Undisclosed at LinkedIn

LinkedIn, a middling dowdy professional network web site, suffers from a number of shortcomings in its user interface. Today we address the issue of concealing your present employer. LinkedIn does not provide a systematic way to hide your present employer's name. Instead, you are left to use your own words to denote anonymity into the company name field. Some members choose "Undisclosed;" others, "N/A" or similar verbage. Thus, when you log in, and are informed of possible connections, you might see a message such as "50 new members at Undisclosed" because LinkedIn thinks that "Undisclosed" is a company!

All that is required is a setting, a switch, to show or hide the name of present company from Public and your network. HotJobs and Monster give members the option of such a screen.

Flickr and Blogger are on Speaking Terms, but not their Owners

It's becoming common for computer systems to be on speaking terms, but not the owners. You may have noticed various social networks offering to search your email addressbooks in order to make it easier to enter those email addresses into the social system. It's a popular example of open-access, remote logging. You enter your username and password, and authorize the System at Hand to pull information or publish information to an External System. We can assume it is secure because the Big Heavies--Yahoo, Hotmail,Google--are cool with it. But what are we to make of one system that doesn't know the present name and condition of an external app, yet syncs with that system without a glitch? Doesn't the ignorance of that system's management erode our trust in its ability to connect to the other. That was my experience when I set up a Flickr account and permitted it to publish to my Blogger account. Flickr refers to Blogger as Beta Blogger, a status that has been inaccurate since Google upgraded it to 'live' 8 months ago.

What's going on? The machines are doing their jobs, but where humans are needed, the humans are failing. The system's are speaking to eachother via XML. Yahoo Flickr is properly transmitting to Google's specs. It knows the tag names. It knows how to authenticate users. So, we know that these things were set up properly by the engineers. But some things are not contained in xml. This would be information of a higher order, of a singular or irregular fashion. It requires real eyes and ears to stay in tune with such info, and to make manual edits to HTML content. Apparently, such content is not regularly reviewed by the likes of Flickr. The dismissal of the beta status was big news at Blogger and impacted its millions of users, but the news fell between the cracks at Yahoo.

Perhaps the news occured between Content Updates at Flickr. It's unfortunate. Each system need not trumpet any marketing initiative of the other, but each does need to be informed of the basics. Perhaps such basic info should be included in the XML, as a tag that is agreed to by the Heavies and other players. That way, the 'Name of Service,' or 'Service Image' would update itself. Otherwise, these various networks are going to have to hire folks to more often update HTML landing pages.

Google Wises Up: Link to iGoogle

Google has updated its portal, there is now a new link "Back to iGoogle." As I noted in earlier post, the only way to get to iGoogle was by clicking on "Web" which also means 'web search results.'

In that earlier post, I describe how a simple search can produce errors and confusion. As well as Google has performed, it has probably lagged due to poor search user interface. If Google makes searching and navigation consistent, and does not generate errors, then it will enable an even larger share of searches. Meaning, more moolah.

Amazon Can't Combine Gift Certs and Gifts

For some reason, Amazon just won't let you add a paper gift certificate along with some products in the same order. It's ridiculous. Is it not a common gift giving solution to purchase an item or more and to embellish it with a gift certificate?

Apparently, gift certs are an entire different animal, treated by a different system. Funny, because Amazon does a good job of grouping Amazon and non-Amazon products into cart. Yet, if you've already Added some items to Cart, and then choose to purchase a Gift Certificate, it ignores the Cart items, regardless of whether you seek to send an electronic gift cert or a paper cert.

I like sending paper certs. I would like to send one along with some books, or kitchen products. But in this present day of 2007, it can't happen at Amazon. I ran into this problem 3 years ago after my pal Eric married Jodi. I tolerated it because I figured, okay, still working out some issues... but now it's almost 2008. Time for Amazon to indulge this 'niche' gift idea.

Craplets: PC Makers on Drugs?

PC Makers (OEMs) have decided to install multiple trial software programs, which load on boot, severely slowing down the time to get started. These trial programs have earned the nickname 'craplets,' and retailers offer to remove them at the time of purchase, often at a cost. This may have been noted elsewhere, but I must ask: isn't this crazy? This is the new reality? BestBuy sales people, in addition to extending to customers an extended warranty, must also state, with a straight face: "There's a lot of crap on this computer. Do you want us to remove it for just $30?" Such behavior seems the stuff of a monopoly (you can imagine a Phone Man coming to your parents' home years ago, offering to remove six bogus digits from the pad), and yet the computer industry is as competitive as ever, with a resurgent, ballyhooed Apple making machines in addition to the many Wintel and WinAmD OEMs.

Questions to consider:

What is behind this development? How much commission do OEMs get from these trials? Or, do the makers get the money upfront just for loading it on the machine? In which case, they may make money despite not selling the machine? Who are these craplet vendors? Is Apple behind it? Craplets have undermined the rollout of Vista... are OEMs so upset at Microsoft that they find self-destruction admirable so long as it helps knock down Redmond?

When Microsoft was being sued throughout the late 90s for its 'closed' operating system, OEMs were demanding increased ability to customize Windows. Are craplets what they had in mind? This is the result of the anti-trust settlement: the right to erode customer trust by selling slower machines?