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How To Improve Your Facebook Experience

// August 30th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Social Networks

So you want to know how to improve your Facebook experience? It’s easy – disable email notifications. Facebook’s notification emails give you the absolute minimal amount of information, followed by a handy link to get you to load up your profile and check things out in depth. When someone comments on something, Facebook’s notification emails tell you what they said, but don’t give you any other context – so you have no idea what exactly the comment is relating to (typically, at least). So, about a week and a half ago, I simply turned Facebook notification emails off.

To turn Facebook notification emails off, open Facebook.com (sign in, obviously), and click on ‘Account’ in the top right corner, then choose ‘Account Settings’ from the drop-down list. From there, click the ‘Notifications’ tab.

Annoyingly, this isn’t a quick task – you have to individually uncheck every one of the little boxes shown in the photo to the left – there’s no ‘check all’ or ‘uncheck all’ button. Once I did this, though, I’ve noticed that I have a much more enjoyable Facebook experience, for a few reasons:

1. I’m much more likely to comment/like other people’s stuff – when you have email notifications enabled, you get an email any time anyone comments or likes something after you – this can prove especially frustrating on things like baby announcements or other postings that are guaranteed to get hundreds of likes and comments. When you know your email inbox won’t be flooded with followups, you’re free to interact with your friends more.

2. I spend more quality time on Facebook – this one surprised me. I initially thought that if I wasn’t getting notified externally (email), I would be on Facebook 24-7, to make sure I didn’t miss anything. However, quite the opposite happened – I started spending less ‘empty’ time there and more quality time – engaging with and interacting with friends and acquaintances. I now only check Facebook maybe two or three times during the day, instead of leaving the page open all day or checking it every hour.

3. Facebook Messages aren’t as annoying – Facebook’s Messaging system is built just like email. While this works good for alot of things, it really sucks when someone adds you to a list to which everyone always replies-to-all. There’s no way to opt out of these types of ‘conversations’ – when someone responds, you get the notice, every time, whether it pertains to you or not. As with commenting on popular posts, this gets really old, really fast.

If you’re getting tired of Facebook, I’d challenge you to try disabling email notifications before you give up on the site altogether. I’ve made tons of awesome connections on Facebook, and I’ve genuinely re-connected with people from earlier times in my life through the site, as well. While there are some valid reasons people quit Facebook, simply managing it properly can help you enjoy the connections without getting fatigued.

How To: Unsubscribe From Junk Email In Gmail

// January 8th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // communication

A while back, Google added a feature to Gmail that was supposed to let you easily unsubscribe from various mailing lists, in an effort to clean up your inbox and reduce the amount of email that Google has to process. Unfortunately, the few times I’ve tried to use this (even for emails coming from a Google Group), it was a no-go, and a poor experience. However, there’s an easier way to do this, and it’s a bit less of a hassle than clicking the ‘Report Spam’ option, especially if you access Gmail from your phone (and thus likely don’t really have the spam reporting option).

It’s really simple - just search your Gmail inbox for ‘unsubscribe’. You’ll get a nice list of newsletters and whatnot that have been delivered to your inbox over the years, with the ‘unsubscribe’ link conveniently highlighted, so you can find it easily. I invested 30 minutes today on this task, and while the effects aren’t immediately obvious, it should greatly reduce the amount of junk email I get that slips through Gmail’s awesome spam filters.

In several instances, I noticed that doing it this way removed me from entire mailing lists – which is likely the reason I was getting emails from companies I don’t recall doing business with. Sure, it might be easier to just click ‘Report Spam’, but that’s not going to stop them from coming, and in many cases, these junk emails still find their way into my inbox. Unsubscribing ends them once and for all.

Great Experiences With Discount Tire

// July 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // cool

Since I started driving, I’ve bought nearly half a dozen sets of tires, and all of them have been from Discount Tire, for a number of reasons. For one, they’re decently priced. They might be a bit more expensive than ordering online or whatever, but they’re not too overpriced. Second, they make the whole process insanely easy and convenient. Even in today’s economy, the second point outweighs most any pricing discrepancy, in my opinion.

For starters, Discount Tire uses a nation-wide database. That means I can walk into any Discount Tire in the country and get my truck’s tires serviced – including the free lifetime rotate and balance, without any hassle. I don’t even need the receipt (though that helps). They can look up my phone number and see a whole profile on me, including which vehicles I have, when they’ve been serviced, etc.

