Friday, November 7, 2008

My wish list to social-media sites (and Septa)...

Dear Santa (or Twitter, or Gmail, or Google Maps, Septa, etc),

I've been very good this year, trying out all of your awesome services, most of which are totally free. I've obeyed all the crazy Terms of Service agreements and privacy policies. When I've have problems, complaints, or just simple suggestions, I've used all of your customer satisfaction tools to report them.

But, now I feel like I just need to rant a little, and I hope it won't move me from the nice list over to the naughty list, but I have to. Here are some of my biggest feature/failure requests to some of my favorite companies. If you have solutions, or similar requests, lets build a big list to Santa!

GMail: I only ask one thing...Why can't I assign multiple labels using a single filter? There are other services (i.e. OtherInbox) that are stealing away my bacn because you make it too difficult for me to easily sort and organize the mass volume of emails that come to me.

iGoogle (with canvas view): Your top canvas-view apps are GMail and Google Reader...yet, for me to label, sort, and archive my emails, I still need to launch the sites in their own pages. Why only put half the app in a canvas view? It only wastes my time, adding an extra step to my process.

Twitter: Ya know, actually...you guys have been doing awesome, lately. My biggest complaint lately, is that sms seems sluggish, delaying messages for sometimes hours! (I woke up with my cellphone's inbox, including the 2gb memory card FULL! because it didn't recognize my "off" command.) I know you guys are posting status updates when necessary, it's just frustrating when you post something I've known about first-hand for days. That is all. :)

Oh, and Septa...our transit company for Philadelphia area, and the company I love to hate. I realize you're not even close to participating in social media, but you should. Whoever's got the Septa account on Twitter, you're on the right track (no pun intended), but now that I'm back in the area, I've noticed how silly some of your policies are. Being forced to pay a $2 onboard surcharge for not buying your tickets in advance is fine...except when you close the train stations at noon (or don't open them at all on Sundays). Your refund policy for getting the $2 back, is just a waste of time for both your passengers and your company.

Thanks, Santa!

photo credits (in order of appearance): P Pogo, ivanlanin, rorowe (me)

1 comment:

  1. Add Tweetlater functionality directly to Twitter. There should be no need to have all these aftermarket products on Twitter

    ReplyDelete