LooseSuits Forum: Business

affects of the productivity and promotability of a company

graytiger71 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:07:47

How does the personal appearance of employees affect the productivity and promotability of a company?

What about s?

Facial hair?

Perfumes/Colognes?

Anything else that would affect the company?

The Fannie and Freddie Government Buyout (Video)

Gnorb — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:47:10

But the questions: is it a good thing? Is bailing Fannie and Freddie necessary for the stability of the US economy? Or is taking on obligations of $6,000,000,000,000 a not-so-bright idea the country will be paying for years to come? What of the people that drove these companies to the ground, will they be made to pay some of their multimillion dollar bonuses and salaries back, or do they essentially get a "get out of jail free" card? And what about the homeowners who got sucked into loans they couldn't afford because their advisers told them it was OK? (Finally, what about the tax payer?)

Could they get your business back? (Real Estate)

Gnorb — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:03:25

So, yeah, I just bought a house. My first, in fact. Feels cool, interesting, and with one pressing question in mind. Of course, this pressing question has a pretty long backstory with lots of numbers:

Two weekends ago we went to Tampa to see a couple of houses again. After months of searching, we had narrowed our search to these two. Both were in the same neighborhood, both were new construction inventory homes, and both were at about the same price:

House 1 (Built by Tripp Trademark Homes): Original value of $234,000 (including all upgrades). One story, 3br/3ba. 1850sqft. New price: $202,000

House 2 (Built by KB Homes): Original value of $210,000 (including all upgrades). Two story, 4br/2.5ba. 1878sqft. New price: $190,000.

As I said, both houses were in the same subdivision, sort of. Different Homeowners' associations, about 1/4mi from each other.

When we saw House 2, we were set. THIS would be our house. That is, until we started talking numbers, and looking at the business side of things. This house was offered to us at 190,000 with $5,000 towards closing costs. Total payment to purchase: ~$15,000. Interest rate was 6.5%

So we talked to the folks in House 1. Their offer: $202,000, $6,400 towards closing costs (which basically covered everything). Total payment to purcase: ~12,000. Interest rate was 6.75%, which they bought down to 6.5%

We started doing comparissons between the two houses.

House 2 had a corner lot (good) in an open street (bad), was highly visible (good) and had a major road going behind it (bad). Being a 2-story house, it would also cost more to insure than House 1. Electricity would also be considerably higher, since it had one AC unit for both floors, meaning the unit would be working harder.

House 1 was hidden away in the back of the subdivision (good) with a dead-end street (good), not very visible (bad), but with a conservation zone behind it (good). Because it was 1 story, it would cost less to insure. This was aided by the quality of the construction and many of the safety features added by the builder. Being a 1-story house, it would also take less electricity to cool.

In short, while the cost of House 1 was more, when you counted in maintenance the cost of both Houses was the same. So our decission was not yet made.

We talked to both builders about this, telling them what was going on with the other. They were wanting to sell, and we figured a bidding war was in our favor, if they took us seriously. We told them we would be making a decision no later than Wednesday.

House 1 responded immediately. They threw in $2,000 extra towards closing costs, bought down the interest to 6.375% (it had risen between the original estimate and this point), in addition to doing a 1 year buydown of the interest to 5.375%. Finally, they added in a few extras we requested, like an upgrded oven and upgraded lighting in some areas of the house.

House 2 took its time. It was Tuesday night before we heard from these guys again. They offered to lower the house price to $187,000, but that was all they could do.

We decided to go with House 1. The costs would still end up being about the same, once all was taken into consideration, but the responsiveness was something that weighed very heavily on us: if the people of House 2 took this long to work on a deal, how long would they take to respond to any warantee issues on the home?

We told the guy from House 2 that we had decided to go with House 1 and would be going to contract in 3 days. Then he told us he might be able to work something else out.

Saturday comes and goes. We go to contract, lock in a rate, and start the process, putting $3,000 on House 1.

