Web 2.What?

I think we all agree, for the average consumer, Web 2.0 is a wonderful place. If you experience an inappropriate or unacceptable customer service experience with a brand, you can easily go online and complain about it. Most responsible companies will monitor and try to reach out and rectify the situation. Consumer control. It’s fabulous and the way things should be!

Yet, have you noticed… Some companies still get away with bloody murder? I hate to name names, but at this point I think it’s deserved. I mean a quick visit to Google and it’s easy to find hundreds–if not thousands– of dissatisfied Rogers customers–whether you’re looking at its wireless, television, internet or home phone services.

(Background: I have been a Rogers customer several times, and have had NOTHING but bad customer service experiences. Specifically when dealing with third-party partners: First I had a dispute with Visa and Rogers and spent the day calling each back and forth only to get “It’s Visa’s fault … Call them back!” then Visa saying “It’s Rogers! Call them back!”. Now for some crazy reason I bought and returned a Rogers cell phone from Best Buy… Guess what’s happening??)

Sorry about that. Had to vent a little, but I don’t want to turn this into a bitch-fest. The point is if were to do some online research about Rogers, you’d find TONS of bad reviews, complaints, and dissatisfied customers.

Now it’s a good thing there’s other options out there for your cell/telephone/internet/cable needs….Right?

Wait…Let’s do a couple searches first… Bell Canada? Telus? Yikes, let’s check Rogers out again. It’s a sad, sad picture for Canadians. There’s no monopoly anymore, but as long as all the big providers keep the same bad level of customer service up, everything will be just fine (for them). As consumers, we just jump from one to the other in a miserable state of dissatisfaction.

Honestly, I don’t know what the solution is. But I’m running out of options. And patience.
On a side note: Virgin Mobile entered the Canadian wireless market not too long ago, yet hasn’t made much of an impact. I was surprised given the lack of contracts, and its no bologne policies. Why don’t you have a Virgin Mobile phone? Why don’t I?? Let’s explore that later…

Have you checked out all the browser bling Firefox has lately?

There’s always new stuff going up, and very cool stuff too. Today when loading up my new computer, I threw on the StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter tool bars you know… All the usual.

However, then I searched around, just to see what’s out there. Now what I think will likely become my favourite and most useful tool is BlogRovr. You can individually add blog feeds you like, or upload your OPML file from your reader (might sound complicated-but it’s dead easy. In GoogleReader I just clicked ‘manage subscriptions’ and then ‘Import/Export’ and then BAM! Good to go…)

So anyway, BlogRovr ‘fetches’ your feeds and pops up relevant blog activity when you visit a new page. For example I went on to Twitter, and the tray appears in the bottom corner of the screen with three blog posts talking about Twitter. If you’re a information junkie, distraction-loving multi-tasker like me, it’s pure genius!

It’s only been a day, so I’m still in the honeymoon phase, but I’ll give you an update in a few weeks or so.

This is social media at its strongest!

I logged into my Twitter account today to see this eye-catching promo box saying “Super Tuesday Google + Twitter” I clicked through to discover this:

If you can’t see what’s going on too well, I’ll break it down:

The right column shows the percentages of votes by state and the leader is highlighted. You can switch it up between Democrats and Republicans.

Underneath that and the notice about joining up with Twitter is an aggregate list of news coverage of the election.

And then the coolest part, comes in the larger right-side panel: Where every time someone ‘tweets’ about the election, it dynamically appears on the map at that person’s physical location.

It’s social, it’s community-oriented (and in this case, Google is tapping into Twitter’s loyal community base) and it’s providing valuable information to the masses.

I’m officially impressed!