Teleflora – An Epic Social Media #FAIL – Updated!
Three weeks ago red blooded American males were gathered around our TV’s in celebration of that most American event called the Superbowl. The game of course is not only celebrated for the football that will be played, but for the foods that are eaten and the commercials that are run.
Early in the first quarter this ad was played:
Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of men decided they needed to buy flowers for Valentines Day.
Me included, and for the added surcharge you to could “Give” on Valentines Day and make sure your flowers (and chocolates) arrived on the big day.
Fast forward to the big day. I thought it strange that during the day I never got the message from my wife that “The flowers came they are so beautiful ….” instead by the time I got home at 6pm still no flowers. Checked my email nothing from Teleflora about any delays.
But when I checked Twitter there was an explosion of people complaining that Teleflora was emailing them that night and saying that they were not going to be able to deliver their flowers … despite in many cases them being ordered just a few minutes after the airing of their million dollar ad during the Super Bowl.
Screen shots of some of the many complaints that were being aired:
In real time more and more complaints were being added by the second.
It wasn’t in just one place in the country it was happening everywhere.
And all along Teleflora was silent. As a tidal wave of negative publicity was sweeping over Twitter they were silent. And Twitter became a feeding frenzy with links being sent out to media and reporters asking for someone to look into all of the money that Teleflora took from people and never delivered.
I know someone that’s gonna have a tough day. Marvin you should call in sick today, cause you are going to be on BLAST!
So it goes without saying that you should never buy any flowers from Teleflora ever … they can deliver a great Super Bowl ad, but they can’t deliver on the Super Bowl of Flower Days.
Unlike Teleflora every company today has to be monitoring Social Media and when something goes wrong you have to engage.
To see just how big a failure this was, if Teleflora took you money and you didn’t “receive” add your name and order number to the comments section of this blog and we’ll keep a running total of just how many Valentine Days they ruined!
KoFacts.com Has Best Month Ever!
That’s right November has been a banner month, not just because Lauren and I celebrated our 12 Year Anniversary, and not because I started at job at the Credit Union. No, November saw more traffic across my blog that any month previously recorded. In fact traffic has been building steadily for the past 6 months. And no it does not include my visits, nice try.
KoFacts.com Traffic Report
By far the most popular stories are my article on trying to get my Facebook account back after it had been hacked appearently this happens to a whole lot of people and they get directed to my site by Google. Coming in second is my blog pleading with the writers of 24 to kill off Jack Bauer then make him go through another autrocity of a season like last season. In third place is my article on How to Use Disney’s Photopass. As good as Disney is about putting great things together they do not do a great job explaining to visitors to their parks just how wonderful this service is.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to let 870 visits a month go to my head, I’m not quiting my job …yet … there’s too much good material in there, and I won’t be walking into the Golden Corral expecting to be given priority seating (I know you still have to tip the gal to get the best table.)
If you are a frequent, or just an occasional reader, I do want to thank you.
The Most Important Reason to Use Facebook!
When I get the chance to log into Facebook (or FB as we Internet elitists call it) I am amazed by the people who are actively using it from Lauren(my wife) who is a prolific blogger/writer on FB to my Mother and Godmother who love to post pictures of Family and friends to share.
But when I look I also see all the folks who are not using it.
Tad is a Bad Mamma-Jamma
I recently spoke to my Sister in Law about FB and asked when she was going to get on so she could share more pictures of my super-cute nephew, Tad. She said she had no plans to get a FB page anytime soon. She wasn’t ruling it out but it would not anytime soon.
I completely understand the idea that many people share which is that FB is a fad and will quickly be replaced by something else. Does any still use MySpace? But Facebook is MySpace refined. Typical reasons cited for not using Facebook:
-
I don’t want to post information about myself on the Internet. (Certainly valid, but remember FB can’t publish anything you don’t give it, so you are in complete control of this one.)
-
It’s only for Teenagers and Pedophiles. (Frankly a very dated argument, actually Facebook’s fastest growing segement is Women over 55)
-
I don’t have time for it. (That’s right, you probably don’t. I’m not going to lie you will look up from your computer and say “I did what for three hours!”)