I just got a call yesterday from House 2. They were able to bring the interest rate down to 6.375% and agreed to cover almost all closing costs, matching what House 1 gave us.

Had House 2 come to us with this deal just a few days before, we would have gone to contract with them immediately, no questions asked. As it is, I'll be paying slightly more for House 1, but feel considerably better about who I'm dealing with, given what came before.

Still, I've run the numbers, and if I go with House 2 instead of House 1, in the long term we'll be paying less for a (very slightly) bigger house with more land, even with the loss of the $3,000 (which is a non-refundable down payment on the property).

Question to you: Would you? Why or why not?

The Real Issue About Steve Job's Health

Tyme — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:13:03

This is an interesting situation. Jobs obviously isn't going to be around forever...what happens when he leaves? Perhaps they need to start integrating new visionaries publicly now (they say they have a plan internally) so that in the event something does happen their stock won't tank every time he catches a cold.

Do you guys place an extreme amount of importance on Jobs being with the company?

Stressed Americans Leave 460 Million Vacation Days Unused

Tyme — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:15:00

When I worked for someone else at first I was lazy about taking vacation days. Eventually I took a "use it or lose it" attitude and I made sure to use it. Some companies "force" their employees to take the time. One of the local hospitals here turned smoking-free completely. No smoking on the grounds period (not even in the car). Their suggestion? Deal with it, quit or use the vacation time to start a weaning process. o_O

Do you take vacation days? I tend to slide working for myself because I flex my time out or I'll save it up for something "big".

Most state workers in Utah shifting to 4-day week

Scrivs — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:37:51

Now I'm not sure if this means 10 hour days or simply 4 day weeks at 8 hours, but it is interesting to see a state making it mandatory. I've always like the idea of 4 day weeks in terms of productivity and getting things done as well as the benefits of 3 day weekends. Do you think more places will implement them in the future or are we stuck in the 5 day mentality and that you need 5 days to get the job done?

Real estate: it's business

Tyme — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:18:39

I was talking to a woman today about renting her home. In the ad the home looked great, seemed to be in a nice spot, I was interested enough to want to check it out. I asked her if she could provide me something from her bank/city stating that the mortgage/property taxes were paid timely and were up to date.

That question completely threw her off guard.

I explained that this is a business relationship. Part of that deal is that I pay my rent on time and she pays her mortgage on time - or I no longer have a house to rent. She completely understood that. When we got back to the providing proof part, she dodged and hesitated. I immediately lost interest in the house.

It's true that I could move and six months into the lease I have to move because she didn't pay the mortgage but I felt, due to the bad times people are having with homes lately, it would be wise to ask. I spoke to another homeowner and he didn't have a problem - but I don't like the house as much. Much smaller space for the same money.

This brings me to the question: when you enter business situations are you carefree or cautious? Would you ask for proof everything is paid up if you were renting from an individual?

Online bandwidth hogs to be cut off at trough?

Tyme — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:42:45

There are many ways to legitimately use large amounts of bandwidth (not using P2P). People who upload personal videos (depending on the size) use a lot of bandwidth. So do people who do podcasts regularly. I've used 1GB simply because a lot of programs were updated around the same time (I'd hate to see that happen, people not upgrading to save bandwidth). I'd love to know how much bandwidth I use playing World of Warcraft. If I owned Skype, I would be pissed. I would also be irked if my phone line was VoIP. T-Mobile just released a home land line replacement using VoIP, dependent on an internet connection. When we do a SuperStream how much bandwidth is that?

Comcast called out Dave Winer for all the bandwidth he was using and I think people using excessive amounts should pay. I guess I'd like to know if I'm one of those people. I think they might not realize the impact if people had to decide how to use their bandwidth.

Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo

Tyme — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:56:16

I'm starting to lose count of how many people have left Yahoo. Stewart commented on TechCrunch to say that Flickr is safe from the instability Yahoo is experiencing. I'm not buying that all that much but honestly, I don't use Flickr but if I did, I would expect him to say that even if it wasn't true.

