Mikester's Blog

Overally restrictive licensing

I have purchased a number of e-books and technical standards and I think it's a great way to get information you need quickly.  I just purchased the American Gas Association Report No. 8 from techstreet.com and was given two options:  1) Adobe PDF (instant) or 2) hard copy (3-5 days).  The price differential was significant with the PDF being $172 and the hard copy being $300.  This seemed like a no-brainer to me as I can always print it out.  Right?

So I purchased it and downloaded it and discovered I now needed to load a plug in for Acrobat, which effectively locks my PDF to a single machine.  That's an inconvenience, because now I can't put it on my laptop so if I travel, I now need to lug around a printout.  At least so I thought.

It's 200 pages so I figured I would be kind to my laser printer and print only 50 pages at a time and let it cool down a bit between printings.  No problem.  I got the first 100 pages and was getting set to printout the next 50 when it told me I have now used up my allotted number of printouts, which I guess is only two.  Of course it is now 15 minutes after techstreet has closed for the day so I'm just plain out of luck until tomorrow.

I understand intellectual property protection, but this method only exasperates and penalizes the customer who has already paid for your product.  It has not penalized or inconvenienced the guy that actually is behaving criminally.

To be continued...

Manners

There is a software program called Mathcad created by a company named Mathsoft.  It's a nice piece of software.  Some years ago, I purchased Mathcad v7 (standard) and never really had an opportunity to use it all that much.  I was hoping to write some code to extend it but discovered the standard edition doesn't allow that.  It wasn't very expensive and I believe I bought it from egghead (when they were in business) for about $100.  It was one of those "previous version" deals and I get a lot of software that I'll never use because it's such a good deal.  So it was with Mathcad 7.

Not long ago, I was able to locate a version of Mathcad called 2001i Professional.  Since then, Mathsoft has come out with V11, V12 and now V13.  For some reason, they had some intermediate releases which they named by the year rather than the version number.

How not to treat a customer

I noticed today that there is a folder on my laptop called C:\C_DILLA.  This surprised me because I've been particularly anal lately about organizing my machine to reduce clutter.  One of my goals was to have very few folders off of the root.  My main folder, C:\WORK, is where I keep the projects I've checked out and am currently working on.  Applications tend to go in C:\Program Files and so on.  So to see such a folder surprised me and I discovered after a little bit of snooping and googling that C_DILLA is Mathcad's copy protection methodology.  Apparently this methodology is also used by Intuit's TurboTax.  But it is plain bad manners to be dumping software on a machine without the consent of the end user.  And if the user purchased the software and then asking his consent, well that's too late in my opinion.

Copy protection is more commonplace now but in the early days of PCs, it wasn't very successful with Lotus 123 implementing a method which was cumbersome and not particularly good for the customer.  After these feeble attempts, copy protection was more or less abandoned for years.  I certainly understand protecting intellectual property as I create it myself.  But I think there are some rules that should be part of the process.   I wear the hat of software developer but since I buy a lot of software myself, I also wear the hat of end-user.   So while I understand the need for protecting one's intellectual property, the companies that do this need to recognize that they are doing certain things that can inconvenience or even penalize the end user.  I think there are two goals that must be met:

1. Protect the software from unlicensed use.
2. Never inconvenience the end-user that paid for the software.

There are trade-offs but I really believe #2 really is the more important point.  These are your customers and they may not want to give you future business if you don't treat them right.  These are the ones that paid you good money.

I think Mathsoft has got number 1 nailed (maybe) but number 2 is an afterthought.  For starters, it is just plain rude to put things on a person's computer without informing them.  Actually, the informing part should occur before the sale takes place.   I can't remove this folder and I really don't want to see this folder in my root directory.  It's like a neighbor parking their RV in front of my house without first asking and then leaving on a six month cruise.  I'm sure you'd consider that bad manners.  From Mathsoft's website I discovered this:

Mathsoft has implemented activation to ensure that you have purchased a valid licensed copy of Mathcad. Activation does not transfer any personal information from your computer. Mathsoft product activation is completely anonymous and is only used to authenticate your license. Activation allows you to install Mathcad on both your work computer and a home computer used for work or a laptop. Hardware upgrades to your computer generally will not require reactivation, and you can reinstall Mathcad on the same machine without using up an additional activation.

