BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

A long time ago I dreamed about a start-up that would manufacture custom-made backpacks. Not just “put-your-name-there” customization, but an actual, full-scale custom made backpacks, that any customer may assemble from different parts available from manufacturers that would be sewn together. As far as I remember - I even created a write-up on this idea. Of course, it won’t sell as hot as iPhone covers, custom made jewelry, pens with your company name on them and so on.

Much more ambitious dream that followed, was that of a custom made car. What we see now on the web is just the beginning. By year 2020 we’ll be able to assemble our own cars from various parts. Just like we select custom features when buying computers today.

Stay tuned, I warned you!

Popularity: 10%

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You didn’t think that Skype has improved much since July, when I wrote this post. Right, me neither. However, the page at the URL posted has changed, creative folk at Skype is still going bananas. This time - about Skype Pro.

What’s a Skype Pro? Oh, that’s easy - “Skype Pro™ is our all-singing, all-dancing bundle“. That’s merry, but what are the features that included in Skype Pro, you might want to ask. I did, and here is the answer: “It’s jam-packed with everything you need for one low monthly fee”.

But what are the features that this jam-pack is jam-packed with? I bet you will find the answer just the easy way I did. Here’s how:

1. Go to Help section, click on Knowledge Base
2. Just for kicks - search Knowledge Base for words “skype pro” - returns no results at all
3. Scroll almost all the way down or use your browser’s Search function for “skype pro”
4. Click on “More Skype Pro Topics”
5. First article on results page - “What is Skype Pro?” - has the information that should be sufficient to make that decision. To be exact, the following is the full content of the article: “Skype Pro is Skype’s premium subscription that offers the easiest way of getting the most out of Skype.“. If you are, for some weird reason, still unsatisfied - click on the link for more “jam-packed” blabber.

Now, I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade here, but to me this looks like a worst usability I have ever seen. Soviet programmable calculators circa 1987 were friendlier then Skype’s web site. And if you think I am exaggerating - try searching Knowledge Base for words “What is Skype Pro”. See the answer for yourself.

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On Seth Godin’s FaceBook’s Hotmail problem: I remember vividly registering my then-truly-unique nickname like crazy on all available services. Also, I remember the only one real problem with Microsoft’s Hotmail - way too many ads. I used to have that huge 17″ monitor, and yes, it was considered a big deal to have 17″ monitor with 1280 by 1024 resolution, most people had 15-inchers with 800 by 600 or 1024 by 768 resolutions. So whenever I opened IE or Netscape with Hotmail page my eyes started to hurt with all the blinking, flashing, dizzying advertisements. That’s why I stopped using Hotmail at all, other then for registrations (read: spam collection account).

Same story was with Yahoo, but they were much more gentle. As with Hotmail - to these days I strongly resist opening Hotmail with anything but Firefox with AdBlock Pro.

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