It Seems To Me

Thoughts and Rants on Technology, Business and Politics

Subscription based services are generally considered to be good business models. Once you have a customer hooked on a subscription it is much easier (and cheaper) to retain them than to acquire new subscribers. It amazes me, then, when I discover subscription based services that have no mechanism to notify me that my subscription is about to expire and no easy method to renew my subscription.

I used to have this problem with Audible.com. At one time I was subscribed to at least a half-dozen NPR shows from Audible with various expiration dates. My subscriptions would frequently expire and I would only discover it after a few days (or weeks) when it occurred to me that I was missing some regular content that I had come to expect. I would faithfully return to their web site to renew but only after being frustrated and finding that I had inevitably missed an episode or two. Thankfully, Audible has upgraded their systems to provide renewal notices.

This week I encountered the same negligence in subscriber retention with Spy Sweeper software. I purchased Spy Sweeper more than a year ago and have stayed current with the latest spyware definitions and scanning engine. As a result, the latest version 3.5 of the scanning engine is already installed on my system.

Recently I noticed that Spy Sweeper was prompting me every day that new spyware definitions were available. When I told it to update, nothing would happen. After a few weeks of this unusual behaviour I took a closer look and discovered that my subscription had expired.

It is a little disturbing to me that there was not a more visible notification that my subscription, and thus my protection from the latest nasties in spyware, had expired.

Nevertheless, upon my discovery, I went to their web site to upgrade. I completed my purchase only to discover further that there is no way to update my current subscription on the installed software. The only way to apply my subscription renewal was to reinstall the software and enter my new key code. This is ridiculous! — not to mention cumbersome. I happen to be travelling a lot these days and only have access to a dial-up connection. In order to extend my subscription I have to download the software again over a slow connection and reinstall.

I wrote to the help desk at Webroot asking if it was true that my only option was to reinstall the software. I also suggested that they add an item to their development roadmap: an interface that makes it easier for the end user to extend their subscription without reinstalling the software.

They responded to my inquiry with the following canned reply, serving only to exacerbate my disappointment in the company:

Hello,

We are sorry that you are encountering difficulty with our software. You will need to uninstall your any versions of Spy Sweeper and upgrade to the newest version of our software.

To uninstall, close spysweeper by right clicking on the spy sweeper icon in your system tray (by the time clock) and click on close, select the start button, select control panel, select add/remove programs, locate Spy Sweeper and, select the change/remove button, once the uninstall finishes please reboot your computer.

We have sent you an email containing your key code and a link to download the software. During your download please disable all firewall software/web accelerators/download managers because this may interfere with the integrity of the downloaded file.

Save the file to your desktop and once the download is complete open that install file by double clicking on the saved file on your desktop named sspsetup1_.exe

If you are having problems locating the file after downloading, click start, search, for files or folders, on the left choose "all files and folders", search for "sspsetup" This will locate the file for you. Double click on the file and follow the directions to install the software.

If you continue to have any difficulty with our product please re-open this ticket or call us.

Sincerely,

The Webroot Team

Spy Sweeper received editor's choice on PC magazine. I guess the PCMag Labs never ran the software long enough to let the subscription expire.

he advent of Tivo marked the beginning of a dramatic shift in the way that media is consumed. Sure, VCRs have been around for 30 years, but Tivo allowed for time shifting on a massive scale. People tried to explain the virtues of the personal video recorder in a myriad of ways: pause live TV, instant replay, never miss your favourite shows, etc.

For me it was simple: without Tivo there was about a 5% chance that, at any given moment, something would be on television that I wanted to watch. However, with Tivo, the odds changed dramatically. Now the odds are 100% that there is 100 hours of stuff that I know I want to watch. My shows . . . my time.

The iPod, and its numerous siblings, are now transforming the audible world in a similar fashion. Audible.com, online content, and podcasting have made it possible for me to preload hundreds of hours of content onto my iPod for listening on my time. The same basic formula applies: before the portable MP3 player, there was a 5% chance that anything would be on broadcast radio that I might want to listen to. With my iPod there is now a 100% chance that I have hundred's of hours of content waiting for me.

