| LED Digest 1895: Taking the High Road with Client Problems |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... November 16, 2004 Issue #1895 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Final results --== Schedule Comments ==-- ~ Brett ~ Robin ~ Dave ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Conflicts of Interest ==-- ~ Lloyd Richmond ~ Shari Thurow --== SMTP Servers & Altering the 'From' Field ==-- ~ Kevin Jackson ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Why Firefox? ==-- ~ Wes Hopper ~ Ann Richmond ~ Mike Banks Valentine --== Competent Patent Attorney Needed ==-- ~ Brad Waller ======== NEW ==================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, The final tally is in... no surprises here, you're in favor of the 3 day schedule by a fairly wide margin: In favor of 3 day schedule: 47 In favor of 5 day schedule: 15 So that'll be our new schedule. A couple of thoughts: - a few comments mentioned that when a 'hot' topic comes up and the posts warrant it, to do a special issue. I think this is a great idea. - there have been some interesting remarks and I'm going to publish them in small batches this week. They'll be in no particular order, and I've removed last names in favor of anonymity. Thanks, Adam ------------------------ From: Brett Vote: five day schedule On the whole, I prefer the five day schedule. Was just thinking of this as received today's LED. I find I forget to expect the LED on the current schedule, and consequently, I find I read less of them. Just my thoughts: All is perception . . . go for consistency, and regularity. Often, the biggest (most important) things in our lives, are the things we don't really think about. As for the current three day schedule: If I'd stopped receiving it, I may not even notice it for weeks. If it arrived more consistently, and regularly (like clockwork), it would be missed immediately. Cheers!! Great work! Brett ------- next comment ------- From: Robin We like the "Summer Schedule" just fine. LED has always been about quality over quantity, so why not maintain the current status quo? Many thanks - and keep up the great work, Robin ------- next comment ------- From: Dave I would keep the three day schedule. Five days can be tough to keep up with it. If I am lucky I get a chance to read it once a week anyway. I think that this has become one of the better resources for staying in touch with the industry and look forward to reading it. As a relative newcomer to the web world I have gained valuable insight from most of your posts. You have been doing a great job with it and keep up the good work. Dave ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Lloyd Richmond Subject: Conflicts of interest > [My client's] opposition... saw [their website, which I developed] > and immediately contacted me about designing them a website. > Today my original client rang to say... that he felt I was in a very > bad "conflict of interest" position. - Mark Medlicott, LED 1893 Mark, Take the higher road. You describe the problem as a potential loss of income. Since either choice may cause the same problem, treat your initial client the way you would want to be treated if placed in a similar situation. It seems obvious to me that your initial client placed his trust in you. If you lose that, will you lose more than money? Explain your standard(s) to the new prospective client. Ask for other non-competitive bids. If he will not abide by such, he'll be one of your worst clients anyway. Forget about uncommitted future business he may parade in front of you. It will take care of itself. Concentrate on what is VITAL in business - trust and integrity. Yep, the high road is best! Lloyd Richmond ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: Conflict of interest Hi all- This is in response to Mark Medlicott's post in LED # 1893 regarding conflicts of interest. I would like to share our company's perspective on the topic. First, from a financial standpoint, I understand where he is coming from. At one time, we were a start-up company as well. What made us really change our stance was another agency. This particular agency absolutely does not market competitors. So, in order for us to remain their exclusive Web design firm, we had to agree to not market to their competitors. We've had to turn down individual jobs and partnerships with other agencies. The result? We are still this agency's exclusive design firm for over 6 years. We still get a steady flow of work from them. We are very fortunate. Another situation happened about the same time we chose to partner with this agency. As a search engine marketer, I would get clients in the same industry. For example, I got a number of plastic surgeons. I decided that one per (U.S.) state is not too conflicting, since someone looking for plastic surgery in Minnesota probably won't be looking for a plastic surgeon in Georgia. Was I ever wrong. I could not believe it when I saw 5 of my client sites ranked in positions 1 through 5 in all of the search engines. And you know what happened? The client whose site had position #5 wanted to know how to get in position #1, and so on and so forth. In other words, I was competing with myself. I was quite uncomfortable explaining to my clients that I was marketing plastic surgeons in other states. That discomfort also helped me make the decision not to market competitors. However, there is a flip side to this stance, admittedly. If a current client is not paying you enough to not do a competitor's site, then should you feel free (guilt-free even) to take on the competitor? Some people at my firm say yes, especially if we haven't worked on their site in years. Some people at my firm say no. To remain ethical, they prefer to retain one client or the other. Personally? I remember that whole top 5 positions scenario, and I do not want to do it again. And, of course, we honor the long-term agency agreement. By remaining a bit ethical, I've never had it bit me in the behind years later. A bit tough from a financial standpoint when we were starting out, but I do not regret my decision. Sincerely, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director Grantastic Designs, Inc. http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/ ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Kevin Jackson Subject: SMTP servers > Our current web hosting company does not allow us to > modify the from field. They insist that we send out all > email with a valid email address from within our domain. - Kevin Houston, LED 1892 This is a huge issue with more and more clients these days, and I think it is an opportunity for the ISPs. I have dozens of clients who would happily pay for email services that were reliable, service focused, and not "premium-priced" such as some of the enterprise focused services out there, who will not take on customers with less than several thousand email addresses. The situation developed because ISPs were falling like leaves as the industry grew, and it became a royal PITA to have to change your email address and let all your