I’ve used this nationwide feature a few times, and what I also like is that Discount Tire realizes you’re possibly going to be sitting for a while, and they have comfortable chairs, a little fridge with bottled water, coffee, and clean bathrooms. It’s such a small thing, and probably costs them next to nothing, but it makes a big difference when you’re already having issues with your mode of transportation.

Last, and this is a new one, is that they’re ‘out there’. By that, I mean this tire company is using the Internet to further enhance the experience. I tweeted a few weeks ago when I stopped through my Discount Tire, because they were able to get me in and out within 15-20 minutes – a record for *any* mechanic, regardless of the service I was getting. Within a short time, I had a response on Twitter from @DiscountTire, saying they were glad I enjoyed it.

A few days later, I also received an email, simply saying thanks for visiting a store, and a quick link to a survey. The email does not contain any ‘hot deals’ announcements, or any other sales-related content – it’s simply a ‘thank you’ email, and I like that.

Definitely a job well-done, and thanks to the convenience and friendliness, I’ll easily continue to purchase tires from Discount Tire, even if it’s not the cheapest place to get them.

Thoughts On Microsoft’s Insistence That Outlook Isn’t Broken

// July 10th, 2009 // 10 Comments » // marketing

I came across this story several times recently – apparently a bunch of internet folks are really annoyed that Outlook insists on using Microsoft Word as its HTML email render-er. Microsoft has addressed the situation, saying that it appreciates the feedback from users, but since they don’t believe there is a reason for them not to use Word, especially since there seemingly isn’t a web standard for HTML email rendering. Personally, I don’t care, because I recently dumped Outlook (more on that soon), but I thought there were a few interesting tidbits that I wanted to comment on in this story.

First, direct quote from the Microsoft response, ‘…Word enables Outlook customers to write professional-looking and visually stunning e-mail messages.‘ I realize I’m likely in the minority here, but I’m not really interested in visually stunning emails. I get email on my phone and my computer, wherever I’m at, and while my phone *is* capable of showing full HTML emails, it’s not my preferred way to view them. Email is for text, and I just need to be able to read it, that’s my primary concern.

It’s also interesting to read the different viewpoints on this around the ‘net. Personally, while I don’t use Outlook anymore, I don’t blame them – why would Microsoft use something else, when they get $$ when folks have both Outlook and Word installed? Also, using Word keeps people comfortable with it, which means they’re more likely to purchase it for their next computer. It’s an awesome example of Microsoft eating their own dogfood and filling others’ bowls with it, too, and you can’t really fault them for that, in my opinion.

What do you think? Are you an Outlook user, or have you abandoned it for other platforms, too? Do you think they handled this properly?

Peek Small Business Pack Is Brilliant

// March 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // cool, Mobile, technology, toys

I just caught wind of the Peek Small Business Pack here at CrunchGear. The Peek is a wireless internet device – that’s it. No voice, no IM, no web browsing, just internet. It’s cheap (~$50 for the device, ~$20/mo for unlimited email), and does one thing, well according to most reviews. The company has made some smart moves already, but I’m convinced this is the smartest yet – for $150, you get a 5-pack of devices (~$100 savings), and the same $20/month. The package is aimed at small businesses, but would also work awesome for families.

Let’s take a look at the business application, though. Let’s say I’m a startup, and I have a force of 5 (or however many, that’s not really the issue here) team members. Clearly we need access to email, but you know what? That basically means I have to get everyone a smartphone (dumbphones suck for email). Sure, you can get a smartphone for $50 on any of the major carriers in the U.S., that’s no big deal.

What *IS* a big deal is that the Peek only costs me $20/mo, per device. For 5 devices, that’s $100/month. That’s cheaper than most people’s single cell phone bill. Even better, the Peek doesn’t require any activation fees (on most of the major carriers, that’ll cost $36/ea, times 5 is ~$180). In addition to that, you need to sign a 2-year contract for a major carrier, but the Peek is a simple monthly setup.

There’s some huge cost savings here, and in a time where specifically small businesses are hurting, and can use all the cost savings they can get. This is absolutely brilliant, and I hope that Peek has somehow contacted as many Chambers of Commerce as possible to get the word out to the smaller businesses who would find this useful.