I wonder how long it will be before Yang steps down?

Business Questions for Matt Mullenweg CEO of Automattic, Inc

Scrivs — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:16:29

We have been given the opportunity to ask Matt Mullenweg a couple of questions here on Loose Suits about the business of Automattic, Inc which is behind WordPress.com. If you have any questions that you would want us to ask him let us know here and we will compile a best of list and then shoot them over to him.

Steve Jobs’s Appearance Grabs Notice, Not Just the IPhone

Tyme — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:09:11

I understand the concern due to his diagnosis of cancer a couple of years ago but to my knowledge, he had surgery and made a full recovery. What I find interesting is that Apple's stock is down. Of course the drop could be for another reason but it seems that Apple would not fair as well as Microsoft with Gates leaving if Jobs left.

I'm not an Apple follower but it seems if Jobs left or got ill their stock would tank. Is Jobs "that" important to Apple? I admit when Gates announced he was leaving I mentally "checked out" with Microsoft but the company still makes billions a year.

Profit vs. greed

Tyme — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:04:17

Estarla posted a clip about childhood characters getting visual updates so they are more relevant today. An example they game was Strawberry Shortcake. The bloomers the older version wore obviously would turn children off today. Instead of a cat, the new Strawberry Shortcake has a cellphone.

Reading the article I came across this:

Done correctly, it can be incredibly lucrative. Mickey Mouse produces an estimated $5 billion in merchandise sales every year. Strawberry Shortcake, even in her diminished state, has generated $2.5 billion in revenue since 2003, according to American Greetings.

2.5B is a lot of money and of course it could be improved but one could argue that, in a diminished state, the brand is doing fine. It's a tough call fiddling with the brand and I question the greed with Mickey Mouse. Classic Mickey does fine as he is, matter of fact (and the article points this out) changing classic Mickey could cause them problems.

When does the desire to make a profit turn into greed?

The Phone Business Is Forever Changed

Mike — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:42:47

The new iPhone 3G that Steve Jobs announced today is the coffin the existing mobile phone industry will be buried in. I'm calling it.

There's no doubt in consumer's minds that the iPhone is the king of the hill of the cellphone industry. If someone is looking to buy a new phone then they're probably coveting the iPhone in the back of their mind. This is still a probably notion as the iPhone hasn't reached the ubiquitous status like the iPod, but it's getting there. If you're in the market for an MP3 player then the iPod is definitely on your mind. Soon, it will be exactly the same for the iPhone.

Apple has entered the most crowded marketplace in the world and was ready from the start to start making billions. They didn't half-ass their first entry into the cellphone world, they went full speed ahead and Jobs announced that the technology in the original iPhone was at least 5 years ahead. Cellphone executives laughed. Palm CEO Ed Colligan has this to say in his now-famous quote:

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," he said. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."

Well Apple did just that, they walked in. And now, with the new iPhone coming out in a month, they're putting everyone on notice that it's Apple's game to lose. Nobody else can win it, Apple can only lose it.

How? Well with the new $199 price point they just put the iPhone's price right up against any other phone you could get with a 2-year contract (in the U.S.) and it's an unbelievably attractive offer. Get the phone you actually want for a price that you're planning to spend. Before, no matter how badly consumers wanted the iPhone, the price point was not what they were willing to spend. Now, you can get what you covet for a good price.

The new iPhone is going to kill. Everybody else.

iPhone 3G: July 11th...whaaaaaaa?

Scrivs — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:51:30

Tyme and I were discussing this during our Superstream and I bring this up on Loose Suits because I'm looking at the business aspect of things here. iPhones have been out of stock for weeks now and the assumption was that the next iPhone would be announced today (which it was) and it would be available immediately. Instead we have to wait another month for the chance to by ANY type of iPhone.