Note: Activation installs a C_DILLA folder on your C-drive with your license for Mathcad use. If you delete the C_DILLA folder you may have to contact Mathsoft to restore your activation. If your computer's hardware has changed substantially you may have to contact Mathsoft to reactivate.

Here are some comments from end-users:

I think cdilla writes data to an otherwise inaccessible area on the hard drive, so an image of the disk may not be sufficient. Thus, other software with the cdilla system can interfere.

I have had cdilla fail unexpectedly, one while in the math soft offices. They fixed it immediately, but it gives me the creeps.

TurboTax and CDILLA raised a few eyebrows among end-users.  Among the issues discussed were things like what if my hard disk crashes.  And one user even used Norton Ghost to copy a drive image to a larger hard drive.  And it no longer worked and he had to fight with Intuit for a new key code.  This completely fails point number two.

And a lot has been written about C_DILLA which is reported here.   The main complaints, to which I agree, are:

1. The Program being installed and Macrovision/C-Dilla DO NOT INFORM THE USER that this software is being installed,
2. That Macrovision/C-Dilla in any manner ATTEMPS TO HIDE THEIR INSTALL from install monitoring or registry tracking software,
3. That Macrovision/C-Dilla DOES NOT UNINSTALL with the original software, when it is removed/uninstalled from the system. Because C-dilla requires a separate uninstall, which in all likely hood, the user never knew existed.

Unlicensed Software

Here is another datum:

All copy protection methods are crackable and will be cracked.

I just took a quick look and sure enough, cracks for Mathcad 13 do exist.  I'm not surprised.  So Mathsoft, that's a big flunk on rule number one.

So the methods of protecting software at best provide some protection of intellectual property.  At worst, they inconvenienced the very people that paid good money to own and operate the software.

Macromedia - Another Approach

I recently had a situation with Macromedia having to do with their Studio 8 product, which I purchased when it was released about a year ago.  Since then, the Macromedia website has been taken over my Adobe and the place where you look up keys in your account vanished.  Long story short, I had a hard drive crash, I couldn't locate my keys and I used up my activation - or so I thought.  I called Macromedia, or I mean Adobe, and after several calls being transferred, I got the help I needed.  But it cost my at least an hour or two of my time that could have been better used.  And that is a direct hit on my income.  So, while Adobe/Macromedia were helpful and did get me up and running again, it was the end-user that was inconvenienced.  To Adobe:  that's a big flunk on rule number two.  Oh guess what - I just googled and Studio 8 cracks exist!  So that's a big flunk on rule number one as well!

Dongles

I remember having to use a parallel port dongle some time ago and thought this was not such a good system.  However, with USB dongles, I am having a change of heart - maybe.  They are a slight inconvenience in that you better not lose the thing, you have to plug it in, etc.  But you can have the software installed in more than one place and then move the dongle from computer to computer as required.  Very useful if you have to get on an airplane and you need that software.  And it seems there are plenty of ports on computers these days and I know my Dell 20" monitors have a few which makes them very easy to get to.  Parallel ports were in back of the computer, it meant usually leaving it there (which makes it vulnerable to theft).

But perhaps dongles are the least intrusive.  The only real problem is what happens if you lose or break the dongle.  You may not be up and running for awhile because a new one has to get shipped and that adds time.

Web Applications

Web applications, which typically run in a browser, and are user-interface challenged (in my opinion) do have some advantages when it comes to security.  The end-user is authenticated when he starts using the application and the authentication takes place on the remote server, not on the user's machine.  But at present, even taking AJAX technologies into account, the user experience is nowhere near as good so this is simply a different type of end user inconvenience.  Flunk on number 2.  But number 1 is a pass.

The Perfect Solution

I don't know the perfect solution.  Perhaps there is none.  Or perhaps it is simply a society comprised of honest people.  But the current system seems only to inconvenience the guy that paid you the money.  And that's simply targeting the wrong person.  The non-paying customer will simply go to their favorite warez site, download the software and run it without being inconvenienced.

On Customer Service - Part II

I find I seldom if ever blog about mediocrity.  But if something great happens or something unacceptable happens, it makes me think and then I start to write.  So it happens with anything related to how businesses treat their customers.  I had two experiences recently, one good, one not so good.

