The Real Bruce

I have been trying to get into this whole Foursquare thing for several months. I have read countless times how it is the next Twitter and will be the next big thing. As much as I try to get hooked on it, I seem to be having trouble.

First of all why does anyone care where I am at any give time? Seriously, is it really that important? I can see how this might be attractive to some college kids, who run in large groups. You could follow your friends and know where they are hanging out, I guess. However, couldn’t you do that just as easily on Twitter. Why do we need another program to have to manage?

I completely understand the whole idea behind Foursquare and their arch rival Gowalla, and I really want to like them. After all I try to be a cool tech guy and stay up with all the latest trends. What a great idea! Create a location based micro blog that has gaming aspects too it. Then allow retaurants, hotels and other businesses use it to promote there business. It all makes good business sense. However, I still feel like it is too forced. Something about it isn’t natural to me.

I already update my Facebook and Twitter what seems like hundreds of times a day, now I have to remember to check in every time I go anywhere. Do I check in at work? At home? What good does that do me? I guess it gets me points or badges or whatever, but I don’t get any discounts at these locations. If I am at home and then leave, do I check back in when I return? It just seems like and awful lot of work.

Now there are some places where I would like to check in, especially ones that will give me discounts or a bonus of some sort. I will probably remember to check in there, but for Foursquare to be really effective, don’t they need people to check in all day as they go throughout their routine?

I believe the major difference between these services and Facebook or Twitter is you feel like you HAVE to do it. When I decide to update my status on Facebook, or I want to send out a tweet, I do it because I want to. I do it at my own convenience, when I have time, and a good thought to share. However, with Foursquare, I have to do it when I am at a location. It seems more of a to-do item then a fun thing to do.

I know we are still in the early stages of these programs and I am sure new enhancements are on the way. As for now, I will continue to try each of these services and see how I can fit them into to my social networking routine.  Maybe when I become the Mayor of Fry’s it will all be worth it.

With most new technology there are cycles. Things start out slow with just a few early adopters, then you start to see things build, finally the masses join, and then the thing comes crashing down. I my opinion Facebook is very close to this final phase.

We have all seen this before, so it should come as no surprise. Remember when all anyone could talk about was MySpace? It was kinda cool. You could log in. Update your page. Talk to a few friends. Then came the masses. People started designing horrendous pages. Then the ads started to appear. Then it just became bogged down with too many features and too much junk.

About this time Facebook opened its doors to everyone and we took the bait. It was easy to use. Clean design. We could reconnect with friends easier. And, at this time, the masses hadn’t come yet. It was not uncommon to do a search for a friend and not find them. That was good, though, because it was a smaller community.

Then came the masses. Today I pulled up my Facebook page. The ads are there. I don’t really mind these because Facebook has done a good job of keeping them out of your way and they are more targeted. Yet, they are there.

As I glanced through my news feed. I saw someone woke up tired, I saw someone else had taken 100 quizzes about people I know, and to top it all off apparently everyone else has been playing one game or another that has the word “Farm” in it.

Yes the masses are coming dangerously close to ruining Facebook. No one wants to know you woke up tired, or what you had for dinner.  Have our lives become so boring that is all the information we have to post?

Also who are the people who have time to play these games on Facebook? And how long do you have to spend to generate the millions of posts that show up on my wall every day? Obviously Facebook has recognized this is huge problem for their users and has given us the ability to block these from our feeds. (Great move by the way)

However, I have the feeling there is another wave on its way that will ultimately lead to Facebook’s demise. The masses are continuing to join and soon it will become such a cluttered mess, it will be hard just to interact as we once did.

Then the cycle will start again. A small little network with some new features will pop up and some early adopters will sign off of Facebook for the last time and move on. I, for one, am hoping that day is coming soon and that they ban all games that use the word “Farm”.

Let me know what you think. Are you ready for something new?

Tomorrow is the big day. That’s right, you can place your order for the “magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price”. The iPad, Apple’s version of the E-reader on steroids is available for pre order from the Apple store.

As a technology junkie, I have been trying my hardest to justify the $499 price tag.  I have come up with my own list and maybe this will help you decide whether to be an early adopter or not.

Reasons for me to buy the iPad.

1. I was one of the people who paid $599 for the first iPhone. This is 100 bucks cheaper. What at Deal!
2. I tried a netbook and took it back. Was it a laptop? No not enough power. Was it a e-reader? No it had a keyboard and was cumbersome.
3. I wanted a Kindle, but this has color display, plus video and all the other features.
4. I have seen some of the iPad versions of Wired and other magazines and they are unbelievable.
5. My daughter will love to watch movies on it while we are traveling. (Ok, actually I will like to watch movies)
6. There are going to be thousands and thousands of applications that will make it even better.
7. The Kindle with the same size screen and no color and no other features is $489 bucks.
8. And finally, it looks really, really cool.

