Classic Comment
From Full Sterne Ahead
Full Sterne Ahead contains the mostly monthly musings of Jim Sterne, author, speaker, and Web marketing consultant to business and industry.
April, 2002
March, 2002
February, 2002
December, 2001
November, 2001
October, 2001
September, 2001
June, 2001
May, 2001
March, 2001
November, 2000
October, 2000
September, 2000
August, 2000
June, 2000
May, 2000
December, 1999
November, 1999
October, 1999
July, 1999
June, 1999
March, 1999
April, 2002
David Jemison, webmaster at http://www.lifeinkorea.com
and http://www.lifeinasia.com wrote to ask me about this
message he received:
heather@esubmissionmasters.com wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I found http://www.lifeinkorea.com at Google. I'm
> looking for the person in charge of online marketing.
>
> My name is Heather and I am the marketing director
> of Web Submission Services. We are a website submission
> company
[snip]
> The reason why I am contacting you is because I did
> some research and found http://www.lifeinkorea.com in
> Google on page 11 for the search term " venus wedding
> dress". I understand that you have other search terms
> by which people find you and I'd like to help you get
> higher rankings for all of your search phrases,
> especially if this phrase has nothing to do with your
> site.
"Especially if this phrase has nothing to do with your
site"? I told him I get them all the time, but that was
a little odd.
Then he asked me what I thought about his response:
> Dear Heather,
>
> Thank you for your recent message and pointing
> out that lifeinkorea.com has such a low ranking
> for "venus wedding dress." As you can imagine, we
> are quite concerned that people looking for "venus
> wedding dress" will have to dig down 11 pages on
> Google to find the Life in Korea site (a site for
> inbound tourism to Korea).
>
> I have fired my entire marketing staff and personally
> hold them responsible as the reason that such few
> women wear venus wedding dresses in Korean traditional
> wedding ceremonies.
I hope you feel better, Heather.
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March, 2002
> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:29:27 -0800 (PST)
> From: susan mckeen
> Subject: nominee for communication hall of shame
> To: jsterne@targeting.com
>
> Dear Jim -
> Was invited via the website to contact company with
> questions about their product. Response to email was:
> thanks for your interest, can't respond personally to
> you at this time. Considering that this company has
> their VeggieTales product in every Chik-fil-A and
> Wal-Mart and Target, you'd think they'd care enough to
> respond!!! I'm a big consumer of their videos, books,
> stuffed toys, CDs, etc. Guess I don't rate a response.
> What's the big idea? (pun intended) I nominate:
> www.bigidea.com for hall of shame.
>
> Susan McKeen
> Atlanta, GA
Classic, Susan. Thanks.
Here's the letter Susan referred to (and my comments):
> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 22:38:22 -0600 (CST)
> To: "Susan McKeen"
> From: cs1@bigidea.com
> Subject: Customer NONService
>
> Hello,
>
> Bob, Larry, and the whole Big Idea bunch want to
> thank you for sending your e-mail! Your message is
> very important to us. Please remember, even though
> we may not be able to reply to your e-mail, we do
> read every letter and carefully consider all feedback.
Translation: We very carefully decided to not respond
to *you*, in particular.
> Remember that God made you special
He just didn't make you quite special enough
for us to waste our time on a reply.
> and He loves you very much!
Even if we don't.
> Sincerely,
> Your friends at
> Big Idea Productions
>
> **********************
> (This is an automated reply to let you know we have
> received your e-mail. Please do not reply to this
> message)
Don't call us - we won't call you.
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February, 2002
"Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses
for the State of the Nation!"
It may sound like a classic comment, but it's actually
the title of a book that is ranked #1 at Amazon.
The reviews of this book on Amazon are either love
or hate, with one "Interesting Occasionally." I'll
accept that and simply wonder about how Amazon
determines their rankings.
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December, 2001
Once again I am indebted to Adam Gaffin
for this one. I promised myself not to quote him *again*
but this is simply too good.
Find yourself five minutes and head over to what Adam
says is. "The world's best use of PowerPoint, ever."
He's right:
http://www.craphound.com/misc/doubletree.htm
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November, 2001
> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 12:25:26 -0300
> From: Lilly Buchwitz
> Organization: University of New Brunswick
> To: webmaster@greetking.com
> Subject: Do you think I'm an idiot?