Minus One

I was on expedia.com doing some travel planning and an offer to do a survey popped up.  Most times I will opt-out but for some reason I thought I'd go ahead and help them out a bit.  After all, it said it was a short survey!  Once I got started, there was no progress indicator whatsoever.  I had no idea whether I was 10% or 90% complete.  There I was answering question after question.  They would throw in a short question and the only one on the page, which led me to believe I was on the last or next to last page.  After that happened a few times, I realized this was not a short survey at all.  I cancelled out of it and wrote up my frustrations to them.  They did write back and apologized.  However, you ask your customers for a favor, which takes time, but you give no candid indication of how much time this actually will take.  It's not a way to win over the hearts of your customers.  I also have bookmarked in my mind to never take an Expedia survey.

Plus One

I go to my local Starbucks on an almost daily basis and I usually use a prepaid Starbucks card to get my coffees.  I have also registered on Starbucks.com and this allows me to check my balance, add money to it, and should my card be lost, I can get the funds back.  Not that there would be much of a loss as I seldom have much of a balance.

But in the last couple of years, Starbucks has added $10 to my card, most recently a couple of days ago.  The reason?  Simple appreciation that I am a loyal customer.  They also sent me two complimentary tickets to the movie Akellah and the Bee, which I consider one of the better movies of this year. 

So I have a nice warm and fuzzy feeling about Starbucks.   I do not have that same feeling with Expedia.  Now there is nothing wrong with Expedia.com and I actually like their website.  But businesses should make it part of their corporate mission statement to treat their customers well.  It is simply good business.

It's not personal, it's very personal

I tend to like explanations of events that are consistent with the known facts.  Something about the split between Viacom/Paramount and Cruise/Wagner productions didn't make any sense to me,  as reported by Sumner Redstone.  I like things that add up.  This one didn't so I took a look at it and posted my analysis here.

Degradation of the web

The motivation to earn money is a powerful one indeed.  Money is like oxygen in that you need it to survive.  So just like a creature that is gasping for air, some will do anything to get another breath of money, sometimes desperately and often without regard to the consequences.   There are many ways to earn money but they ultimately fall into two categories:  ones that contribute to society and ones that don't.  In this society, it is very difficult to do something that has no effect.  If one is not contributing to society, it is safe guess that one is parasitic to it.

I encountered this second condition recently when I tried to legitimately get a domain name for a small business.  The domain I was interested in had expired and was set to be released to the public.  I back-ordered the domain through godaddy; unfortunately, someone else did the same and they were the ones that got it.   Anyway, the domain was owned by a jewelry store and it operated a site for some time.  I don't know what happened, only that it was no longer operating and the opportunity to get this domain appeared.  So I signed up for godaddy's backorder service and while I think godaddy is a fine organization, don't use them to snag expiring domains.  It is not their specialty and they essentially get money up front with no guarantee of success and they don't try hard enough.  Of course if they are unsuccessful, you can use the credit for another domain until they are successful in getting one.

If the person or organization that scored the domain name actually was a  jewelry store selling jewelry on line, it would at least have gone to a good use.  But I have discovered that the other party is using it solely for content ads.  What are these ads?  Well they are the graffiti of the web.  These are sites that only have clickable links that take you to other parts of the web, and in the process do three things:

1. Earn money for the site holder when an ad is clicked
2. Drain the ad budget of the advertiser
3. Earn revenue for Google (or any of the other content providers)

Of course there are other latent effects.  Consider this one:  rob a legitimate business of a good domain name for their business.  Here's another one: make the web less pleasant for the billion people using it by having to come across web graffiti.  I wonder how many man hours, globally, are used up in the process.  Yea, it's only a second or two and then you get out of the site.  But multiply that by the billions and you are talking about some serious time that has been taken out of people's lives.

You've all seen these content sites - the graffiti of the web.  You find these sites, replete with content ads and little or no content, that are there for the sole purpose of generating money for the site holder and to drain the advertising dollars from the advertiser, who generally has little knowledge of how this works.  It is sickening.  I saw my google advertising costs quadruple with no return.  I turned of the adsense (content) ads, and lo and behold, by google charges dropped by 75% and yet my income was unaffected.  So the net result:  I was paying google a lot of money for nothing.

I have another client that has a colleague that has purchased, according to him, some $300,000 in domain names for this very purpose.   The problem with this practice is it delivers no value to the marketplace.  Very few of these clicks are legitimate, in my estimation, or at least from my own experience.  With this business model, click fraud is rampant.  One can out source to click farm outfits where ads are clicked all day long. 

