POTYC

Another entrant into the POTY (Post of the Year) comes from Read/WriteWeb except this time it's from Josh Catone. Josh has a long and good thought starter on disclosure for bloggers/video stars. He starts by noting my posts over the last day about WebbAlert but the other 99.5% is about disclosure in general.

Josh highlights the issues with disclosure in mainstream media as well. We have a chance to write a new set of books when it comes to disclosure, let's not just say that if the old do it, we should do it.

I am working on my thoughts and will share them next week but here is an example of over the top disclosure in my opinion. I am allergic to nuts. If I eat nuts, I will die. While some of you are now going to send me large boxes of nut candy, that's not the point here. :) Every package today says, "may contain nuts" or "was manufactured on a machine that processes nuts." They do this to alert consumers like me but also to cya. But what it does is make every purchase a difficult one. Will this box of Rice Krispies really have nuts in the box? Heck, when will we see these disclaimers on a bottle of VitaminWater? There has to be a better way.

Anyway, check out Josh's post for some good Friday night reading and let's start (once again) to discuss what should be disclosed.

Tonight I have another submission into CenterNetworks POTY (Post of the Year). This one comes from Richard McManus at Read/WriteWeb. Richard reviews the past year for the "new" Netscape.com. Having been around the Web long enough, Netscape will always mean one thing to me: the browser. Since then it has been through several iterations, the last being Calacanis' attempt to "Digg-ify" the site.

Check out the analysis on RWW for all of the charts and graphs showing Netscape vs. Digg. Unlike Rocky vs. Drago, this one didn't even go one round.

Richard and I seem to agree that Netscape focuses on non-tech stories mainly. However Netscape just does not have the same viral nature as Digg. Netscape is missing the tech kiddies.

My belief is simple: Jason Calacanis left AOL/Netscape at the right time because he knew Netscape would never grow. Will it continue at it's current pace? Sure. But will it be the Digg-killer some called it? Nope. Not today nor ever.

Also someting to consider: How much float does Netscape have? How much traffic are they receiving from being listed for years? This is why a sole Alexa chart is meaningless.

Tara Hunt has an excellent post today about customer service and how to both receive and integrate it into your product or service. I have been a nut about customer service since I was a youngster and have written about it several times.

This post is so well written that I am entering it into the "Post of the Year" contest. Here are her 12 points, go to her site for all the discussion...

1. Listen to expert users, but don’t (often) integrate their suggestions.
2. Intermediate users may not tell you what they need, so watch their behaviour. (and sometimes when they tell you what they want, what they actually want is very different)
3. Respond to every feedback suggestion, even if you respond to tell them you won’t be integrating it.
4. Try not to take flames and other negative feedback personally.
5. If you do use a suggestion that is unique, give credit to the person who gave the suggestion.
6. Indicate changes with a flag.
7. Smaller, incremental changes or one big dump of changes?
8. Don’t hire your biggest fans.
9. Don’t overlook really simple, small suggestions.
10. Ego doesn’t belong here.
11. Trying to please everyone will leave you with a boring product.
12. Do it right over doing it fast, but don’t take forever.

Customer service can absolutely be a differentiator for your product/service and it is important to think about from day 1. Ted from Dogster made one of the first people he hired a customer support person. Number 10 is one of the hardest things to handle when you created the app, own the app, love the app and also do the service.