But here are the benefits of using Facebook
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Easily Share Photos, Videos, and News with Friends
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Reconnect with Friends and Classmates from High School or College
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Use it for Networking with Colleagues and Business Contacts
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Kill Hundreds of Hours Playing Mostly Awful Games (Completely Optional)
But perhaps the most important reason to use Facebook is because you are already on it. That’s right your photo is already plastered all over Facebook and it has your name on it. Remember that embarrassing night in college . . . yeah that’s right . . . the one with the leather chaps and the wig . . . it’s on there. You see when your friends use Facebook they post pictures that include you AND they are putting your name on the picture in a process called Tagging.
IF YOU WERE ON FB you would have the chance to Approve or Disapprove that Tag taking your name off of that embarrassing photo, but since your not . . . that photo will have to stay.
So let’s try an experiment. Let’s take my brother, Steve. He is not on Facebook, but look in just a few minutes I’ve pulled all of these photos of him from other profiles.
Photos of Steve on Facebook
Steve has never posted a single photo of himself on Facebook yet he probably has upwards of 20 photos already published.
How many photos of you are already on FB?
So why do you need to be on Facebook . . . .the fact is you are already on it . . . you might as well make it official.
Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad
Paris responds to McCain’s Celebrity Ad and has a plan of her own.
“Loves It”
Spring Cleaning Your MySpace Page . . The Contest!
Please for the love of God update your Myspace page. It’s spring, update your lay out, your status update, your profile song, your pictures . . .anything.
Do you still have those photos of you at the Halloween Party on your myspace page? It’s time to update them. Your friends care about you, all except for Tom, they want to know what you are doing.
Let’s have a contest. Post a reply showing your original MySpace page and your updated one. Let’s see who can create the most improved MySpace page. Then send this blog to your friends and challenge them!
Kris
Idea Generators for This Week – 3/16/2008
News Updates and Articles for 3/17/2008
Interesting Articles from This Week – Idea Generators
Preserve Your Time – This article appeared in the N and O this weekend and has some novel ideas about managing your time at work.
A Lesson From Apple: How to Make Users Fall In Love With You – Discussion of Apple’s design principles and link to their development guidlines for the iPhone
The Connected Generation – The idea of Presence in business communications.
Latest Facebook Application Pays Users - A new feature in Facebooks allows you to profit by recommending products to your online group of friends.
Message From Col Wessup
So I’ve had this idea for a while. To recreate famous scences from famous movies but do it with kid actors. So today I actually took a swing at having my son Wes recreate that famous speech by Jack Nicholson, as Col. Jessup, in A Few Good Men!
Here is the text from the original scene:
“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.”
Here’s Wes be sure to stay through the end I’ve included some other famous movie quotes and bloopers:
It was alot of fun and Wes loved seeing himself on the computer . . Because someone is bound to ask I created the video using Ulead Video Studio and shot the raw footage on a Sony Digital Handycam(DCR-SR40).
Kris
Custom Poker Chips . . What a Great Idea!
I’m shopping for a new poker table and was making the rounds through the online shopping sites when I ran across this unique offerring.
Pokerstarsdirect.com offers custom poker chips. You provide the image and they will add it to casino quality clay chips.
Talk about an awesome gift for that poker playing friend. After I get my new table I may have to ante up for some of these.
http://www.pokerstarsdirect.com/custom-chip-information.html
Have You Videotaped Your Legos Today
One of the greatest things about the internet is it’s abiliy to showcase new and creative things people are doing. Maybe the’ve always done them but have never had a place to post it and share it with the world.
The boys have gotten very into Legos since Christmas so I’ve been enjoying my second tour of this brick built universe. First as a avid builder myself as a child and now as a parent. But as much as I played with Lego’s I never did this:
So Grease isn’t your thing . . . . how about Monty Python:
Maybe a remake of a famous music video:
You can search YouTube for Lego Motion and see hundreds of Lego Motion Videos. A warning . . most are very bad, but some like these are very well done.
Enjoy.
-Kris
Super Tuesday . . . Think About This America
Thanks to my cousin Mark for showing me this.
