Recently in Online Commerce Category
I ordered a nice new toy from Komplett over the weekend and got a email with a "Track And Trace" code for DHL Europlus. I went to www.dhl.ie, saw a nice DHL Fast Track search box on the top right and entered my code. I got a page
entitled "Tracking Good Afternoon" (at 6 in the evening) and search
boxes all over the place. Besides not looking well in Firefox, it didn't show the code I had just entered anywhere.
I put my code in the top search box (Air Express), pressed search, and up popped a box saying entitled "DHL Road Express Shipment" telling me:
The point of this rant? Their system was smart enough to realise that the code I entered was a European Road Express TrackNet code. Why didn't it simply redirect to the proper page from the main page rather than carrying me into a page with multiple search boxes? Instead of a popup explaining where I need to go, why doesn't it redirect to the right page? Or even a link to the right page in the popup? Was there any UI testing done at all on the site?
I was talking to someone who once worked in a company bought by DHL. I was told that their biggest problem is that as they are buying up smaller local companies to do local deliveries, they are aren't integrating the new IT systems properly. This does explain why the tracking mightn't as great as it should be. However it doesn't explain why they can't add a small bit of intelligence to their site.
I put my code in the top search box (Air Express), pressed search, and up popped a box saying entitled "DHL Road Express Shipment" telling me:
You may have entered a DHL Road Express Licence Plate Number / Identcode Number.The main page also had a section entitled "DHL Road Express Parcel Tracking", so out of interest I tried the code there and got the same popup. I then clicked the European Road Express TrackNet as they wanted, and figured out how to add my code and submit as needed. The tracking as it turns out is pretty dire. According to them, my package is in Tilberg, NL since yesterday morning. It better be wrong!
Please use the European Road Express Parcel Tracknet below to track this shipment.
The point of this rant? Their system was smart enough to realise that the code I entered was a European Road Express TrackNet code. Why didn't it simply redirect to the proper page from the main page rather than carrying me into a page with multiple search boxes? Instead of a popup explaining where I need to go, why doesn't it redirect to the right page? Or even a link to the right page in the popup? Was there any UI testing done at all on the site?
I was talking to someone who once worked in a company bought by DHL. I was told that their biggest problem is that as they are buying up smaller local companies to do local deliveries, they are aren't integrating the new IT systems properly. This does explain why the tracking mightn't as great as it should be. However it doesn't explain why they can't add a small bit of intelligence to their site.
Michele posted about the fun and games with Domainnews and copyright two months ago. Domainnews seem to have finally realised and their "Chief Editor" has replied claiming innocence. Unfortunately he still does not seem to realise what he has done wrong, and he still hasn't as much as apologised yet. In fact Michele had to send a DMCA Takedown notice to Google before anything was done.
For fun and giggles I had a look at the Domainnews site and spotted a post attributed to "press" which is a copy of the domains.asia press release here. According to Domainnews: "press is one of our editors and not someone we are trying to credit this to". What's even more fun is that the DotAsia press release is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution License (look at the icon at the bottom left of DotAsia's press release) which probably means that DotAsia would at least like a link back.
Even if they didn't have the CC license, it is just a common courtesy to link back to the originating site, even for a press release. There is no point posting about DotAsia starting a new program, if the reader can't click on a link and have a look around to get more details. The whole whole point of the Internet was/is to share information.
Due to the lack of online information about the Carlow Wifi project, I did a quick drive around Carlow with a laptop and USB GPS dongle. Using Kismet I was able to pick up six networks with the essid of "Carlow Town low cost WiFi Access".
I was lacking an external antenna for the laptop wireless so I could have missed more than a few, however I did manage to pick up eighty three wireless networks in a ten minute drive around town!
I have created a quick Google Map with the locations of the six Carlow Town access points which can be accessed here. When I manage to find my wireless card with external antenna, I'll do a proper drive around the town and put up the results.
As Damien has already mentioned, E|Net announced a new Wifi network in Carlow today. According to the article Brisknet, Aptus and Bitbuzz are going to be the initial providers of Wifi access in the town.
I have been fairly unimpressed with the details available online about the wireless network though. There is absolutely no information on the E|Net site that I can see, not even a mention in the News sidebar.
Brisket's coverage maps only cover Roscommon, Mayo and Galway. There is no mention of Carlow on their site at all.
Bitbuzz is a bit better. They mention the Fairgreen shopping centre in their list of hotspots, but that's it.
Aptus (What a site!!) have nothing on their site about coverage in Carlow, or about anything for that matter!
The whole project to get Wifi in the town is a great idea, and I look forward to when it is actually useful. However the announcement that it has gone live seems to be very premature, one hot-spot in a shopping center is not a municipal WiFi network.
One of my pet annonyances when browsing around on the net is sites where you have to register for no good reason. I have enough useless accounts as it is. What's even more annonying is when they return a different result to the search engine bots so that more than just the registration page is indexed.
A prime example of this is Unison.ie. When searching for current Irish news it usually ranks fairly high on Google, however all the pages require you register first before you view them. The registration gives no advantage to people like me who just want to a quick look at the latest news. I suspect that I'm not alone and that lots of people will just go back and look for another site.
Unison's simple user agent checking makes it very easy to get in unmolested though. The User Agent Switcher Plugin for Firefox allows you to easily set exactly what user agent you want your browser to appear as. The GoogleBot isn't in the list of Useragents available, but it is easily added. Switch to GoogleBot as your useragent, and magically you will have full access to the Unison site.
I know that Unison will probably close this hole within a few days now, but it's nice to be able to make a point. According to Google's Webmaster Help Center "crawler only" pages are a thing to avoid. I would class pages that react differently to GoogleBot as "crawler only" pages.
If Unison want to require people to register in order to get nice features such as customization, then grand, I have no problem with that. However, how much traffic are they missing out on by having the register page for everyone? And how many advertising impressions are they missing out on? I know that if I go to the BBC News site I will usually end up going to other stories which interest me, which means more page impressions on the BBC site. More impressions, more chance of clicking on ads, more money!
In this day and age it is senseless to have such stupid restrictions on a site like Unison that has enough content to be a massive earner on advertisments alone.
Update: I somehow managed to forget the user agent I'm using, it is:
Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
Adam has pointed out that SEC are planning on planning on taking action to combat the pump and dump spams doing the rounds. So far trading in 35 companies has been suspended in the aptly named "Operation Spamalot".
It is a logical step to take in order to curb the amount of such spams going out, however you would have to wonder how long before spammers twist the situation to their advantage? Blackmail anyone?
Last January, I headed to the Godfather Pizza website to view their menu and order my uber-healthy supper. When I attempted to call the number for Godfathers Carlow on their website, I got nowhere. I checked a " Take-Away Express" booket that was in the house and got the right number. The number on the website is (059) 941 6666 while the actual number is (059) 914 6666. Being a nice lad :) once I ordered the Pizza, I emailed the only email contact I could see on the site (info@....).
I got a reply back saying that the information had been passed to Marketing Department, and I promptly forgot all about it. I'm just after going to the site to see the menu again, and the number is STILL wrong. I would have thought that something as simple as swapping 2 digits could be accomplished in 2 minutes, never mind 2 months.
I have no idea how much traffic Godfather Pizza get to their website, but seeing as Dominos have recently started taking orders online, I'm betting that the internet using public is a sizable percentage of their customer base. Godfather Pizza don't have the facility to order a pizza online, so the only contact you can have with them if you want a delivery is by phone. How much business have they lost by not having proper contact details on their site?
Update Mar 22th: Looks like the number has been changed. I'm not sure when, but the current last modified time for the page is: 03/20/2007 11:20:18 AM