clients and contacts know every time your ISP went under, or service became so bad you had to leave. Never mind the cost of lost business because the potential customer used an old email address. In response, people started registering domain names, and hosting them at dedicated hosting providers, which allowed them to change connectivity providers (ISPs) without suffering any interruption of service through their domain name. This leads to a situation where you are connected through one ISP, who is essentially acting only as a conduit, as you connect to your hosting provider to both send and receive email, by customizing the server settings in your email software. The biggest challenge here is that the hosting provider really has to work hard to ensure that you are who you say you are when sending email, because all SMTP requests look the same from the open Internet. If they are too lax, they risk becoming a haven for spammers to use them to send out their nasty filth. The hosting providers are reacting by limiting the amount of email you can send through their SMTP service, no matter how good a client you are. Others react by simply not providing SMTP services at all. As a result, many people use their connectivity providers' SMTP services to send out email, and they are reacting with the same type of behaviour as the hosting providers. Some even block use of Port 25, the default port used for SMTP services, others parse your outgoing email and react by stopping messages where the reply-to address is not one of theirs. Businesses need to send email. They sometimes *gasp* need to communicate with several hundred customers at once! My customers: trade associations, need to communicate with thousands of members at once. This is not spam, and they all have documented opt-in procedures, but so-called "service" providers could not be bothered to verify the difference. They all have strongly worded service agreements in place already that say in effect: "you spam, we cut you off". So put your money where your mouth is! If someone is spamming, investigate and cut them off - or don't if it proves legitimate, but throttling people's email use is just encouraging customer rage and an active search for better service providers. As anybody knows who has gone through this, or supported a customer through this, the ISPs and the hosting providers are reacting with widely varying degrees of paranoia, anti-competitive practices and ignorance. The technical challenges are not that great, and the service provider who is first off the mark with this type of service could rapidly dominate this very lucrative market. Cheers Kevin Jackson Biz-Zone Internet Group Inc. http://www.biz-zone.com kjackson, biz-zone.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Wes Hopper Subject: Firefox Browser questions > I'd like to put out an open call for practical feedback about > the Firefox browser... What are the real and practical > advantages of Firefox, besides just sticking it to Gates > & Co.? What are the disadvantages.? - Dirk Johnson, LED 1894 I have one primary reason for using Firefox. I have used Netscape / Mozilla variants for my primary browser since 1995, and in that period of time I have only had to install one (1) critical security update outside of normal version upgrades. I find Firefox fast, intuitive, convenient and secure. I maintain a current version of MSIE to test HTML against when I update a site, and to use for those sites whose html is non-standard and MS specific, and will not function in Firefox. I have never found any functional or performance reason to use MSIE as primary, even without the security considerations. Wes Hopper Horn Creek Productions LLC www.horncreek.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ann Richmond Subject: Firefox The key issue here is open source which means it is created and maintained through community development. Over time this will significantly out perform any product maintained by a single source. Doesn't matter what product and what vendor. This is the future of all software development..... Power to the people. (sorry, I just couldn't resist) Ann Richmond www.randrinc.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Mike Banks Valentine Subject: Firefox > 1) What are the real and practical advantages of Firefox... 1) Many people simply like it better and don't need reasons other than to avoid the security nightmare that is Internet Explorer. Why wouldn't you simply try Firefox and see how it feels and works for you? Unless you have tiny storage space on your machine, you should have plenty of memory and power to run multiple browsers. > 2) What are the disadvantages? 2) Disadvantages include strange display of pages designed in Microsoft Front Page. Javascript dropdown menus sometimes display misaligned, making it impossible to click those dropdown links. Some VBScript functions and javascript forms handlers mean non-working links and form fields so you can't type in some text fields or click some buttons. Again, a Microsoft screw-up that shows they simply don't care about web standards and users of other browsers. This problem shows up for those of us on Mac's and using the Apple "Safari" browser as well. Also, Google toolbars have hobbled functionality and the PageRank bar is missing. I have IE 6 available for use on my PC only on sites the other browsers don't work for or when I want to use the Google toolbar. Thank goodness they are developing a Google toolbar for Mac OSX. Some day they may do away with Front Page and we won't need to use IE for anything. ;-) > 3) I have read that Firefox allows third-party development of > "plug-ins". Are there any of these available now, what do they > do, and where is a reliable repository of them? Does anyone > vet these for spyware / viruses? 3) Anyone worried about spyware / viruses has reason enough to avoid Microsoft products, which have proven themselves more vulnerable to those problems than most alternatives. The plug-ins are widely available and there are hundreds of them. You can do a bit of research at any search engine and find out about the plug-ins you are interested in, same as any software add-ons you use. It's no secret and bad news travels fast on the web and you can find out if anyone has had problems related to those plug-ins. All reason enough to stay away from IE. I wholeheartedly support and promote FireFox while preferring Apple Safari to Firefox. Mike Banks Valentine http://realityseo.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Brad Waller Subject: Patent attorney > Can someone refer me to an excellent patent attorney based in > the U.S. who has experience in computer software related patents? - Sumantra Roy, LED 1893 Our main Intellectual Property attorney is David Makous at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith http://lbbslaw.com We have been a satisfied client for 10 years and have used him or one of his associates for Trademark and Patent related work over the years. Brad Waller http://adjungle.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." - Anon. |
