CrossLoop Unveils Helper Marketplace

Back in 2006, I informed you about a new piece of software called Crossloop. As you may recall, they specialize in connecting two computers together for remote management. For example, I could easily connect with my brother in Texas if he needed me to assist with installing software on his computer.

But what happens if my bother needs help and I'm too busy helping my sister, my parents, my brother-in-law, and my uncle? Don't laugh, it could happen!

Earlier this week, they added an interesting component to their business model called the "Helper Marketplace". The idea is that you can connect with other "tech savvy" individuals who are experienced and can help you solve a computer problem. So, when my brother runs into an issue, he can search for a "geek" to log onto his computer and assist him.

As a "techie", I have the option to register with them and get paid for assisting others. I might make a little money and you get your computer fixed... it's a win-win for everyone.

From a business perspective, I'm impressed by CrossLoop's innovation in this area. When I first wrote about them they barely had a concept, and as of today they have served 30 million desktop sharing minutes and received some excellent recognition - CNet's Download.com recognized them one of The 10 Best Downloads for 2007, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal recommended them and InformationWeek recognized them as one of the Top Tech Sites for 2008. That's fantastic for a little start-up with a big idea.

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch?

One of the great things about the current generation of Web-based software is that much of it is available for free. Even fee-based services will frequently offer unpaid plans as a way of letting people try the software, and these free offerings can be quite useful on their own.

All of this is great news for nonprofits, who have limited financial resources and often rely on volunteers who don't share a physical office and can't take advantage of traditional business software. These organizations are uniquely suited to Web applications, which can be used from any computer with Internet access.

Google, with its drive for innovation (and deep pockets), is often a leader in providing terrific Web-based software for free. Recently they launched a portal site that specifically highlights resources for nonprofits.

Noteworthy offerings include:

• Google Docs - Create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations in a Web browser, and easily share them with others for collaborative writing. Supports opening and saving Microsoft Office documents.
• Google Calendar - Sophisticated calendar management that integrates well with other software
• Google Checkout - Collect donations via credit/debit card for free. Google offers a special service for nonprofits that waives all processing fees.
• Google Grants - You can apply for free advertising on Google's network

If you work for or with a nonprofit, any or all of these services could be a huge boost to your productivity. It's great to see corporations like Google supporting people's efforts to give back to the community.

Ask CWS: How do you track customers?

Question:

I own a small company and have a hard time tracking all of the conversations we have with our clients. We have several employees now, and it always seems like one employee tells a customer something and then another employee tells them something else. How do you keep track of communication you have with clients so that everyone is on the same page?

Answer:

This is an excellent question and one that was a challenge for us too (especially as as we grew). As you mention, it was easy at first because I was the only employee and knew everything about each customer. But as you grow, there is no possible way that you can handle every customer request. So, you do the logical thing and hire additional employees and hope that everything will go well.

It won't.

You'll soon realize that you could have done a better job training your new staff. Or maybe that they handled a situation just a little differently than you would have. Or even worse, that something was forgotten and now you have an upset customer that wants to speak to the boss! You think to yourself, "How could this have happened?"

Wouldn't it have been nice to know about this situation BEFORE it turned into a big deal?

Of course it would, and that's why we started using some web-based software called Highrise a while ago. In the most simple terms, it's a website where we track email and phone conversations with a customer. This means that any employee can pull up a customer and see who said what to them, how they communicated, and when.

I know you're probably thinking, "You take the time to re-type every email you send to a customer?" Hardly. Each employee is given a Highrise "drop-box" address that they BCC each outgoing email to. This attaches the email to the customer so that other employees can review it if the need arises.

In addition, Highrise has an RSS feed for all communcation. This means that in Outlook, we can keep an eye on all communication that we've had as a company that day. Want to know if Johnny called Customer XYZ back today? Just review the RSS feed and you'll see everyone that Johnny communicated with that day. It's that easy.

Our Highrise account is affordable at only $49/month. It's an invaluable tool as it includes information about everyone that associates with CWS. Highrise offers a wide variety of plans based on the number of contacts and emplyees you have. Check it out.

Lessons from a 3rd Grader

Back in December, we heard about a website called DonorsChoose.org which has the goal of helping teachers fund projects for their classroom. The concept is rather simple:

1. Teachers ask for materials and supplies for a project
2. Donors log on and give to projects they find compelling
3. Students learn and provide personal feedback to the donor.

During our search, we found a class of local 3rd graders that needed a few hundred dollars for storing their supplies. The project was already partially funded, so we decided to top it off.

Today, we received a thank you packet in the mail from the class. I say "packet" becuase it included not only a letter from the teacher, but also each of the kids. They told us how much they appreciated our donation and explained how helpful the jabberwockies (that's what they call them) are. Even better, our thank you note was the first letter that these kids have ever typed on a computer.

We think that's pretty cool.

If you're interesting in experiencing something like this for yourself, there are several teachers in Rochester that are looking for funding right now. Searching for a project is easy as you can search by state, school, grade, subject, and much more. Check it out.

