TinyURL and eMessage

Well, it was inevitable that TinyURL and eMessage would be mentioned in the same breath.  Here’s the issue: when processing email, we noticed that sometimes our URLs are getting truncated.  The service TinyURL was developed, in part, to allow URLs to be posted when text real-estate was at a premium (e.g. on Twitter or SMS.  I’m at http://twitter.com/azpunster in case you’re inteterested.)  Now, I believe that TinyURL is simply a redirector to the target site and the site uses some kind of encoding to reference a key to the actual URL.  The site has explicitly said it cannot be used for SPAM, but they haven’t elaborated what the actual limits of the service.  But, no matter.  If we couldn’t use TinyURL, I’m sure we could develop our own TinyURL-type service which would accomplish the same thing in house.  I’m wondering what other emailers have run into the same kinds of limits?

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Labels

Okay, I’m going to weigh in on a topic that’s been interesting to me.  I see the graphic “Very Liberal” often among my friends on Facebook.  Now, I don’t have a problem with this, because I consider myself a “Moderate” and, to me, we *all* have points where we are liberal and points where we are conservative.  But, I’m not quite sure what to make of “Very Liberal.”  The most obvious topics where people would be “Very Liberal” would be legalization of drugs (although I don’t know a person who thinks they’d want their doctor, lawyer, bus driver, pilot or financial advisor on drugs, at least while on duty); sexual orientation (although, while supportive of their kids’ decision, I don’t know anyone who would actively encourage their kids to actually *be* gay); or maybe respect for all religions (although, again, I doubt there would be much support for religions which encourage decidedly un-liberal practices such as animal sacrifices, fgm, or forced conversion of non-believers).  As a label, I suspect that “Very Liberal” is about as useful as “Moderate” (or even “Conservative” or “Very Conservative”) since the topics we’re “Very Liberal” about still have limits.  As for me, I’ll stick with “Moderate” since it seems (to me at least) to be the most genuine.  Better yet, maybe we should encourage our Facebook friends to drop the labels altogether.  “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” says the bard.

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Tags: Labels

Quick post today

Not much new going on the eMessage and Campaign fronts today.  But, it appears that Twitter is down (yeah, you could knock me over with a feather.)  Oh well, I’m optimistic that they’ll get their act together soon

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Tags: twitter

Apples are from Europe, PCs are from America

I was talking with my Sister-in-law, Sharon, over the weekend about the difference between Apples and PCs and my conclusion is that Apples follow a European convention.  The Europeans expect a level of service in things that we Americans might find annoying and even invasive.  Take the butler, for instance.  In Old world societies, having a butler would be considered either a grand luxury or at least the hallmark of a true gentleman.  In European socialism, then, the state acts like a butler who provides services that allow you, as a citizen, to focus on what is truly important (such as spending time with your family, etc.)  In America, we consider having the state make our decisions to be invasive and meddlesome.  We take great pride in making our own decisions on how to invest our money, which insurance to select, how to care for our aged or infirmed, and we embrace our independence (sometimes choosing a lower cost at the expense of quality.)
In the same way, people who choose Apple are also choosing a platform that, while limiting your selection, provides a high level of quality (just like having a butler or caddy).  You’re somewhat restrained in making choices, but then you’re prevented from making as many bad ones (fewer viruses as well as fewer software packages.)  In the “wild, wild, west” of PCs, you are more likely to find yourself with choice, but you’re more susceptible to making bad choices.  In the end, it’s up to the individual as to which is best for them.  I, for one, have both PCs and Macs at home, both Zunes and iPods, and, I expect to have both an iPhone and a Windows Smart Phone, soon.  As a political moderate, how could anyone expect less

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DVORAK keyboard

I was talking about the Dvorak keyboard this morning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_keyboard).  I don’t know why the QWERTY keyboard is persistent other than inertia.  I liken it to the metric system which has also failed to take off here in the USA. We’re supposed to be this center of innovation, but at the same time I guess we still are set in our ways.  My guess is that we’re efficient *enough* with QWERTY that we don’t see a reason to migrate and we won’t without a concerted effort.
Just a random thought for the day

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Asking the question behind the question

Okay, I was in Bryce’s Lights-Out Affinium Campaign session at MIS on Tuesday and I asked if there was any way to get the full campaign name to a trigger variable.  We have established a convention for the campaign name and I wanted to pass it to the trigger script so I could parse it and retrieve our promotion code (this is what we did for eMessage 3.7.1 triggers.)  Well, Bryce couldn’t answer my question (I get the <CAMPCODE> and <SESSIONNAME> { flowchart name } but not the <CampName>).  However, I could pass the promo code in as a command-line argument, assign it to a user variable and pass the user variable back to the trigger script.  This saves me from having to parse the campaign name.  So, this is an example of asking the question behind the question and finding what may end up being a more elegant solution.

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Tags: eMessageCampaign Affinium Unica Trigger

Today in Ironic Marketing

“Free $500.00 WAL*MART Gift Card - Participation required.”  You keep using that word (Free). I dunna think you know what it means.

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Tags: ironicmarketing

Nutritional Information via SMS

Here’s a link to a LifeHacker article which says Diet.com will post nutritional information.  I just sent [mcdonalds big mac sandwich] to [34381] using a mobile phone to test it out.  Unfortunately, they must be overloaded since I haven’t gotten an answer yet.

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I know why people host WordPress on their own websites

While I’m grateful for the free wordpress account, I think people want more flexibility (i.e. add-ins) than they can get with the hosted (free or paid) sites.  For now, FUBI will continue to be hosted here, but in the future, I may consider moving it to a different URL.  Keep that in mind (both of you readers

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Olive Garden Birthday Song Revealed

Well, it took a couple of days, but I finally found out that the music behind the Olive Garden birthday song (Buona Festa) is actually called “Feniculi, Fenicula” and it comes from a musical written in Italy during the late 1800’s.  Apparently, you can find it on YouTube with a performance by Pavarotti.  My son can now stop calling it the “Kriketskibar” song and bug cleanup in the house will take on a more mundane sense.  Oh, the shame of it all

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Tags: olivegarden birthday song buona festa feniculi fenicula