Eric Edelstein

EricEdelstein.com is A.LIVE

ericedelstein — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:51:55 +0000

After weeks of testing, EricEdelstein.com is NOW……….LIVE!!!!!!!!!!

kulula SHOCKING. kulula BRILLIANT.

ericedelstein — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:30:00 +0000

i’m @ the airport waiting for my flight to JHB. hopefully i’ll see tons of you at the 27 meet up tomorrow night.

anyway, a few months back my kulula flight was delayed by a few hours, so i was given a R400 voucher.

it expired a few days ago, as every time i book they don’t ask for the voucher number, and when i called up the call center the one time, they told me they’d get back to me and it didn’t happen.

anyway, i went to kulula at the airport – unfriendly staff who weren’t helpful. i wanted to use my voucher after getting my discovery voucher online, but the lady behind the counter, told me curtly it wasn’t possible.

the other lady contradicted her and said the rules had been changed, it was possible, but i had to come to the airport after paying within 24 hours to hand in the discount.

they said i couldn’t help, that i must call the call center. and no, i couldn’t use their phone – but they kindly gave me the number…

SHOCKING SERVICE!!!!!!!!

when i spoke to Juanita in the call center, i got the opposite – friendly, helpful, and efficient.

within 3 minutes, she had spoken to the ticket guys, had got a 2 month extension, and explained to me that i could book online, tick the “pay later” box, and only pay when i came to the airport for the flight – even if it was months in advance.

i asked surprisingly how this was possible. She said Kulula trusted the passengers. I’m not 100% sure about this, but my voucher has been extended so i’m in a good mood.

BRILLIANT SERVICE!!!!

so in the space of 5 minutes, the same company gave off a shocking impression and then a brilliant impression – don’t they realise that the little things they do have lasting impacts on the minds of the consumers.

LIGHTS OFF!
all the lights at Cape Town international have suddently gone OFF. I have no idea what’s happening…hope it’s just a tripped light switch….ahhhhh……they’ve just come back on, and people are clapping. Can’t travel ever be uneventful?

Does DSTV’s call center have people?

ericedelstein — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 07:31:33 +0000

My DSTV was acting up, so I called up their call center this morning.

I went through the robot system, and was impressed! It’s voice activated, and works pretty well…

UNTIL…

I had to say “transfer” or something to get a proper person speaking to me, as I had hit a dead end, and virtual voices weren’t helping.

The call transferred, rang, rang some more, and then the system told me the times that the call center was open for speaking to one of the DSTV call center personnel. And then a goodbye, and DSTV had hung up on me.

Only problem is the times they gave me was about 7am onwards (might have been 7:30), and I was speaking to them at 9am – NEARLY 2 HOURS AFTER THEY OPENED, NO DSTV CALL CENTER GUYS WERE AVAILABLE TO HELP, AND THEN THEY HUNG UP.

Luckily, I hit every key on the DSTV remote and fixed the problem, but DSTV – you get the Sunday award for SHOCKING SERVICE.

When Hot Enough is Not Enough – Lets see how long it takes IOL to correct…

ericedelstein — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 07:53:12 +0000

I was reading an interesting piece on IOL Technology this morning about a new dating concept – only those hot enough can join. Trying to make membership clubs selective and elite. I haven’t seen too many selective members clubs on the net to date, but have a feeling that is about to change…

Anyway, the URL was HotEnough.org, but when i clicked the link, the page that came up surprised me. It looked like a spam search page, with a few external advertising links, with sections such as “adult dating” and “swinging singles”.
I was surprised that IOL would have written about a dodgy site like this, making it out to be a HOT trend site…

When I went back to IOL, I noticed the url in the article was HOTENOUGH.ORG, yet clicking the link took you to HOTENOUGH.com

I’ve noticed in the South African offline press in the last few years, a steady decrease in proof reading with spelling mistakes increasing in number, words being left out, and facts hopelessly inaccurate.

Online there is one other addition to the errors that can happen – url’s that are incorrect.

Interesting article Daniela Flores BUT – this isn’t the first time i’ve seen this, and the average person out there won’t realise the link leads to the wrong URL. They’ll see a tacky looking site, click a few links and maybe make the site owner a bit of cash, and get a bad impression of IOL as the dot com IOL speaks about is definately not dot hot enough.

The site IOL sent visitors to – www.hotenough.com
The site IOL were talking about – www.hotenough.org

Here’s a challenge to IOL – Lets see how long it takes you to correct the link!!!!

IOL published the article “Hot or not? New dating site for the sexy only” by
Daniela Flores on the 22 March 2007 at 08h17.

Eric Edelstein picked up the error on the 23 March at 09h52.

