Life of an Internet Entrepreneur

In a previous post, I explained how to manage your sleep. The seventh step I discussed was hypnotizing yourself into a deep relaxed state to be able to enjoy your sleep, and in this post I will discuss the method for doing so.

Once you get the steps memorized, you can do this nightly, weekly, or just when you are feeling particularly stressed.

Steps:

1) Lie down on your back in a dark room.

2) Close your eyes and try to focus on the shapes of light that you will “see” when your eyes are closed.

As a Yahoo Mail Beta business user, I was paying $20 a year and still only getting 2.0 GB of storage space (normal users were getting 1 GB).  With my e-mail account filled 77%, I was beginning to look for other options, but thankfully Yahoo has stepped in (by chance) and solved that problem.

Yahoo, the largest email provider online, has just announced that its accounts will soon (rumor is May 2007) have unlimited email storage, which puts them ahead of GMail (2.8 GB) and Microsoft’s Live.com (2 GB) in that category.

CompUSA, a nationwide computer and software chain, grew immensely in popularity in the late 90’s and seemed poised to own a significant market share in the personal computer and software market for the foreseeable future. Last week however, CompUSA announced it was closing 126, including ten out of eleven stores in New Jersey, a major market for computer sales. This massive change in market placement didn’t happen overnight though, so what happened?

Dominance

Early on in CompUSA’s existence, a different chain named “Computer City” challenged CompUSA. CompUSA, which had the better brand name, and offered special “free after rebate” sales, beat down Computer City, and eventually bought up the chain at a steal of a deal. One down, many more to go.

An interesting report came out recently which highlights the shift in where Americans are choosing to live.  For the first time, Americans are more likely to live in an apartment than in a house.  Reasons for this include the uncertainty in the housing market making home ownership less attractive, as well as the prohibitive cost of the purchase. 

In terms of life style, Americans are also less likely to be married than they used to be (there are more unmarried people than married people for the first time), and are living the “bachelor” life for longer.  I think shows like “Friends” displayed single, apartment life as glamorous, and therefore many people didn’t feel pressured to get married and “grow up”.

It’s amazing that we are in the 21st century and we seem to have solved many of life’s mysteries, yet can’t seem to get our hands on quality customer service. I have therefore decided to make a short step-by-step guide for companies that find themselves in trouble with customers.

They need to engage in what I call “Recovery Customer Service“, or recovering the trust of expectations that they lost due to their error.

The following are three main rules that executive officers of corporations should memorize, and instill in their customer service departments.

Google, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, has been testing TV ad serving in a move which targets the $54 billion market for TV ads.  Google already serves search ads, contributing about 99% of their $10 billion in revenue, and has been testing serving radio ad placements recently.  

This delve into traditional advertising’s stronghold is sure to upset the old media, who are seeming more and more vulnerable each day.  It will be interesting to see who opens their hands to this initiative and which old media reject it.

Recently, a lot of media attention has been focused on the threat that internet video is posing to traditional TV and cable.  While there is research that shows that users of video sharing sites watch less TV, I think it is important to look at the current challenges internet video poses before it can dethrone traditional TV and cable.

Environment

Christopher Null, over at PC World, has painstakingly put together a list of the 50 most important people on the web.  I can’t even imagine the amount of time and research it must have taken to make this list, and how you can narrow it down to 50.  It seems that each week a handful of new names climb the ladder.

Here are the top five:

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin
Executives, Google

2. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

3. Bram Cohen, Cofounder, BitTorrent

4. Mike Morhaime, President, Blizzard Entertainment

5. Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia 

JetBlue Airways, founded just over seven years ago, was created for one purpose: to provide low cost American flights with top-notch customer service.  Their dedication to that goal made them one of the only profitable airlines since the 9/11 attacks, receive satisfaction rates that pummel their competitors, and even got them featured in a wildly successful business book.

On the stormy day of February 14, 2007, none of that mattered. Their most valuable differentiation between all other airlines, their “customers come first” attitude, was severely tarnished.  JetBlue Flight 751 kept passengers on board a stuck aircraft for over 8 hours, as well as cancelled around 1,000 flights over the next few days.  Passengers had trouble breathing on the plane and the attendants actually had to open the doors several times to let some air in.