понедельник, 20 апреля 2015 г.
uVerizon’s ESPN-Not-Included FiOS Base Package Violates Contract, Says Sports Networkr
4 4 4 9
-
Last week, Verizon announced a new way to purchase its FiOS pay-TV service: Pay as little as $55/month for a core package of basic channels and then add on niche-targeted bundles of 10-17 channels each for an additional charge. One of the biggest differences between this model and the standard basic/premiumc cable offerings is that ESPN — the most expensive basic cable channel — was not included in the core package. The folks at the Disney-owned sports network say Verizon may be not be allowed.
ESPN told the Wall Street Journal if Verizon offers a basic cable package without the network it “would not be authorized by our existing agreements.”
FiOS customers who choose the “Custom TV” route can get ESPN without having to pay more than the base rate, because the base rate allows the subscriber to choose two niche bundles. If the customer picks the sports bundle, they get ESPN (and others). However, the network tells the Journal that this violates terms requiring that ESPN not be placed on a sports-only tier.
Many consumers, especially those with little to no interest in sports, would love to shed ESPN from their basic cable packages. It accounts for more than $5 of the average cable customer’s monthly bill, significantly more than what people pay for other basic cable channels.
Dish’s Sling TV streaming service surprised a lot of people by being able to offer both ESPN and ESPN2 while keeping its monthly cost at $20 for around 20 channels. However, one has to wonder how many other channels Dish could have afforded to squeeze into that package without the cost of ESPN.
Sony’s PlayStation Vue streaming service — which is currently only available in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago — does not include any ESPN channels in any of its tiers of service.
| ribbi |
|
uSpirit Airlines Brings Up Rear In Latest Airline Customer-Satisfaction Scoresr
4 4 4 9
-
Time Warner Cable and merger-partner Comcast have very little company among the lowest-scoring companies on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, but now that ACSI has added Spirit and Frontier to its airline rankings, TWC can no longer claim the honor of having the lowest survey score of all U.S. companies in the Index.
Historically, the industry has been among the worst of the dozens of sectors scored by the ACSI survey, the latest scores show some overall improvement.
The average score for airlines has improved two percentage points from 2014 to a 71 out of a possible 100. Additionally, more airlines are on the positive side of the industry average.
JetBlue once again scored the highest of all airlines with an 81, the only score over the 80-point threshold, and a 2 point improvement over the previous year.
What remains to be seen is how JetBlue’s plan to start charging for checked bags will impact its score, and whether it will break the airline’s streak of four straight years as ACSI champ.
Southwest was the last airline to beat JetBlue, but its 2015 score remained unchanged from 2014. Luckily for the airline, which has been criticized by some travelers and employees for focusing on growth over customer service, a 78 is good enough to keep the airline in second place.
“Southwest appears to have successfully managed its AirTran acquisition, but its expansion into international travel may cause some turbulence ahead,” says Claes Fornell, ACSI Chairman and founder.
ACSI newcomer Alaska Airlines made an above-average debut with a score of 75 for third place. No other airlines scored above the industry average.
The other first-timers on the ACSI scorecard fared much worse. Allegiant, which has recently been hit with a very public labor dispute, earned a score of 65.
Denver-based Frontier Airlines only managed to score a 58 — two points below the nearest veteran carrier — in its first go-around.
As mentioned above, the lowest-scoring carrier in the survey was Spirit. The bargain carrier earned a ASCI-low 54, tying it with Time Warner Cable’s broadband service for the worst result currently on the survey.
“Spirit may offer low fares, but its score reflects its minimalist approach to customer service,” says Fornell.
Of the largest carriers, only Southwest scored above industry average, though Delta did manage to keep pace with the industry as a whole. However, its score of 71 remained unchanged from 2014.
In fact, all three remaining legacy carriers saw zero change in their scores from last year. American scored a below-average 66; this could be viewed as a small positive, as many airlines experience a dip in score immediately after a merger. The combination of American and US Airways didn’t seem to impact the merged airline’s score.
United remains on the bottom of the major carriers, with only a 60 to show for its efforts. While that’s the same score as last year, United’s ACSI score has dropped nearly 16% over the last two decades.
In terms of things that bug travelers the most, the lack of seat comfort tops the list. Airlines only scored 65 in this category, the worst of any customer satisfaction aspect. On the plus side, passengers are happier with in-flight services such as entertainment options. This score increased by 7% to 72.
As an industry, Airlines still only rank above Internet service providers, subscription television and health insurance.
“Airlines are doing a better job of getting travelers to their destinations on time, with less frustration over baggage,” explains ACSI Director David VanAmburg about the slight uptick in the average score.
ACSI also scored a variety of online travel-booking sites, but the effort may not be worth it. The overall industry average has only changed 1.3% since the survey began including these sites. And only two percentage points separate the top-scoring site, Expedia (77), from the lowest score — which happened to be a three-way tie of Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity (75 each).
| ribbi |
|
uTarget.com Still Can’t Handle Heavy Traffic, Crashes During Lilly Pulitzer Launchr
4 4 4 9
-
When Target relaunched its website in 2011, it was a disaster, unable to keep up with the level of demand — especially for limited-time offerings involved big-name designers. Nearly four years later, one would assume that Target had learned from its initial shortcomings, but Target.com crashed again over the weekend as customers rushed to score Lilly Pulitzer products.
The Pulitzer products went on sale Sunday morning on Target.com and in stores and demand was exceedingly high. Stores sold out almost instantly while the website fell to pieces.
The company says the site didn’t technically “crash,” but that Target did make the strategic decision to limit some customers’ access to certain parts of Target.com. The site was also made inaccessible for several minutes to avoid a crash.