Date and time Eric was informed or noticed the site had been corrected: STILL WAITING

Skype gone CRAZY

ericedelstein — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:54:41 +0000

I use skype often, for chat, for voice, for friends, for work…
Until a few minutes ago, i didn’t realise how much I actually use it. The first place I go when I have a problem is to one of my skype contacts to see if they can help…

So about 15 minutes ago, the following happened:

1. ALL MY SKYPE CONTACTS DISAPPEARED

They aren’t hidden, they aren’t offline, they just have vanished, and skype wants to know if i want to add my first contact. Lesson to self – back up Skype contacts. I’ve logged in and out a few times, and still nothing – but every now and then one of my skype contacts speaks to me, and there messages pop up and i can answer, but after we chat, their name still isn’t in my list.

2. MY SKYPE BALANCE IS ZERO

I use skype often for skype out, (calling non skype phones), and buy credit from skype for this. My skype balance now shows ZERO. An hour ago, I had a healthy balance, and i haven’t made a skype out call in the last few hours, and my entire balance has disappeared!

3. I’m getting boxes popping up which is showing my contacts having chats with THEIR contacts…and i seem to be in the chat. Bizarre.

Guess it’s time to get on the phone to Skype!!!!!

UPDATE

Seems the problem wasn’t only confined to me…
The skype forum has details on others who have been hit by the skype bug:

http://forum.skype.com/lofiversion/index.php/t58383.html

Anyway, i’ve manually reconstructed most of my skype contacts, with the only disadvantage being that:
1. i’ve wrote off a day!!
2. i don’t think i got all of them

but as i still appear on your side, when you next speak to me on skype, if i haven’t got you in my list, i’ll include you

BUT it doesn’t look like you can back up skype contacts in mac straight from the skype app – you probably need to go into the files or something. so skype might be keeping centralized details of skype contacts, but when the skype bug hits, it’s better to have your own back up….

Sunday Times quotes Eric Edelstein…

ericedelstein — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:19:51 +0000

The Sunday Times ran a short piece on the SA blog awards yesterday, and my view point on the blog awards was mentioned in the article.

The Sunday times piece can be read at:
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=416397

i’ll try get a scanned copy of the article posted as well.

The part they quoted me was as follows:

“Eric Edelstein asked on his blog: “Can’t the blog awards find some impartial judges? Get some system of voting which is unbiased or get non- South African bloggers to judge. It seems like an old boys’ blog club at the moment.”

UPDATE:

Amazing how much publicity something can gather.

If the old saying “all publicity is good publicity” is cherished by Seth, then he’s laughing all the way to the bank with all the publicity he’s getting for his blog.

http://www.joblog.co.za/2007/03/seth-rotherham-is-a-wanker

Jon isn’t doing badly either with publicity for his blog awards, appearing on TV this morning…

Cape Union Mar(t)velous

ericedelstein — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 06:26:09 +0000

It’s only been a few weeks since I donated my cell phone and wallet to my least favourite charity – the “lets steal fund”.

In my wallet I had a R1000 gift voucher from Cape Union Mart. I tried to cancel the gift voucher, as I’ve got pretty organised lately and had the number of the gift card recorded.

Cape Union Mart told me that the gift voucher was regarded as cash, and so couldn’t cancel it…

BUT

yesterday gave me a NEW voucher for R1000.

They didn’t have to. If the other gift voucher gets used, they’ll be out of pocket. But they replaced the gift voucher.

Cape Union Mar(t)velous – a HUGH THUMBS up. You guys ROCK!!!

SARocks – take note!

cape town toastmasters

ericedelstein — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:11:07 +0000

public speaking isn’t as easy as it seems, so i’ve been attending toastmasters.

the conversation is fantastic, the food is great, and it’s a fun night out.

if anyone is looking to practice public speaking, and it comes in useful in so many areas, whether you are looking to become a public speaker, speak at conferences and seminars, or just want to improve your sales skills, i highly recommend toastmasters.

although i’m still a guest, i’m seriously considering joining the ernst and young toastmasters club in cape town.

as an aside, guy lundy was one of the speakers tonight and is quickly becoming a sought after public speaker. after his talk tonight, i know why…

Vinny Lingham takes Synthasite to Silicon Valley

ericedelstein — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:06:23 +0000

My good friend and business partner, Vinny Lingham, who co-founded search marketing company, incuBeta with me a few years ago, today announced on his blog, that he was spinning off one of the incuBeta divisions, Synthasite, and moving to Silicon Valley with a small focussed team, to try take Synthasite to the level he believes it should be.

It is sad that Vinny doesn’t believe it can be accomplished in South Africa, but he has some good reasons for relocating the company.

Vin – I wish you the best, and am sure I’ll be over in Silicon Valley shortly for a visit to carry on our conversations in a Silicon Valley coffee shop.

About 2 years ago, I went through a similar experience with the Affiliate Network, TrafficSynergy.com – i’m sure you’re going to have an amazing journey ahead.

paid podcasting

ericedelstein — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:10:52 +0000

is anyone in South Africa (or internationally) doing PAID podcasting? not advertising driven, but charging for each podcast?

an idea would be to have your free podcasts, but once a month to sell a premium version – even if it’s R5 or R10, it would be interesting to see whether anyone is prepared to pay for information via podcasts.

And if it hasn’t been done in SA, doing it would make you the FIRST even if you don’t make money…