Where will the iPad fit into your life? Will it replace your e-reader? Will it act as a netbook? Is it a whole new category. I would love to hear your thoughts.

As for me, I will log on in the morning and place my order.

I spend all day working on a computer. Saving files, sending email; the usual. As I went about my daily routine today, I realized how much we have become dependent upon the “cloud”. Whether it is email, our personal finances, or even saving files, more and more we are relying on the cloud for our computing needs.

It has almost snuck up on us. Slowly but surely we have become more dependent on this magical cloud out there. It supplies our storage, our applications and soon all of our computing needs. I can envision a day where all we have are Internet appliances. No desktops will be needed. All of our computing needs will reside in the cloud.

Does this scare you at all? It does me. We are putting a tremendous amount of trust in the companies out there. There is Dropbox, Google, Mozy, not to mention the millions of applications now available online. All of our data floating out there, somewhere.

What happens if our connection to the Internet is lost? What happens if one of these companies goes out of business overnight? We have seen this happen in the Internet age. Web sites here one day gone tomorrow. How do we know who to trust? Who will be around? Who will securely house all of our precious 1’s and 0’s?

I love the convenience of these services. It is great to be on my laptop, at any coffee shop, and being able to access all my important files and info. I can conduct business from anywhere. How great is that?

As we move forward, more and more relying on this magical cloud, how comfortable will you be? I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on the matter.

While I may use these services each and every day, at least for now, I will always have a terabyte hard drive, stored at my house, backing up each and every file.

Last week, I wrote a post about the great customer service I received from General Motors. I was so impressed with the service that I forwarded the blog post on to my new friend at GM who had helped me with everything, and I thought that was the end of the experience. Little did I know, that was just the beginning.

Over the course of the next 24 hours, over 80 GM employees viewed my blog post (gotta love Google analytics), I gained 20 new followers on Twitter and had an interaction with GM’s Director of Social Media and Digital Communications. I suddenly felt like I had a whole company that valued my business all from a simple Twitter post.

The next morning, I took my vehicle in for my appointment at the Chevy dealership. After a somewhat long wait, the service tech informed me that all my troubles were a result of severely worn tires. Could have been worse, I guess, but still a costly repair. After thinking about my options for a few minutes, I decided I would get a second quote before shelling out the money.

I went to my local tire store. I knew they wouldn’t put the same quality of tires on my vehicle that the dealership was offering, but quite frankly, I was just trying to save some money. The quote was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, so I went ahead and had them make the tire change. I was off and running with a smooth driving car, and once again, I believed GM had done their job, and I probably wouldn’t hear any more from them.

But, I was wrong again! That evening, I got a call from Thomas from the Executive Customer Service Staff at GM. To be honest, I didn’t return his call right way. I just assumed it was a follow up to my appointment that morning. Little did I know GM was trying to go above and beyond yet again.

Early today, I finally had time to call Thomas back. He had been trying to get in touch with me before I bought new tires. Not because he wanted to tell me how great GM tires were, but because GM wanted to pay for two of them. He said even though tires really fell outside the warranty because of my miles (65k), I had been a loyal GM customer, and they wanted to help me out with some of the cost of the repair.

I started to kick myself at this point for not waiting. I thanked Thomas for the generous offer, but informed him I already purchased some tires that were cheaper at another store. Again, I figured that was it, after all, at this point, the customer service experience had far exceeded my expectations.

Without missing a beat, Thomas said he still wanted to help me out. He then proceed to offer me a GM Maintenance plan for free. Right now, I can’t remember the name of this, but essentially they will cover all my maintenance costs (oil changes, tire rotations, etc.) for the next 30,000 miles.  I quickly accepted this offer and thanked Thomas once again.

From the moment I sent that tweet, GM has been looking out for me as a customer. This group of social media specialists has been empowered to make this kind of effort to make sure customers have great experiences.With all the talk about social media and the pros and the cons, this is a wonderful example of a huge, enormous company, interacting with one individual and making a difference to their business.

Did their effort work? Well, you are reading a blog post about it now, aren’t you? I also will forward this link to my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Plus, I told ten people personally since this all happened this morning. Now, this story is reaching over 1,000 people or more. This is why I believe social media works.

I know this probably isn’t your typical story, and I definitely don’t think everyone should post things on Twitter hoping to get something for free. But in this case, GM went above and beyond–all from a simple Twitter post.  Now they have a customer for life.