How to Implement a Site Search

Wouldn't it be nice for people to search your entire site with minimal effort on your end? You might be thinking this would require a substantial amount of time or money, or maybe even both. I assure you this is not the case. Maybe you already have a search feature for your site, but you are unhappy with the results that come up. Whatever the case may be, if you are looking for a reliable search tool I would suggest you check out Google Custom Search.

Google Custom Search is...

1. Easy to add to your site
2. Customizable for advanced users
3. Free

Rather than me boring you by telling you how it works, try it out for yourself by using this blog's custom search feature (in the right column towards top).



You can implement a search tool just like this on your own site without writing a single line of code. Google will generate it all for you, and you can get set up in just a couple of minutes. If you need help adding search or other tools to your site, just drop us a line at support (at) cws (dot) net.

LiveLeak vs. YouTube

There's a new kid in town.

It's another video-based website like YouTube.com but it specializes in video that might not be popular with some folks. After a few clicks on some of the "recently made popular" videos I can understand why. Unlike Youtube, which bans violent content, LiveLeak allows controversial clips of war, conflict and death.

This means you can find disturbing videos of Iraqi insurgents throwing grenades at humvees, a baby playing with a cobra snake (below), or even a crazy person who throws herself at a car. In short, LiveLeak is reality TV at its best.


Baby plays with Cobra snake
As a father, I felt a knot in my stomach after watching the video of the King Cobra. However, after reading the comments I realized that the snake was most likely de-fanged, which renders it harmless. In America we let our children play with dogs, in India they play with Cobra snakes. Got it.

It will be intersting to see if this new website will gain momentum in the near future. According to CNN, it is a privately held company with little funding and most of the founders still work elsewhere during the day. Wait, that sounds a lot like YouTube just a couple years before it was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion.

Hey Doc, Don't Kill Me

According to Time Magazine, sloppy handwriting kills over 7,000 people annually. Even worse, 1.5 million people are injured by the mistakes made while quickly scribbling abbreviations and dosage information on prescriptions.

I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable to me.

There have been so many advances in technology that this type of behavior should not be tolerated anymore, in any part of our country. After some quick research, I was able to verify that our very own Mayo Clinic has been using an electronic prescription system which "types out" orders for several years now. I would be interested to know if Olmsted Medical Center has a similar policy.

The article goes on to discuss a new free web-based service which will allow doctors to write electronic prescriptions for free:

The National e-prescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) will offer doctors access to eRx Now, a Web-based tool that physicians can use to write prescriptions electronically, check for potentially harmful drug interactions and ensure that pharmacies provide appropriate medications and dosages. "Thousands of people are dying, and we've been talking about this problem for ages," says Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, a Chicago-based health care technology company, that initiated the project. "This is crazy. We have the technology today to prevent these errors, so why aren't we doing it?"

I agree 100%. In the most technologically advanced country in the world, nobody should have to die (or be prescribed Viagra for a migraine) because Dr. Scribbly never learned to write.

Alan De Keyrel = "Person of the Year"

It's official... Time Magazine has selected Alan De Keyrel as the 2006 Person of the Year.

Well, sort of.

As much as I really like the ring of "person of the year" next to my name, it didn't happen exactly like that. What they really said was that "YOU" are the person of the year and I took it personally. Let me explain.

America loves its solitary geniuses-its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses-but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Isn't that cool? The article goes on to talk about Web2.0 as a "massive social experiment" with no clear purpose in sight. In the meantime, we all continue blogging, podcasting, and commenting back and forth. Many of us spend countless hours developing "thoughtful content" with no real monetary gain or benefit. We simply do it to participate in this "social experiment" we now call Web2.0.

For what it's worth... we'll give ourselves a pat on the back and keep on blogging. We started this blog almost a year ago with no clear vision or purpose other than to entertain and inform. As of today, "Everything Internet" blog is ranked in the top 100,000 of all blogs (15 million are in the United States alone). It's nice to be recognized every now and then and every blogger should be proud of his/her contribution to this "experiment".

Snap Previews- Flashy vs. Functional?

You may have noticed a new feature that we've implemented on a very limited basis. The free service is called "Snap Previews" and it allows you to create dynamic links with a pop-up preview of the link. Seting up the feature on your website is a snap (no pun intended), only requiring the addition of a few lines of code.

As designers, we're torn whether this feature is a good idea. On one hand, it's kind of flashy and cool. On the other hand, the large preview window can be a distraction, clunky to use and not very functional. If you're a designer, you understand striving for a balance between functional and cool.

We first displayed Snap Previews earlier this month and have used it very sparingly ever since. In retrospect, this must mean that we've subconciously concluded that the "coolness" factor didn't outweigh the loss in functionality. Either that... or we've been too lazy to add the extra line of code. :)

The flashy vs. functional debate of "Snap Preview" has me torn. To add to my confusion, I continue to see other popular blogs heavily using Snap Preview on nearly all links. So, the question must be asked... is this feature just flashy or is it really functional?