intodimensions.com

I just realized that this blog is almost four years old by now. First post is from September 2004. Imagine that. Crystal and I had all kinds of grand plans for this blog when we moved to the UAE in 2005 but not much of that came true, probably because we were just too busy with other things. I will try to do better and post some things here regularly, but can’t make any promises.

A friend of ours is landing in Germany in about an hour and a half. We’ve helped him make reservations with Sixt Car Rental so that he can have a particular car (Mercedes C-Class or BMW 5 series) when he lands and even made a special request.

We just now called to try to make sure our friend will get the car we’ve requested and the very friendly customer support representative Sebastien told us no we can’t know that until just a few minutes (about 30) before it’s due to be picked up. In this day and age (2008) it seems amazing that such information is not available. So we ask Sebastien if we could call the local rental place to find out what cars they have. He politely answers no we can’t because they don’t have a phone. I’m sorry, but WTF? No phone? Yes, says Sebastien, the local office only have a special “call” so that customer service can contact them. “So”, I say to Sebastien, trying to keep a straight face, “what if I work in that local office, I don’t have a mobile phone, and my wife wants to know when I’ll be home for dinner?” Seems the only solution is for her to call Sixt customer service and they can contact me then, I guess. I started to laugh, and apologized to Sebastien for that, but I asked him of they record customer service calls. It took him a while to understand what I meant, but finally he said it might happen. I said I’d love a copy for my records, because I thought no one would believe me. It just felt like such an unreal experience. Just to add something to that, we asked Sebastien whether there was a supervisor or manager there that we could talk to and he said “no, it’s Sunday”. Of course, it’s Sunday in Germany so then there’s no need for any supervision or management. I wonder what Sebastien would do in a really tricky situation. I’m all for empowering employees, but there also needs to be some sort of authority available, even if it’s just over the phone, I would think.

This ended with me feeling like “this should be on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart” This was such a moment. Especially with the writers’ strike right now, they could make a reservation with Sixt and try to find out what car they’re going to get. Jon are you listening (reading?) - I won’t even charge for the idea.

Credit where credit is due though, after arguing with Sebastien for probably 10-15 minutes he was as polite and calm as ever. That’s rare to find and he should be congratulated for that performance. And I’m not blaming any of this on him, it’s unfortunate that he took the blunt of our frustration. Personally I blame Sixt the company for what seems to be stupid inflexible policies and procedures. They don’t put the customer in center, not at all, instead they seem to do what’s good for Sixt.

Anyway, we’re calling back in about an hour’s time to find out what car our friend will get. That’s around the time that Sebastien told us we should be able to find out.

I’ve been using Pownce for a while. It’s like Twitter or Jaiku if you know then, but they have a desktop software with which you can post.

Who would have thought a maker of vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and other types of appliances would embrace the latest in internet and web technology? Well, that’s exactly what Electrolux is doing with their new social media site, the Electrolux Newsroom. It was just started the other day and they’ve not implemented a lot of features yet but they are on their way and the start is great. I found them via Shel Holtz writing about it and he makes some excellent comments. One thing I’m impressed by and I hope they keep this up is the comment that Anders Edholm left on this site. He’s honest and straight forward and comes across as very agreeable and humble. They know they just started, they have a long way to go, and he’s appreciative of the things suggested to them.On the technical front I was a bit surprised to see that they are using WordPress, but after realizing that I don’t know why that should surprise me. WordPress is a good tool for this and with all the widgets and plugins and stuff available, it can be extended and expanded into whatever you want to.

Cross posted to adwedtech.com.

Gulf News reports that Dr Jeffrey Cole, from University of Southern California (it’s not “Souther Carolina” Gulf News!), and Dr Duy Linh Tu, from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, was at Zayed University in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi blogging and the internet.

It’s all well and good to invite some people who are supposedly experts at the field and that have studied it, but the article doesn’t mention if there were any local bloggers at these events. Does anyone know whether any local talent was there to talk about blogging in the UAE? I know many prefer to stay anonymous for various reasons but surely they could have found someone willing to discuss this from a local/regional perspective. Or perhaps someone was there and the article just doesn’t say.

If you have been in the US yesterday or today, you probably heard about John Edwards announcing that he is running for president in 2008. What a lot of people do not know (unless you read other blogs) is that Edwards has invited some well-known bloggers to travel with him this week. It seems that Edwards is trying something new, in that he is trying to get to the grassroots and where at of people get their news, blogs.

We will just have to wait to see how Edwards does, but I think it is neat that he is going about it this way. You know all bloggers are, Time’s person of the year. LOL

How many of you have ever used Wikipedia??? I just love Wikipedia, because I can always find the information that I need no matter what it is. So if you have not checked out Wikipedia, you should. But that is not what this post is about, it seems that the founder of Wikipedia, has decided to give the software and all you need to build your own community. I just wonder what wonderful communities are going to be formed from this. Read more about this at US Today.

Free software is about to get freer. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday his for-profit company, Wikia Inc., is ready to give away — for free — all the software, computing, storage and network access that website builders need to create community collaboration sites.
Wikia, a commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, will go even further to provide customers — bloggers or other operators who meet its criteria for popular websites — 100% of any advertising revenue from the sites they build.

Started two years ago, Wikia (http://www.wikia.com) aims to build on the anyone-can-edit success of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Using the same underlying software, called MediaWiki, Wikia hosts group publishing sites, known as wikis, on topics from Star Wars to psychology to travel to iPods.

“It is open-source software and open content,” Wales said in a phone interview. “We will be providing the computer hosting for free, and the publisher can keep the advertising revenue.”

That could prove disruptive to business models of websites that provide free services to customers but require a cut of any resulting revenue in return.

Wikia gives away the tools and the revenue to its users. It requires only that sites built with the company’s resources link to Wikia.com, which makes money through advertising.

Wikia calls the free-hosting service “OpenServing” (http://www.openserving.com). It runs on an easy-to-use version of MediaWiki software developed by ArmchairGM.com, a sports fan community site Wikia recently acquired and plans to extend.

Wales is betting the plunging cost of computers and networks can help Wikia support the free services offer. “It is becoming more and more practical and feasible to do,” he said.

In the Economist we can read that apparently more and more people are quitting their day jobs and doing blogging professionally.

Until recently, there were two main kinds of blogs. Most of the 57m blogs in existence are personal diaries that happen to be online. These blogs have tiny audiences and make no effort to sell advertising. Services such as Google’s AdSense, which places text advertisements on blogs and generates a few cents per mouse click, might bring in some spare change. But according to Pew, an American research organisation, only 7% of bloggers say their main motivation is to make money.

I would think few people start a blog with the direct intention to make money. But I think it’s true that pretty much anyone could actually blog for a living, but unless you’re incredibly lucky to find a special topic/niche/audience, don’t look for an easy time. It’s probably going to require more time and effort than the full time job you already have. But that’s my guess since I still have that full time job and blog on the side. But often I think that blogging already take up more time and the full time job. If only it would pay as well, then I could also start blogging for a living