Part II: YouTube.com and the Presidential Election
YouTube.com and The Presidential Election Part II
So you will recall our plan to review the number of “channel” views for the major presidential candidates on YouTube.com. Each of the campaigns has a dedicated channel on YouTube where all of their election videos are uploaded and made available to the public. In Part I we established our baseline and now a week later we can see who is gaining momentum from the online video perspecitive.
|
Candidate |
Party |
Views 12/17/2007 |
Views 12/26/2007 |
# Growth |
% Growth |
| Barrack Obama |
D |
11,454,594 |
11,485,494 |
30,900 |
0.27% |
|
Ron Paul |
R |
6,413,367 |
6,487,426 |
74,059 |
1.15% |
|
Hillary Clinton |
D |
1,132,922 |
1,155,400 |
22,478 |
1.98% |
|
Rudy Guiliani |
R |
781,791 |
792,099 |
10,308 |
1.32% |
|
John Edwards |
D |
721,953 |
731,288 |
9,335 |
1.29% |
| John McCain |
R |
541,783 |
549,497 |
7,624 |
1.41% |
| Mike Huckabee |
R |
344,667 |
372,505 |
27,838 |
8.08% |
During the last 9 days it’s clear that both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee have been gaining momentum on their video channels. Ron Paul had the largest growth in numbers with 74,000+ new views (40% of traffic across all candidates) . But Mike Huckabee had by far the largest percentage of growth with more than 8% of his total views coming in the last 9 days. Much of his growth can be attributed to his “controversial” Christmas commercial where critics saw a “floating cross” in a bookcase. A video which has not been posted, BY THE CAMPAIGN, on YouTube. So lot’s of people came looking but all they got was a lot of standard campaign video offerrings. Nice Move!
Other observations would include the fact that Hillary has the largest % growth among major Democratic candidates with a robust 1.98% growth in the last 9 days, maybe the “Hillary I Know” campaign is getting the message out. While Obama’s numbers lead Demorcrats . . . but he only showed a meager 0.27% growth rate.
Keep tuned to KoFacts.com and we’ll revist their YouTube.com traffic reports just prior to the Iowa Caucus in 8 days.
kris
YouTube.com and the Presidency . . . An Introduction
If you know me at all, you know that I love politics. I’m not sure if it was growing up in DC or not but I am constantly plugged into what is happening in the political environment. In fact, I’m probably a politics addict. I would rather watch Meet the Press on Sunday morning than go to church . . . I know that’s scary but it’s true. Thus far I’ve tried to insulate my readers from including too many political articles in my blog because I did not want to turn this into just another politico blog. That would be the fastest way to lose readers. But I had an idea that I wanted to share.
The recent YouTube debate with the Republican candidates for President got me thinking about the impact YouTube and Web 2.0 technologies may be having on the election itself.Acknowledging the power of the internet all of the major candidates are posting videos on the web trying to tap into the viral nature of “user contributed content”. In fact all of the candidates have Channels on YouTube where their videos are posted and available. An astute viewer can track and compare the number of views for each of the candidates and track them overtime.We’ll I’ve isolated those numbers and as of 11:30PM this evening, here are how many views their videos have received.
Views on YouTube 12/17/2007
Democrats
Hillary Clinton 1,132,922
Barrack Obama 11,454,594
John Edwards 721,953
Republicans
Mike Huckabee 344,667
Rudy Guiliani 781,791
John McCain 541,783
Ron Paul 6,413,367
It’s very interesting to see the commanding leads of Obama and Paul . . how will their online popularity translate to political success . . . .we shall see. I’ll update these numbers weekly and provide an analysis of their growth in the coming weeks.
Kris
Next Up . . Another Tech Bubble?
As the reminents of the real estate bubble float back down to earth and well intentioned friends discuss the value or harm of freezing interest rates for those who are over extended.
It’s time to turn our attention to the next bubble . . . .could it be tech’s turn again?
Let’s hope not. I’ve gotta sell my Google stock first.
Kris
No More Travel For Me a Google Maps Tour . . .
So I’ve just come off a whirlwind tour of America for the purpose of reviewing datacenters for a new business venture we’ll be launching. In a matter of two and a half weeks I’ve visited: Las Vegas (7 Days), Los Angeles (4 Days), Portland 2 Days, Washington DC (2 Days), and Boston (2 Days). I am done. I swear right here and now that I will not visit more than two places in a 30 days timeframe again.