How is this even possible? When did Apple think it would be a good idea that people should wait over 2 months to get an iPhone? Maybe this is why I don't run a mega corporation and am missing something huge here.

You want $1.3 Billion? Actually no sir, I don't.

Scrivs — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:03:18

I know this scenario sounds crazy, but this is exactly what Glam did this week because their investors feel they can get something more out of it. If you don't know about Glam don't be surprised because they target the female demographic and really nothing more than an ad network. They might advertise on some of your favorite female oriented sites.

They are more known for the outrageous claims by their CEO of how many people they have and how many pageviews they serve across their whole network of sites that they don't own. For a point of reference it is like us saying 9rules has over 30M pageviews a month across our network and act like those are our 30M pageviews.

Anyways Glam has taken on four rounds of funding I believe and each round gets more and more ridiculous so you can see why investors want a higher return, but come on man! $1.3 billion is nothing to sneeze at especially in today's economy. Also consider there is nothing stopping a competitor walking in and doing the exact same model and scooping up their sites.

I just don't get some companies at times. I know money isn't everything and if you really think you can get more then maybe you should stick it out, but that is a lot of greenbacks.

Kosher "tax"

Tyme — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:41:29

I watch ProteanView's videos and he's the sort that brings up something that makes you think (RightOn - you'd probably like his videos). This time I learned something: Kosher "tax".

I thought (and I'm not sure why) that Kosher only applied to foods that were clearly marked as such. Even Wikipedia says it commonly refers to Jewish dietary laws.

However, as ProteanView clearly shows Kosher labels buried on the back of other products (You Tube link). Like cleaning products. From what I read these fees are passed on to the consumers as an advertising expense. I'm sure the amount passed on isn't significant per user because millions if not billions of people are paying for something that doesn't apply to them.

What are your thoughts on this? I'm sort of speechless because I didn't realize this was going on but my first thought was that I don't like it.

Greetings Chawlk's Business World Community

adamogiovane — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:08:04

New here. Look forward to seeing how this site works out. Is it like FriendFeed? Will it catch on? Hope so, it looks a bit better than FF with these points systems.

Ciao,

Adam.

Fun with statistics

Tyme — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:08:38

Reading feeds I noticed that Read/Write/Web wrote an article about The Decline and Fall of Tech on Digg.

To put this into context, on 1 January 2006 tech stories made up 78% of the total popular stories (i.e. stories that made it onto the digg frontpage). By end of March 2008, that percentage had dropped to 18-20%. In fact, this data shows that the percentage of Tech stories made popular is roughly halving every year:

1st Week in March 2006: 75.72%
1st Week in March 2007: 37.89%
1st Week in March 2008: 19.78%

Currently the most popular category is World & Business, which accounts for just over 22% of the total. The Offbeat category is now around the same as Tech, with 18-19%.

I read that and cracked up laughing. Digg is much more mainstream than it was before. Top it off, this is an election year, we have a war going on, the economy sucks...wouldn't it be weird if the top news was something other than world and business when their user base submits the articles and votes them to the front page?

And let's not mention it sort of stopped being a tech news site when it added new categories.

Statistics are so misleading sometimes, which is probably why I don't pay too much attention to them. Yesterday I was talking to a blogger interested in joining 9rules and she bragged about having over 500 subscribers (Feedburner stats). I dutifully congratulated her. Then I asked her how many of those readers actually read her articles?

She didn't understand. I chuckled to myself.

I patiently explained that the FB number only shows how many RSS readers pulled the feed, which definitely does not translate into how many people read the content. She was stunned because she assumed that the number meant those people pulled and read her content, and I can understand how she thought that.

Statistics are ok, taken in the right context. A cool Twitter site called Twitterholic will show the history of how many followers/friends a person has over time.

Back to Digg, I don't use Digg much and a lot of "techy" people I know moved away from it too...so the site could be experiencing a double-whammy. It seems like Twitter can bring significant traffic just like Digg.

Reading Jason's article (laughing), I completely forgot why I wrote this. My bad...

