Archive for November, 2008
’cause Webnotes stick on me!
Now with invites and annotations!
Ever wish that you could have a cheat sheet for a webpage? Get through all that useless junk that the author wrote? I’m sure that most of my readers do. And thus comes Webnotes.
Webnotes is a new web-working tool designed at letting users add annotations and highlighting to websites. They combine two of my personal favorite things: Post-it notes and websites, it was just a matter of time. The utility is easy to use, just install the toolbar (Firefox plug-in FTW) and you’re set. There is a button to create a sticky note, button to highlight text and a button to share what you’ve done. It’s that easy.
Once you have that done, it’s easy to place sticky notes around. I know I’m going to have the bad habit of putting them on every site I visit (I have 29 of them in sight right now around my desk offline, yikes!). The good use for this is that you’ll be able to see a site, put your options on it then send it to your friend so they can see it how you see it. Here, check out I R Blogging with some annotations I put in (I may have put a few too many…).
Some uses for this that I came up with:
- Looking at somebody’s website and giving them pointers.
- Studying notes and highlighting the parts that would be important.
- Adding reminders for the next time you visit the site (like checking out a certain link that you know will be a time-sink)
- Being used as a bookmark when going through archives.
The only thing I can think of right now that this is missing is a social aspect of this. For example, if I could make my notes, send it to a friend then have them add some of their notes and send it back to me (displaying both sets of annotations) it would make it a great collaboration tool. Also, being able to select the color of sticky note would be pretty cool as well.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few invites (Thanks Ryan!), so for those of you interested in some just leave a comment to this post. Be sure to include your email address when filling out the comment form, I’ll be using it to know where to send it.
What’s your best customer service story?
Everybody has their ups and downs with customer service, usually down. But how about those times where you get off the phone and think “Wow, that rep was freaking awesome”. Given that I work in a call center, I usually try to leave the customers thinking that as much as possible. But when the shoe is on the other foot, it rarely happens. What is the best customer service that you’ve received? Here’s my latest.
On my way home from work, I had to catch a cab so went to the bank to get some money from the ATM so I can pay him: It was rejected because “Couldn’t process. Contact Service”. Twice. Turns out I had just enough on me to pay the taxi fare ($0.26 cent tip!). Then it was rejected at Wendy’s. When I came home, I decided to give them a call and find out what was going on with my card.
I called up my bank, expecting to have to go through a million automated messages and never get to anybody to help me out. I put in my card number, it told me it couldn’t be processed and the next thing I knew Michelle was on the line. Michelle was awesome. It was 9pm and she sounded like she had just woken up. I asked her what’s going on, and she said my card was put into ‘deposit only’ because fraud thinks that one of the places I used it at might have duplicated it. It’s not likely, but whatever. I just have to go into a bank and change my PIN on Wed (my next day off). That whole conversation took 5 minutes, tops.
She then asked me if I had the funds to last me until Wednesday, I said I’d just use my VISA the next two days if needed, I should have enough change kicking around for coffee. We then talked about coffee and debating the whole ‘quantity VS quality’ between Tim Hortons and Starbucks. Needless to say, on Wednesday I guess I have to go buy a “signature hazelnut hot chocolate with a double shot of espresso”. I never was very good at debating with females. But it was a great conversation, and is awesome to see a place with real people on the other end of the line. TD, you’re cool. Michelle, you’re fantastic, thanks for the chat.
Post your best customer service story below, the one I think is the best will win $1 via paypal in 2 weeks from today. Cheers!