Google is in a precarious position.  The more fraud, the more revenue the earn.  The more fraud, the worse their reputation becomes.  Its reputation has already suffered yet google says to the advertiser you should just let it happen.  My own take on it is this is just pure googlese.

My solution is educate fellow business people that have PPC ads that you may be enriching google by allowing this practice.  The more this becomes common knowledge, and it will take some time, the less you'll see of these worthless ads and graffiti pollution will decrease.   So for educational purposes, read here about what advertisers are saying.  And a great article on this phenomenon is entitled Something Rotten in Adsense.

We've seen changes in the web.  Remember pop-up ads?  They are almost a thing of the past.  Let's educate our fellow advertisters and bury content ads once and for all.

 

Web Pollution

I first discovered Google at the tail end of the last millenium and I must admit, I really was taken by the user interface.  I liked looking at an uncluttered page and seeing one simple text box and a button (actually two).  It was unequivocal: this is a search engine.  Period!

Well not too much has changed in that regard, though Google now allows you to customize the page, which is okay too.

A lot else has changed over the years with Google.  Google is no longer a search engine.  They are an advertisting company that happens to use search technology for advertising.  In my book, they are no longer a technology company.  Yes, they use technology and they have a great engine.  Google, which started as a technology company first and foremost, is now, first and foremost, an advertisting company.  Not that there's anything wrong with that!

However, there is something very wrong with Google.   It tries to put an image out there that says "we aren't like those other companies."   They did a very odd, unconventional IPO.  They have their company motto of "Don't be evil."  Or is it "don't do evil" - I'm never quite sure which and I always have to Google it to be sure (it's "don't be evil" in case you're wondering).   I think that's a very odd motto.  It says don't be bad.  It says nothing about being good, which is what most company mission statements are about.  So the "don't be evil" has really become quite the joke because it leaves Google a lot of wiggle room.

Flaw No. 1
 
I consider Google's business model to be fundamentally flawed.  Why?  They are a company of many software developers that develop products, but ones from which they do not derive income or even try to derive income.  It is never okay in my book to give away products and services.  Why?  Because it can be an evil action and does harm to those that are already making a living producing products.  It devaluates these products by tacitly saying they have no value.  Yet the only way Google can afford to do this is because they make a lot of money from advertising.  So they are using the ad money to fund pet projects that harm people that are trying to make a living.  I'm not against open source projects, particularly.  But the harm they can cause is obvious.  Eclipse has hurt Borland with their J-Builder product.  I'm not a Java geek so I can't really expound too much on this, but many Java developers areally like J-Builder, but how can you compete against free!

Air Pollution

One thing I am really getting tired of is the proliferation of ads on the web.  We've seen this in many different forms.  We used to see lots of banner ads, then pop-ups (which have thankfully died a dismal death).  Then Google (and Overture, etc.) put unobtrusive ads on their website with their adwords program.  Great idea!  It's been a hugely successful program.  Except how do you grow your business when you have the market share challenge pretty much wrapped up.  Well you look to put your ads on other websites.  And that is what we see again and again and again.

You've seen the "Ads by google" that pollute so many web pages.  Frankly, I'm sick and tired of seeing this huge proliferation of ads.  And I'm sure you've seen the pages that are nothing but google ads.  I've clicked on google ads from within google.  What do you find?  a page of more google ads on another website.

I've also experienced, as an AdWords client, my own google bill double and even triple with no increase in revenue.  I discovered my ads on AdSense sites were killing me.  I no longer have my own ads on AdSense sites.  My google bill has come way down and surprise:  my income is up.  That practice of Google getting rich without providing a return is evil.  It's only a matter of time before the jig is up in this regard.  AdSense will be a decreasing revenue stream for google.   I don't know when this will happen, but trust me, it will.  You can't provide a service that gives so little in return for long.  It always results in less business.

It's also become apparent that Google execs have been dumping their own stock, so this is perhaps an indicator that they see the same future that I do.