The media world is taking note. Dennis L. Haarsager captured the essence of the shift in a fantastic article called My Time:

We media professionals have always thought of ourselves in terms of functional divides — electronic vs. print, radio vs. television, local vs. national. Those dualities in turn govern how we organize ourselves, how we produce and distribute content and even how we think about our careers.

Out in the real world, however, a different sort of divide is emerging for media users — real time vs. non-real time. Broadcasters operate mostly in real time, but our listeners and viewers increasingly consume the programming on what might be called in ad copy, My Time — that is, whenever they choose.

It seems to me that the shift to My Time has passed the tipping point. USA Today reports that 10 million iPods have been sold to date, 8.2 million in 2004 alone, and nearly 5 million over the recent holiday season! Paul Saffo, research director of The Institute for the Future, says in the USA Today article, "This is all part of the shift from mass media to personalized media."

Indeed! The world is shifting from mass production and mass media to mass customisation and personalized media. It works for me.

The January 29th, 2005 edition of The Economist had an excellent article (subscription required) describing how the low cost airlines are making it possible for people to live and work anywhere in Europe. Of course, this concept is not unique to Europe. In the US, Southwest Airlines began a revolution that expanded the idea of commuting from cars, buses and trains to include airplanes as well. Here in Europe, many people now live in one country and work in another. From the Economist article:

Europe's low-cost airlines have done more to integrate Europe than any numbers of diplomats and ministers. They have helped to create a new generation for whom travelling to another European country is no longer exotic or expensive, but utterly commonplace.

I was almost 40 years old before I made my first international call outside of the US and Canada. When I was growing up, Europe and Asia seemed so far away and international telephone calls were prohibitively expensive. Besides, back then it wasn't like I knew anyone in those countries.

Today the world is a much smaller place. In my last job I led teams with members in Belgium, London, France, India and Australia. I now make international calls for pennies a minute. And services like Skype make it possible to talk to fellow broadband users anywhere in the world for free. Email and blogs make it possible to stay connected with friends and family regardless of location.

Global air travel has become affordable enough that even physical distances are becoming less relevant. I made my first trans-Atlantic flight (from San Francisco to London) in the spring of 2000. Prior to that trip I stressed for days over the imminent jet lag and worked a myriad of techniques to stave it off. Now I live in London and commute back and forth to San Francisco on a regular basis. I made four trips in the summer and fall of 2004 and I have two more scheduled in the next month. It is just not that far any more. I get on a plane in London and ten hours later I am in San Francisco. If I am lucky I have had a decent nap on the plane and, when I land, I am off and running eight time zones away.

Technology has made it possible to bridge space and time, shrinking and virtually eliminating geographical distances. The next time you hear someone say "Where are you calling from? It sounds like you are in the next room," remind them that technology has made the world a smaller place. You are not as far away as it seems.
 

I have worked in the technology industry for almost 15 years. Throughout that time I have become fascinated with technology and its ability to increase productivity. I bought my first PDA (the HP 95LX) back in 1991 to keep track of a mountain of tasks. The little marvel helped me stem the flow of ToDo's that had previously been slipping through the cracks. Ten PDAs later I am as big a fan as ever of technology's ability to help people and organisations function more effectively.

The hardware and software vendors have capitalized on this potential. The gospel of productivity is woven into the marketing message of every company offering goods and services in the technology sector. The reality is that technology cannot stand alone to improve an organisation’s output. A number of other key elements must synchronize with the technology to deliver sustained productivity. A well defined organisation with clear roles and responsibilities must also be in place. Processes must be a natural part of the environment using industry standard methodologies where appropriate. Finally, the culture must be imbued with an attitude that technology is to be leveraged and exploited. All of theses elements can deliver world class organisational efficiency with sustained improvements in output. When they are in balance the resulting organisation is a powerhouse of efficiency that learns and becomes more productive as it grows.

I have expanded each of these ideas into an article titled The Four Pillars of Productivity. A pdf version is available here.