Customer Service

“This is how Social Media really works”

by Alex Rainert 04.09.2009

The recent manufactured need for companies to hire “social media gurus” skillfully debunked by Matt Haughey in this post: So maybe instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people [...]

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Design Don’ts: Google Voice’s “we’re not ready for you yet” screen

by Alex Rainert 03.12.2009

I was excited to try out the freshly announced Google Voice, open initially only to GrandCentral users. Since the company was acquired so long ago, I couldn’t remember if I had, in fact, actually signed up for Grand Central. this morning, when I tried to log in with my Google account, I was greeted with [...]

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Design in the Wild: Goldy + Mac and the blending of Local, Social and Retail

by Alex Rainert 03.01.2009

This is a sign from the window of a local shop in Park Slope, Goldy and Mac. I love seeing local businesses pushing people online in an effort to get more of them into the store. Years ago, we spec’ed out some stuff to be built on the dodgeball platform that would empower local businesses [...]

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Design in the Wild: Timbuk2 Shipment Bag (+ bag lightning review)

by Alex Rainert 03.01.2009

I recently ordered a new over-the-shouler bag called, ahem, the “Blogger” (nevermind my friends, the name makes me want to make fun of myself) from Timbuk2. The bag looks like this: …and while this isn’t meant to be a bag review, let me say that this is one of the better bags I’ve owned (and [...]

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Design in the wild: Cube 63 SMS Reservations

by Alex Rainert 01.03.2009

My friend Ali, who writes for the excellent Next Great Thing blog covering mobile trends, recently posted this screenshot to flickr: It’s great to see a restaurant (the delicious Cube 63) proactively using text messaging to streamline (and improve) the customer’s reservation process.

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Design In The Wild: TrustedPlaces TasteMatcher

by Alex Rainert 12.04.2008

Social sites almost always face the familiar (and intimidating) cold-start problem. Essentially it boils down to a chicken and egg problem – how are you supposed to find clever ways to bring people together when you initially know almost nothing about them. People have grown weary of filling out the tired “My Favorite Book/Movie/Sandwich is…” [...]

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San Francisco’s BART releases transit API. Nerdy New Yorkers watch and weep at the state of their transit system.

by Alex Rainert 12.02.2008

Imagine all the cool apps you could build on top of this. Judging by the upcoming potential budget cuts and slashed lines, I don’t see something like this in our MTA’s future. Sniffle. … basically this is the type of data that drives the signs you see on the L train ("Next Train: 25 minutes"). [...]

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Obama ’08 shows why he he gets it and how politics has truly changed

by Alex Rainert 10.03.2008

Disclaimer: While I am an Obama supporter and really appreciate that his campaign is the one that’s finding new ways to leverage technology (and in turn engage new groups of voters), the features that make this app is so great are smart in and of themselves. Back to the app! I can’t say enough about [...]

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Design in the wild: Human Pay Phones

by Alex Rainert 09.08.2008

(courtesy of the always great Pasta&Vinegar) One of the most interesting service you find on the street in Peru (and I am sure you can also get it in other countries) is the “llamadas”. It’s generally women or teenagers with a bundle of mobile phones and a stop-watch who act as pay phones. They wear [...]

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Leveraging the mobile phone for guided in-store product tours

by Alex Rainert 09.04.2008

Carlo Longino of MobHappy has a quick post about a grill he saw at Lowe’s that came emblazoned with a 1-800 number providing the customer with a feature-by-feature voice walkthrough of the grill in question. While not the sexiest application of mobile technology, it’s nice to see companies getting hip to using the mobile phone [...]

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