Magento update

Clarkey — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:24:16

I just saw that the free magento opensource e-commerce package has come out of beta in the last few hours and is now offering version 1.0.

I had a go with the demo version and thought it seemed very professional - although I've yet to use e-commerce "live" to be fair.

If people are interested I'll post back my initial thoughts of v.1.0 as and when I get to look around it.

Open or Shut?

fuscom — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:31:57

I just caught this really fascinating look in to the Microsoft's future vision of healthcare technology --

I love this kind of stuff. Going to car shows and gawking over the concepts, smart home technology shows...the future fascinates me from a design and engineering perspective.

I wonder though, when you compare companies who are open with their vision with those who are rather tight-lipped about it, like Apple or Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks, which is the better strategy in your opinion?

Striving To be The Best In The Field

Kamigoroshi — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:12:25

I was commenting on a post recently and I was giving this advice on how to build a blog that matters. To sum it up:

“Give people what they don’t have and give it the best that they will ever have.”

I was wondering, in business of course, wouldn't that apply as well? Not just for the ones that are established, but for anyone wanting to venture into something new. We've all seen all these so called Web 2.0 companies which are nothing more than just copies of each other. Then out comes sites and apps like YouTube, Flickr and Twitter that changes the way we do things.

They give us what we don't have and they do a good job at it (maybe not Twitter because of all the ridiculous downtimes, but you know what I mean). Anything else are just copies of each other which really doesn't do justice because it's already been done.

I would love to think 9rules is just one such site. We're in need of finding the best blogs out there and we come here in search of it. Yes, 9rules has it's ups and downs, but doesn't it give people what they don't have? I know it's got everything to be the best that we will ever have. I know it. It's just going to take a lot of work

Then again, so does every other blog that wants to have a name for itself and every business that wants a piece of that yummy pie.

I'm no business person and it feels like this has been discussed a million and one times, but I figure I'd share that phrase to you guys at least. Maybe call up some inspiration some of you might need.

Paypal or free-merchant or..

Sebastiano — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:06:22

okay sinds there is a huge chance I'm moving to the us virgin islands, I was thinking to get my payments through online payment, this way I do not have to bring money to a bank, and used to be secure since with paypal you can deposit money to your bank but cannot pull it of , butthen I found this website http://www.aboutpaypal.org/.

On this website they say http://www.free-merchant.com/ is better , but I had a doubt about the individuality of the websites so I did a whois on the domains. but the only match was the DNS server. DNS.BIZSITESERVICE.COM

So is it a catch to lure people away from paypal, and is free-merchant a scam , or is free-merchant THAT GOOD, that aboutpaypal.org could only promote them??

any thoughts ? Basically I'm looking for something free to setup and can wire to an european account (if possible deposit only).

Dubai is warmer than sh**ty England!

dreams — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:50:33

I'm sick of winter and am thinking, wouldn't it be cool to live somewhere warm.

I've never been to Dubai although I know a few people who have , most have remarked on how nice it is. Wall to wall sunshine, relaxed, good golf and kind of western too.

The instances of scare stories aside- I came across this Dubai Property site and was surprised to learn how relatively cheap the properties are. Did you know you can buy a two bed apartment from as little as 57k or a 2 bed from as little as 114k. Compared to places like London which has guaranteed rain and grumpy bastards, I thought this was a pretty good arrangement

A further look into that domain itself revealed that on average investors could look at a return over 3 years of 8%, guaranteed! So hey, I can earn 8% and be warm into the bargain come winter! Hmmn, if only I can find someone to do my job for free :D

Great Company Names

Scrivs — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:01:41

I have been thinking about company names for a couple of weeks now and trying to figure out which ones capture my attention. I don't mean the brand or what the company does, just the actual name of it. When I think about the old school companies before the web, no names really stick out, but web companies names seem to capture my attention.

