How to lose a customer - from the Consumer's POVWritten by Ben Spammed
I am not a marketer, nor do I play one on Internet. I am an ordinary person with an ordinary website. I don’t have a product to sell … yet, and I’m not interested in making my name known anywhere with hype. I have read some of “success” stories that make rounds by so called “guru’s” … and I have read “tried and true” methods of how to “market”, and I’ve seen enough SPAM in my life to know what NOT to do … but no one has ever asked ME what would make me buy their product … so for first time ever… what NOT to do … from a consumer/buyer’s Point Of View DO NOT SPAM … that should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. I receive so much SPAM (so much so, I’ve put up a website to STOMP OUT SPAM) … I never respond, I never opt out (since I never opted in) … and sometimes for kicks and grins I’ll actually read it… visit SPAMMER’s website and share with them exactly how I feel about them spamming me. I also complain to their ISP and have gone as far as complaining to their webhost … I HATE SPAM … everyone hates SPAM… so do not ever SPAM! POP UP’s … person who invented POP UP’s should be shot (IMHO)! EVERYONE I know HATES Pop-Ups! They are irritating, obnoxious and annoying! (which explains why Pop-UP blockers were invented) And along with Pop-Ups, someone invented “fly-in” pop-ups/ads … those are even WORSE!!! Nothing gets me more riled up than to be reading a webpage and have an advertisement come “flying in” and cover up what I’m trying to read. Nothing will make me leave a website faster than to see a Pop-Up or “Fly-In” advertisement … NOTHING!!! So, unless you want to irritate and annoy “ordinary” person, don’t use Pop-Up’s or Fly In advertisements. SELF-PROMOTION …another thing that irritates me. I find it annoying and self serving to be reading about a product I may be interested in buying, then to have my interest SQUASHED by self promoting hype (none of which I believe anyway). To read about how “this well known internet guru has come to ME for advice on marketing” turns me off faster than anything … and when I read something like that, I promptly lose interest and leave!! Which brings me to my next annoyance… WEBSITES THAT WON’T LET ME LEAVE! I hate that! Chances are I’ve found your website accidentally via a search engine, or a link somewhere… I’ve visited your website… and I’ve lost interest in whatever you happen to be pushing at moment or I may have even bookmarked your site to come back to at a later time, because it DID pique my interest, and I click on my “back” button to return from whence I’ve come … and I can’t leave! I HATE THAT!!!! It’s like being held prisoner somewhere I don’t want to be! … THAT in itself will make me NEVER ever return … and definitely NOT recommend your website to anyone. But wait… it can get WORSE … Not only can I not leave (without either closing browser or using down arrow of my “back” button) … but now I’m being bombarded with POP UP’s (which I mentioned earlier already annoy me) telling me “DO NOT LEAVE” POP UPS THAT BEG ME TO STAY by offering me something! That bothers me! What if I had been interested enough to actually purchase whatever website was offering??? Would I get “freebies” that I’m now being bribed with (because website wasn’t interesting enough to keep my attention) ??? Or would I just have “lost out” on “bribe”? It has a ring of “dishonesty” as far as I’m concerned. LONG AND BORING SALES COPY … that can put me to sleep in middle of day! The way I see it … if whatever it is that you are offering is interesting … then you have me ready to buy in first PARAGRAPH … I don’t need a novel full of “this guy made $100,00.00 in first 15 minutes of using/pushing my product” … LUCKY HIM … but who is he? What did he do to make that $100,000.00? … unless you are going to tell me exactly HOW I CAN do it too, then don’t bother with hype! It’s misleading … it may be true … but it smells dishonest – PERIOD! My time is valuable … if your product is good, you should be able to HOOK me in first few sentences. If you have more to say about how wonderful your product is, and you feel you have to explain it in more detail, then have a link where I can read more about it, but don’t make me wade thru a novel to find price and “buy” button… because if you do that, you have lost me as a customer.
| | Shared RSS - Syndication for the Rest of UsWritten by Andrew J. Morris
RSS Syndication or RSS Newsfeeds (RSS Feeds for short) all refer to same thing. There are two parts to process, publisher, and consumer. The publisher produces a small text file in a special format that lists title and address of an article or resource published on World Wide Web. The consumer uses a program, usually called an aggregator to read and display contents of that simple text file, with links to web page. Or consumer may visit a website that includes an aggregator program, and view results as a web page. Members of Yahoo.com, for example, can set their personal 'My Yahoo' pages to display contents of any RSS feeds they select.That is all there is to it. Simple. That's why some people say RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication.' Some confusion has arisen because an RSS feed may be used in several ways. Calling it a 'newsfeed' is first mistake, since RSS is used for much more than news. The most common situation is for RSS items listed to have a short title, link to original web page referred to, and a short description of contents of that web page. But other people are including complete contents of their resource directly in RSS feed. So feed may contain a graphic image of a cartoon, an entire post to a weblog (or blog), or complete contents of a newsletter, rather than just a link back to those resources on a web site. Other sites leave out description, and just list titles linked back to their website. And some versions of RSS allow you to leave out title, so long as you have a description. Speaking of 'versions' of RSS, that is source of even more confusion. RSS began with version 0.90, and was called 'RDF Site Summary' -- RDF refers to 'Resource Description Framework,' method of labeling different parts of file. This early version was updated and changed through various incarnations, including 0.91, 0.92, 0.93 and 0.94, and they began to call RSS 'Really Simple Syndication.' Then someone came along with a different format, slightly more complicated, and called it RSS version 1.0. Supporters of version 0.94 didn't like implication that 1.0 was somehow an advance on 0.94 when in actuality it was a completely different format, so they came up with version 2.0 which was an improved version of 0.94, but still unlike 1.0. Rather than take sides in all this squabbling, someone else came up with their own version and called it Atom, to distance themselves from RSS battles. Someone else developed Blogrolls that use OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language). Most of these formats are either loosely or strictly based on XML, parent mark-up scheme.
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