The retailer had intended to get the products up on Target.com around 3 a.m. CT on Sunday morning but the launch was delayed around two hours due to the sheer number of people coming to the site. The traffic was similar to what Target.com gets during Black Friday, says the company.
“We never want our guests to be disappointed,” a Target spokesman told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “We share their disappointment with the experience of shopping online. It doesn’t match what we aim to provide them, which is an easy, seamless, consistent experience.”
| ribbi |
|
пятница, 17 апреля 2015 г.
uIs The RadioShack Brand Name Even Worth Anything?r
4 4 4 9
All of RadioShack’s stores have been either shut down or sold and have now re-opened to sell only Sprint phones alongside batteries. Yet the owner of those stores, Standard General, didn’t negotiate to buy the RadioShack brand name along with the stores. It will be auctioned in May along with the rest of the company’s intellectual property, which includes the Radioshack.com URL and their mailing lists. Standard General may bid on the brand name, but they obviously don’t think that it’s very important.If the brand stayed dormant for a few decades until radios were a faint memory and it becomes difficult to remember the time before everyone walked around wearing face and wrist computers, it might become valuable. Right now, it’s not worth much at all. Over at AdAge, Kevin Singer points out that maybe owning the name doesn’t really matter in the long run: a slimmed-down RadioShack business model could focus on selling earbuds, chargers, and batteries for the electronics that we already own instead of pushing new and pricey gadgets. Some electronics purchases aren’t very glamorous, but are very time-sensitive.
Right now, brands with authenticity and history are trendy. Yes, that’s a bit of a paradox. For a really strange example, look at the clothing brand Madewell. A few generations ago, the company was a New England-based maker of workwear like overalls and lined denim jackets. Now it’s a brand of women’s clothing that’s a high-end sibling of J. Crew. The company didn’t spend $20 million on the company’s brand name, of course: a fashion designer paid $125,000 for the trademark back in 2003. The following year, he transferred it to Mickey Drexler, who is now the CEO of J. Crew. Originally, the idea was to revive the Madewell workwear aesthetic, but that plan didn’t work out. Instead of the planned reinterpretation of classic workwear, the company now sells pre-ripped jeans for more than $300. This would probably annoy the Russian immigrant who started the original Madewell during the Great Depression. The brand name and “heritage” of Madewell remains valuable, though, giving the brand a faux authenticity that has nothing whatsoever to do with the original Madewell brand.
Of course, just because a brand is available for cheap, that doesn’t mean it has any value. The name of Circuit City, a big-box electronics chain, sort of lived on in the form of an e-commerce site, but even they gave up, because no one has all that much affection for Circuit City.
RadioShack is different, but the RadioShack that people remember fondly no longer existed by the time the chain declared bankruptcy. People remember the store of the ’70s and ’80s that sold their first computer and maybe a few remote control cars. We can buy consumer electronics just about everywhere now, as long as there’s a mobile data signal.
The RadioShack Name: Worthless or Worthwhile? [AdAge]
| ribbi |
|
uTobacco Company Credits Falling Gas Prices With Rising Salesr
4 4 4 9
Gas prices have fallen signifiantly in the last year or so, which is great news for consumers, if not necessarily for gas stations. There’s another hidden winner in this situation: tobacco companies. Customers who are spending less on gas have more money to spend on cigarettes, and gas stations happen to be a convenient place to buy them.Of course, no one’s going to say, “Hey, it only cost $40 to fill up my tank: time to take up smoking!” Yet having more spending money might lead people who already smoke to buy at a gas station instead of buying in bulk elsewhere. That analysis comes from an actual tobacco company: Reynolds American Inc. released its earnings report, and it showed the first increase in sales since 2004 for that company. (Reynolds makes Camel and Natural American Spirit brands of cigarettes, and Grizzly and Kodiak snuff brands.)
Company representatives don’t actually expect that increase to last, but they do credit falling gas prices with the slight boost in sales.
Think how much tobacco companies could boost their profits if they actually used the free mascot that satirical news program “Last Week Tonight” designed for them!
Smokers Spend Gasoline Savings on Tobacco, Fueling Surprise Gain [Bloomberg]
| ribbi |
|
uIKEA Releases Catalog Of Furniture That Will Charge Your Phone For Your
4 4 4 9
Last month, IKEA announced it would soon be releasing furniture with built-in charging technology so yu could power-up your phones, tablets, and other devices. Now the Swedish home furnishing giant has released a catalog showing off the first of these products that will be available this spring.
The catalog [PDF] released to the press today shows products that fit into three general categories: wireless device charging pads intended to fit in with your home decor, furniture with built-in chargers, and a device that turns everyday furniture into a wireless charger. The retailer is also introducing its own line of wireless charging covers for iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy phones.
If you’re looking to add a pop of color to your home, then you probably want to look elsewhere. The charging furniture and other products are almost exclusively solid white, with the occasional gray or piece of wood present.
In terms of furniture, IKEA is launching two new nightstands — the SELJE ($60) and the NORDLI ($110). Both have a built-in wireless charger in the top surface and a USB charging port.
Then there are three lamps. The VARV floor lamp ($119) is 67″ tall but has a small charging platform attached the pole about halfway up. There is also a much smaller VARV table lamp ($70) with the charging platform for a base. The same goes for the $80 RIGGAD work lamp. Like the nightstands, all the light fixtures have a place to plug in a USB charger.
The standalone charging pads range in price from $28 for a pad that can only charge a single device to $65 for a pad that can charge up to three. As you probably guessed, these each include USB port for charging purposes.
Finally, there’s the $30 JYSSEN charger, which slides into existing cord management slots on some IKEA furniture, but which — with the help of a drill that IKEA will also be selling — can be slotted into any piece of furniture (that you can cut a big enough hole into).
| ribbi |
|