice!

Since it now looks like Apple will not be giving me any worthwhile reasons to upgrade to a new laptop anytime soon - I decided to spend last night doing some serious upgrading of my own.

My MacBook Pro is now sporting a 320GB (!!!) Western Digital Scorpio HD, doubling my storage capacity and increasing my HD speed significantly. Having that capacity in a container so small boggles my mind.

Using TimeMachine to restore from my backup drive made this the most painless system upgrade I have ever attempted. Kudos to Apple for making something so complex so brain-dead easy. Time Machine really is a killer feature.

I've also been doing some software upgrading and acquisition to help fill up all that extra space. I encourage any of you with Macs to check out the MacHeist II promotion where you can get a bundle of 11 great Macintosh applications (sold for $368 separately) for just $49. (BTW - If you click on the link and end up buying, I get a 12th bonus app free...)

I wrote about the first iteration of the MacHeist last year - and I continue to think that it is sheer marketing genius. If you are interested in viral marketing done right - this is one of the best examples I have ever seen.

The promotor of the Heist has put together a great bundle, he's donating 25% of every purchase to a charity you get to choose, and developers I never would have heard of are getting some great exposure. The total raised for charity is already over $175k with a week in the promotion remaining - impressive!

I was already planning to buy the uber-cool secure digital wallet and password manager 1password (the iPhone sync pushed me over the top), and the PhotoShop-like Pixelmator looks amazing and seems well worth the price of the bundle. The rest of the apps I have not had a chance to check out too deeply yet, but I suspect that there are a few other gems to be found. All of them have gotten rave reviews.

The Heist has a week left, so check it out and treat yourself to some new Mac apps.

Enjoy!

Checking a few stock quotes using Google just now, I burst out laughing when my search for "GOOG resulted in the following targeted "sponsored link"...

Filthy rich? We'll help.
Throw away your newfound cash
at Woot. You're welcome.
woot.com

Well, Google stock is flirting with $500/share again...

*laughing*

See: vanishingpointgame.com

To promote Windows Vista, Microsoft is sponsoring a very elaborate online puzzle game.

The grand prize includes "a chance to see the ultimate vista" - a trip to the edge of space aboard a rocket plane, including some zero-gravity time. Nice! Lots of other more earthly prizes are up for grabs too.

Imagine this:
The Rocketplane® XP Vehicle is a four-seat fighter-sized vehicle fitted with a delta wing and a V-tail which provide good flight characteristics both subsonically and supersonically. The vehicle is powered by both turbojet engines and a rocket engine, enabling it to accelerate to speeds just over 3,500 feet per second (2,386 miles per hour) and reach altitudes in excess of 330,000 feet (100 kilometers) providing the sensation of weightlessness for three to four minutes!

But you don't even need to solve puzzles to win. Jut by registering at the site you earn "20 points" - and each point is an equal chance in the final drawing for the prizes.

Mention "chris@radven.net" when you sign up and we both get 20 points. It only takes a minute to register, so why not?

Solve some puzzles and you can earn more. Some of the puzzles have had solutions found already - check the online forums here for some hints.

But hurry - the contest ends and the winner will be contacted on February 1st.

Enjoy!

Macintosh Users - go here: www.macheist.com
{Hurry - only three hours left!}

On the surface this is just a simple one-week sale to get $350 worth of some pretty impressive Macintosh software for a special bundled price of just $49.

But lurking below the scenes is one of the most interesting bits of viral marketing genius that I have seen in a long time. Anyone interested in Internet marketing should check out how the MacHeist came together. In the span of a week, the 18-year-old creator of the Heist has accomplished raising $150k+ for charity, probably $500k+ for himself, and he is giving the 10 participating developers an amazing amount of exposure that I think will pay off extremely well for all of them in the end.

I can't tell whether the controversy was planned or not, but the Mac blog-world is in a tizzy with discussion over whether or not the heist is a "scam to fleece developers" or marketing genius and a win for all involved. I believe strongly in the later - but the firestorm of "scam" posts and stories is what made me stop and check out the website and ultimately plunk down my own $50. I was planning to buy RapidWeaver and Delicious Library anyway - and now I get them both for way less, and I get 8 other very cool looking apps to try that I probably never would have even heard of. Nice!

It is a rare treat to see something new done in marketing that feels like a true win-win for everyone involved. Congrats to the MacHeist team for pulling off something that seems to be both truly new, and legitimately cool.