But while this travel was exhausting it got me thinking about how much travel I’ve done in my 16 years of professional work. And while I’m certainly no traveling sales man I’ve seen alot of cities in the US and some I’d even like to visit again. In order to see all of the places I’ve traveled to I wanted to put together a online map that I could use to track my travel. So I went to Google and used the “My Maps” feature to create my own online map.
While this map is very basic, I wanted to create a map with small push pins in the places I’ve visited. Using My Maps I created a new map called My Travel and after searching for each of the cities I wanted to mark I could right click and place a placemark on the map and fill in some information about that spot. You can even link to online photos of the area which I will tackle in an upcoming blog post. But here is the net result:
As you can tell this service also allows you to publish your map for your visitors to see and find you. You could easily use this on your site to create an online guide to your locations or points of interest.
So I Got This New Computer . . .What Software Do I Need?
If you have anything to do with computers you will eventually hear this question. Most of the time the people asking this question are most concerned with security and what programs they need to purchase to protect their new investement.
If you get this question try this answer on for size:
“Security is the most important concern. If you have the new security program called Mine Sweeper you’ll be completly protected. Mine Sweeper scans your system for malware and it allows you to search your hard drive sector by sector. Routers show up as flags and the numbers around them are you IP Address. If the system finds a virus during your search it will show up as a mine, you should immediately reboot your PC and start your scan again.”
Obviously that is not true — I feel obligated to mention it because I can see my less informed readers continually rebooting their PC and then I’ll get the next question . . . Can you take a look at my PC?
So what software should you have on your new PC or Laptop? The good news is the list is getting smaller and smaller because an increasing number of applications are now accessible via the web. But for those apps which you must download I’ve compiled this list and may update from time to time as new products come out on the market. Other good news is that all of these downloads are FREE.
1. Mozilla’s Firefox – Link
Firefox is an open source web browser, like Internet Explorer, but runs without hogging all of your available memory, without exposing all of IE’s security vulnerabilities, and without annoying error messages.
2. Mozilla’s Thunderbird – Link
Next to surfing the web the next most common use of a computer is Email. Thunderbird is a flexible email program that allows you to link to all of your email accounts into a single program.
3. Google Pack – Link
This site on Google allows you to download lots of programs that are important. It bundles them together and gives you a single point to download all of these programs. When you go to the site you can choose which programs to put in your bundle I consider these to be important and or very useful.
Norton Security Scan and Spyware Doctor will keep you computer safe from viruses and malware.
Adobe Reader will allow you to view PDF documents on the web.
Picasa allows you to store and organize photos into albums
And Star Office is a complete office productivity suite just like Microsoft Office, except without the $400 price tag.
Best of all, all of these programs are free!
Adding these programs to your PC and getting rid of all the vendor trialware it came with will ensure that you and your new PC operate well for many years to come.
Please let me know if you’ve used this advice by leaving a comment or if you have another must have application let me know.
Sweep The Leg – The New Internet Classic
Ok you other kids of the 80′s, you have to see this music video. It is from a band called “No More Kings” and it was written as a muscial apology from “Johnny” to “Daniel” from the Karate Kid. The video includes most of the original cast and is a ton of fun and has reached legendary status on the net.
Remember when you were the last one to find out about the “Lightsaber Kid”, or the “Numa Numa Guy” well don’t be the last one to find out about this new cult classic. Send all of your friends a link to this blog. . . . and they will be dazzled how with it you are . . . .and thanks . . . 
-Kris
Chad Vader
I am working on a project for work and I’m looking for commercials or video clips that highlight teamwork and good customer service. Along the way I’ve run in to some interesting things. Most recently I found this series of videos showing Darth Vader’s younger brother Chad who works as a manager in the “Empire Market”
These are pretty funny.
EPISODE I
EPISODE II
EPISODE III
EPISODE IV
EPISODE V – The Best Since the Original
EPISODE VI
These are alot of fun.
/kk
Hi, My name is Kris Kovacs and welcome to KoFacts my blog about everyday leadership, management, technology, politics, scouting and other fun stuff. I have a diverse background in financial services and information technology so the topics I cover tend to be applicable to business and IT. Thanks for stopping by. Please subscribe to my blog or bookmark it and visit often.
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