>
> You send me spam, and the unsubscribe link takes me
> to a form I'm supposed to fill out, so you can collect
> even more information about me?
> http://www.GreetKing.com/remove.asp
>
> I have two words for you, and they are not
> happy birthday.
E-commerce professors got spunk!
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October, 2001
This gem showed up a couple of weeks ago:
"I don't get up in the morning and crunch numbers."
Patti Hart, CEO of beleaguered broadband provider
Excite@Home
No longer beleaguered, Excite in now "to be acquired
by AT&T." Now you know why behind every good company
is a good MBA.
A tip of the propeller beanie to Owen Thomas, fount
from which Ditherati flows. http://www.ditherati.com
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September, 2001
Mellanie Hills, who does *not* have too much time on her
hands, even though she contributed twice this month, sent
along this little gem from an e-mail newsletter of The
Net Economy http://www.theneteconomy.com
> "...the average observer wouldn't have wanted to miss,
> for example, the feud between Verizon Communications
> and the hacker journal 2600. That dispute started,
> you'll recall, when Verizon registered verizonsucks.com,
> only to see 2600 register verizonreallysucks.com.
> That generated a cease-and-desist letter from Sarah
> Deutsch, Bell Atlantic's chief intellectual-property
> counsel. 2600 rebounded, winning the comedy battle,
> if not the legal one, by registering VerizonShouldSpend
> MoreTimeFixingItsNetworkAndLessMoneyOnLawyers.com -
> maxing out what at that time was the greatest possible
> number of letters in a functional domain name.
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June, 2001
From: Bill Houle
To: jsterne@targeting.com
Subject: customer relationship (mis)management
>
> The PeopleSoft "have a salesperson contact me" form
> is pretty cool (not). An accurately filled out form
> results in a 404 style "Your browser sent a request
> that was not understood" error message.
>
> Meanwhile, a have-them-call-me form at SAP *finally*
> resulted in an automated was-received-and-will-be-
> responded message after one week. I wonder how much
> longer before I actually get to talk to someone?
>
> It worries me when CRM vendors don't have good
> customer response systems...
Indeed, Bill. Indeed.
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May, 2001
Several messages of late from the honorable Mark Gibbs
(www.gibbs.com) have included the following signature:
> This e-mail is intended for the use of the individual
> addressee(s) named above and may contain information
> that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for
> overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no
> sense of humor or irrational religious beliefs. If you
> are not the intended recipient, any dissemination,
> distribution or copying of this e-mail is not authorized
> (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an
> irritating social faux pas.
>
> Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its
> correct context somewhere other than in this warning,
> it does not have any legal, or grammatical use and
> may be ignored.
>
> No animals were harmed in the transmission of this
> e-mail, although the Kelpie next door is living on
> borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an
> overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to
> learn that there is no hidden message revealed by
> reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that
> alert Notice from Microsoft.
>
> However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around
> yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm
> befalls you and your pets.
>
> If you have received this e-mail in error, please add
> some nutmeg and egg whites and place it in a warm oven
> for 40 minutes. Whisk briefly and let it stand for 2
> hours before icing.
Adam Gaffin at Network World Magazine, another recipient
of Mark's largess, limited his response to:
http://bloxword.ca/disclaim.htm
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March, 2001
This came in from my niece's boyfriend:
> From: "Michael Weaver"
> To: "'Jim Sterne'"
> Subject: MP3 Player
> Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 07:46:12 -0800
> I contacted Rio asking where I could buy more flash
> memory cards for the player. Here is the response
> I got:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> > Thank you for your message to SONICblue customer
> > support.
> >
> > We have received your message which has been queued for
> > manual processing. Messages are processed in the order
> > they are received and should be answered within 2 to 3
> > business days.
> >
> > Regards,
> > SONICblue Customer Support
> > Formerly S3/Diamond Multimedia
> >
> > TRACKING NUMBER: A00000092372-00000381715
> ----------------------------------------------------------
Michael's classic comment?
> 2 to 3 days! I could be dead by then!
Enough said.
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November, 2000
After having LOL'd at the e-mail about the Queen of England
taking over the country again because we clearly couldn't
manage on our own any more, I passed it on to Mark Gibbs,
my favorite Ex-Pat-Brit. His response:
> Excellent. And about time ...
I asked:
> Do we get to keep baseball?
He relented:
> Only as a punishment for people who can't pronounce aluminium.