On Customer Service

I’ve had some recent experiences as a customer that demonstrates that stellar customer service is a very rare thing. It happens so seldom that when it does, it is almost shocking. But what I find really interesting is that when I receive great service, I talk about it to other people! And I really don’t think I’m unusual in this respect. People are eager to share both extremely good and extremely poor service. So the upshot is this: customer service at either end of the scale gets you publicity. If you are in the average range, you get no mention at all. So as a company, you should think about giving stellar service and consider it not just customer service but advertising as well. And word-of-mouth advertising is considered the best of all. 

 

Here are my experiences of the last few days:

Episode 1

I purchased a laser printer yesterday from circuit city. It was advertised at Best Buy for $129.99.

Circuit City had it for $179.99.  Circuit City is closer to me (1/2 mile) and would rather save time and pick it up there, but for $50, it was worth it to drive to the local best Buy (5 miles). So I called up the Circuit City toll free number and they did some leg work.  First they verified the $129.99 price by looking it up on bestbuy’s website.  The lady then called the local store to get permission, per Circuit City policy, but the manager was out for 30 minutes. The agent told me to call back in 30 minutes and they’d repeat the process. This was mistake one: never put the burden on the customer to return (ever hear of always be closing?). Well I did call back, they then called the store, then came back and told me they would honor the price and gave me a total price well above $129.99 because they add shipping charges (not trivial for a laser printer).  They claim they do that because the Best Buy website adds shipping! But I said I can go into a brick and mortar Best Buy and not pay shipping and get it for $129.99. The ad I saw was in the newspaper!  It didn’t matter. I ended the call in disgust and was upset they wasted my time (mistake 2: never do stupid things and make a customer upset). It would have been far better to say they couldn’t match the price and be done with it. I could have accepted and even understood that.  Because I didn't want to drive to Best Buy, I didn’t give up. I called the local Circuit City store and the manager said he’d give it to me for $129.99 - no problem at all!  I just had to bring in the ad. So Circuit City did get my business, but only because I was persistent. They really tried to lose the sale and normally I would not have rewarded them with it.

Episode 2

This morning I read an email from google saying my credit card was declined for my adwords account and my ads were suspended. My bank switched my credit card recently from visa to a mastercard and I didn’t remember to update my adwords account. Oops!  So I logged in but in the login process, google asked me if I use other google services, to which I replied yes (gmail) and then asked if I wanted to merge these accounts, so I said sure! Big mistake!  All of a sudden all my ads were gone. So was any link to update my billing. I realized this required human-to-human contact. I had to talk to someone who could fix this and emails or reading FAQs wasn't going to cut it. The trouble with google and many large company websites, is they really don't want you calling them.  Good luck trying to find a phone number, let alone a toll-free one. I finally did manage to get a number by sheer dumb luck and out-waited the hold time and finally reached a very, very nice customer support lady who really tried to help me. Except it was too big a problem and she had to “escalate it” and I would presumably get a call back, but no prediction as to when.  Meanwhile, I’m was not getting adword promotion for my website and that was effectively costing me sales. I finally took the initiative and called back late in the day (this time I had the right phone number and the secret button sequences to get in queue). This time I got another very helpful employee who eventually got two engineers on the problem and my account was restored. The upshot here: I believe google trains and / or hires well. Both employees were well-mannered and were sincere in trying to solve the problem.  They were pleasant and really did a good job and the problem got solved.

Now the bad-side: I only was able to solve this because I was persistent. I found a phone number, I believe through a newsgroup google search, not through google’s website.  In fact, if you search the google.com website with google and the toll-free adwords number, you'll find it isn't on their website at all.  I did manage to find two matches in groups.google.com, which is how I hunted them down!  I have since found it on ebay!  It’s like a secret club to reach a human. In fact, these arcane bits of information are available to the common man for some of the larger companies at gethuman.com. Google: don’t try to prevent your customers from talking with you.  You have great reps.  Let them give you great PR. 

Model Citizen

So who is a good role model? Southwest Airlines. Look at their website and see how quickly you can buy a ticket. Simple fares, all the flights are listed for a given day and you can see the return trip on the same screen. One glance, you see everything. Try that on American or United or another of others. I can literally book a flight on Southwest in a couple of minutes. And should I need to talk to someone, I always get a real person answering the phone.  Unbelieveable! No silling computer robot talking to me making me press silly buttons.  So which airline is making money? You got it – Southwest. All the rest are losing money.

Customer service is a very good thing. It is good publicity and good business.

P.S. - the google adwords support line is 1-866-2GOOGLE.   Now you're in the club.