Yahoo
Google
9rules (oooo right up with the big dogs)

I'm not sure if you have to be a bit more creative now so you can get a good domain name, but being creative with the name just seems to be as important as everything else. I would love to start a list of creative company names (not sites, actual companies) so if you find any please list them here.

How can I improve it?

centrespread — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:39:54

Hello all.

I launched a site out of sheer frustration. When I was researching the media landscape looking to place a small (£15k) campaign, the only directories I could find all wanted in excess of £1000 a year as a subscription fee! Why was there a financial barrier up between me (the advertisement buyer) and the media owner? Surely there should be a directory that facilitates contact between buyer and seller.

Yourmediaplan.com was launched. I now am in the development stage and want to add new features but need to know from the marketing community out there what would be beneficial.

Please let me know your thoughts and criticisms.

Adam
the yourmedipalan.com team

If I owned Google stock, I'd be freaking out...

Tyme — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:40:50

The downturn for tech stocks hit Google. The stock dropped to $584 yesterday to $548 today. It peaked at $747 last year...

With stock like Google (abnormally high) when do you sell (I mean, the stock opened at $60, that's one hell of a profit for those that got in early)? Do you hold on to it hoping it will get back to $747+ or do you think, "Let's not be greedy, sell now and be thankful for being a millionaire..."?

I think I'd have to sell some because I think it would haunt me forever if the price never went back up, but I wouldn't feel "bad" if I didn't hold on to it because I would have made a lot of money off of it.

Either that or as I get older I shy away from risk...LMAO.

Client tries to change a contract - sleeze?

wrttnwrd — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:05:47

I have a contract with a client that's based on revenue share: A percentage of all revenue reported via Google Analytics.

They just came back and said they're changing it, because they discovered some of that revenue is coming from their call center. That eliminates about 25% of my earnings from the contract.

I'm inclined to tell them to stuff it. I'm furiously angry - I put in days just figuring out a formula that would work for everyone. Not to mention the effort to help them boost their online revenue.

But, if I do, we lose a huge client - potentially a disaster for my company.

BUT, I'm really, really sick of this kind of s--t. 12 years of clients sliming their way out of paying on time, etc..

Do I tell them to take a hike?

Annoyed with Interviewing Company!

NelsonDesigns — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:40:43

Has this ever happened to you?

I was contact by an organization out of the clear blue sky about a month ago to interview for an interesting position opening they had (Art Director of On and Off Line Direct Marketing) so being the opportunistic person that I am I took a day off work and drove 1.5 hours to get to the interview. I then proceeded to interview with the 5 different people for 4 hours! I thought everything went great, but almost 30 days later, NOTHING. No phone call, no letter, nothing.

I find it annoying and sad that a large and prominent organization would stoop so low as to completely blow off someone who took time out of their life AT THEIR REQUEST! I mean come on, how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and say "sorry I don't think it's going to work out"

Just awful.

Let the good times roll.

RiskyRabbit — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:45:01

The Geek Squad -- Not Actually Made of Geeks??

Scoopersmith — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 23:05:57

Every once in a while someone asks me about Geek Squad. Or more generally, should I take my computer to Geek Squad? Or can your techie boyfriend fix it?

I've had a few experiences with Geek Squad, all of which could be written into award-winning sitcom episodes.

I must say the ONLY reason I use them is because I have one of those Best Buy PSP things so they fix my laptop for free.

For humors sake I'll bring up the first main experience...

About 2 years ago I brought my laptop to a Geek Squad that's located in a Best Buy very close to where I live. They couldn't fix it in-house so they sent it out to replace some parts.

Only a week or so later I got my laptop back in the mail, with one added bonus. There was a burned cd-r professionally packaged to the top of my laptop. Thinking they had saved some of my documents I popped it in the drive and saw that it was in fact, porn. Girls Gone Wild and some Playboy stuff to be exact.

I tried calling customer support for Best Buy, but they didn't care and laughed it off.

