http://observebusiness.com Observations on Business Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:52:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_434" align="alignnone" width="671" caption="LoJack Ad"][/caption] Notice how it says 'Apply Here' not 'Order Here'. They are creating the illusion of a membership instead of a product. Very smart. http://observebusiness.com/lojack-people-tracker-has-a-great-order-page/ Amex has a 'Black' card that all the rappers get giddy over. So Visa, in its attempt to move itself from Toyota Corolla status up to a BMW status, has come up with a 'Black Card'. They call it being exclusive. How exclusive is it? Not very. Here is the ad: [caption ... http://observebusiness.com/new-black-card-from-visa-not-black-and-not-exclusive/ I like it that Citibank is accepting that not all of us are blond and blue eyed with perky smiles: [caption id="attachment_431" align="alignnone" width="662" caption="Citibank landing page Indian couple"][/caption] http://observebusiness.com/citibank-recognizes-indians-20-percent-of-the-worlds-population/ So, here we have someone who ostensibly was able to get student loans to STUDY. And they can't even figure out how to find out, with a few Google searches, what to do? I also find it completely unbelievable that any collection agency would make an actual threat like that. Most ... http://observebusiness.com/student-loan-recipient-is-a-dummy/ So I tried to upload a pic to my twitter account...and it says that my tiny little favicon is too big. I expected more from a company that could have squeezed half a billion out of Facebook. http://observebusiness.com/wunderkind-twitter-has-a-bug/ [caption id="attachment_412" align="alignnone" width="491" caption="MSN says someone loves me"][/caption] Microsoft Messenger has always been my least favorite IM app. I hate them all actually, with their two hundred buttons, endless ads, etc. But MSN Messenger is the worst because it has no antispam protections. Everytime I log in I get one ... http://observebusiness.com/another-reason-why-microsoft-messenger-stinks/ Most websites go to lengths to hide their phone number. I think that's silly. Most people are looking for your number for a reason. Here is one website that gets it: they prominently display their phone number, and make it clear that you won't be on hold forever. [caption id="attachment_407" align="alignnone" ... http://observebusiness.com/good-use-of-website/ I like reading articles, but I definitely like reading the comments more. Here is an example of a comment putting the article in a whole new context. We read a standard puff piece, how company ( Caterpillar ) is having tough times, but they have a hot new ... http://observebusiness.com/the-comments-are-where-its-at/ Cough up 40 bucks or so for webex...and then try to figure out where to login. Yeah, people can claim that 'Host A Meeting' is the login button, but why not say that?  http://observebusiness.com/webex-home-page-has-no-login-button/ Much has been said about Google having some kind of algorithm that predicts when employees will quit. There were 83 articles on this at Google News. But this is really not that big a deal. Google has thousands of employees, it gives them surveys, questionnaires, etc., and feeds that info into ... http://observebusiness.com/google-search-engine-goes-nuts/