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October, 2000
> To:
> From: sma204@usa.net
> Subject: New...
> Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 06:08:55 -0400
> Reply-To: brian_rosenblatt@yahoo.com
>
> Don't Be Left Behind!
>
> Become an Internet Consultant.
> Work from home in your own business!
> Fun, and easy to start!
And my favorite part:
> Unlimited income.
What a country!
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September, 2000
"Welcome to my page! If you are a Blockbuster or any video
store employee, you should enjoy it. If you are a customer
of a video store, you may want to leave now."
By now you know about bizrate.com and planetfeedback.com
where much-abused customers can sound off about their
mistreatment. But what happens when the shoe is on the other
foot? You find out that life on the other side of the counter
(the customer service department) is ideal for masochists. And
you thought being a *customer* at Blockbuster Video was tough...
http://members.xoom.com/bbsucks/site.htm
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August, 2000
After receiving an e-mail from a conference organizer that
contained "Dear Jim Sterne," "Yours Sincerely," (they're British)
and a complete signature, I notified the guilty party. In reply:
Now, be gentle with us. This is particularly hard to admit
to someone you really admire for their technical knowledge
and cutting sense of humour (Have seen you talk several times)
but - bear with me - this will be a good one - it seems our
database took a particular liking to you and decided to send
you a rogue email. It has obviously recognised you as a man
of authority and learning (Am I digging myself out of this at
all?). We're looking into this, once we've found the particular
microchip responsible we promise we'll take it out and flog it.
The lesson? Be up front. Take responsibility. Be obsequious. Use
humor! Pour on the flattery!!
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June, 2000
The following showed up at the bottom of a much-forwarded joke. The joke was wry, but the following actually made me laugh out loud:
> > This message is for the named person's use only. It may
> > contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged
> > information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived
> > or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message
> > in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it
> > from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify
> > the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use,
> > disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this
> > message if you are not the intended recipient. CREDIT
> > SUISSE GROUP, CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON, and > > each of their subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor
> > all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views
> > expressed in this message are those of the individual sender,
> > except where the message states otherwise and the sender is
> > authorised to state them to be the views of any such entity.
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May, 2000
From an old friend who did very well in the recent acquisition
of ArrowPoint by Cisco: "Luck is what happens when smart,
hardworking people are in the right place at the right time."
Well done, Jeff.
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December, 1999
Happy Holidays!
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November, 1999
According to Jakob Nielsen, "Increased user impatience will
make new websites fail unless they are twice as usable as
existing sites. Revolutionary Internet services must explain
why users should care in no more than two lines." www.useit.com.
That's why I actually *did* LOL when I heard Joanna Brandi
www.customerretention.com remark on how much we hate
slow Web sites:
Come on, come on! I don't have all minute!
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October, 1999
The absolute final word on Y2K - a classic.
www.hartscientific.com/y2k.htm
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July, 1999
More than a comment - it's a column. I try my best to
come up with stuff that's fresh and useful -- and original.
But this time, I'm braking the rules to point you to the
preeminent, ultimate spam.
Next time somebody asks you for a serious answer about
why spam is bad, and they don't understand that it's
simply evil, point them to Mark Gibbs masterpiece:
"Offers, Rumors and Exclamations!!! It's True!!" at:
www.gibbs.com (available after midnight tonight) so they
can see what sort of crowd they'd be running with.
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June, 1999
Kristin Zhivago, the editor of Marketing Technology newsletter
www.marketingtechnology.com expressed her frustration
over managing one's own Web site this way:
As I said in 1994, web sites are the "hungriest" marketing
vehicles ever invented...!
/\/\
\ /
{ @ @ }
00
VVVVVV
\___ /
Time-eating Web site Monster
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March, 1999
When asked if he really thought his Virgin Empire could beat
out the Americans by spending millions of pounds to create an
Online Empire, Richard Branson said:
"We've got the brand name to do it, the will to do it, the
resources to do it and we're determined to do it."
What else would you need?
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October, 1998
When discussing a Web site on the UK Net Marketing List
(www.chinwag.com/html/mailing_lists_3.html)
one of the chinwaggers by the name of Stefan Magdalinski (astefan@isness.org), of Aztec Internet (www.upmystreet.com)
observed:
Can I pay my bill online? No I can't. How very 1996.
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