Now, fast-forward 2 years and my poor 4 year old laptop needs some work done again. I somewhat reluctantly take my laptop in and they tell me that they will run some tests on it and call me in 24 - 48 hours. 1 week passes. I call THEM back and they say "Oh we were just about to call you". I highly doubt it. Long story short, my laptop had failed some stress test and needed to be sent in for work, but it could <i>only</i> be sent in with my permission. I asked when they had ran these determining tests and they told me TODAY! Not 4-5 days ago when they had said they would.

What I am wondering is:

Is this specific geek squad location terrible or are all of them this bad?
I question this because the Best Buy in which it is located is terrible. They people who work there are usually incredibly rude and unprofessional and don't know much about their products.

The airline business in the US

Ozone42 — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:59:16

Fun thread over at consumerist.com

To summarize, a guy bought a roundtrip ticket, didn't show up for the outbound flight, so his return flight was automatically cancelled. Needless to say the guy was surprised, especially when he showed up for his return flight.

This is a common policy among most US airlines, though it is not made clear without reading a few pages of fine print. I've run into it myself. It is an existing policy, and it is in the documentation if you dig hard enough. So there's really nothing this guy can do, he should have better informed himself. It could have been that he was coming in on a connecting flight and late, this same thing would have happened.

So...

What does that tell us about the airline industry?

They're going to sell his seat, the one he paid for. In fact, they already had when he tried to get on the return flight. When other industries try to sell something twice, there's legal action involved. It would be one thing if he was partially refunded, or allowed to apply the credit to another flight... or some form of recompense. I don't think he's entitled to a full refund since he's inconvenienced the airline, but that doesn't mean they can keep his money and turn around and sell the same thing again.

The fact that this policy exists, that they definitely intend to resell paid for seats without refund, is really a great indicator of how broken (and hurting,) our air industry is. An American Airlines exec was quoted recently as he didn't expect to make money, he was providing a required service (while he's making millions personally and they're cutting corners all over the place in their service.)

Luckily Virgin America is making headway and will force the airline to become more customer oriented (and sensible.) They're a good example on how you don't have to be unethical, or the cheapest airline to serve your customers and make a profit. Ryan air over in europe is another excellent example.

I can't remember the last experience I had with an american airline that was pleasant. I've got many stories on how much a pain it is, and how much they're doing wrong.

What are your experiences? Do you think it's ok for airlines to resell seats without refunding the people that originally paid for them?

What are the consequences of free information?

Causalien — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:35:18

Hi,

I've been reading blogs that reveal secrets of trades and started wondering about the effect that this will have on business. Do you read these type of blogs and apply their knowledge to your life? What do you think will happen when a once high margin sector suddenly come face to face with a consumer base that demand the margins to be reduced to what some information website says.

If you have a business yourself, have you encountered these type of consumers?

Causalien

Why Do People Hate Companies With a Passion?

Michael — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:35:12

I saw a note early about AOL's new TV ad and I got to thinking about hating other companies. A girl in my class refused to buy an iPod because she didn't like Apple as a company.

People obviously, due to the note, don't like AOL because of the invasive software and shady service they delivered during the old days but I wrote a post on AOL as it is now and I still gotta wonder why people hate it despite the turn around.

And I gotta admit that as nerdy kids we made fun of Macs but we were kids. I mean I guess I hate companies that pollute and have sweatshops but unless you're a direct competitor with that company why the hate? The world needs love.

Success Seeds "When To Plant"

RiskyRabbit — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 07:48:46

Looking for some private tips for testing the waters. Business tactics.
Please message me.

-Risky Rabbit

I need your help!

bombadda — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:51:32

Hi there,

We are a partnership of 2 freelance web designers who are looking to take our combined experience in building well designed websites and - with your help - improve on it.

We aim to create a range of website solutions tailored to the needs and wants of people like yourself.

If you can find a spare few minutes to complete a simple, short survey we would appreciate it greatly!

Click Here to take survey

Many thanks