racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Acer is apparently anticipating huge demand for their upcoming Aspire One ultraportable (earlier announced). I’ve made a few calls and Acer said the Aspire One will hit the retail shops third week of July. It also seems there are already stocks in some shops here in Manila (like the Acer concept store in SM Megamall Cyberzone).

However, judging from what I’ve read on the TipidPC forums, it seems Acer is intent on moving slower-selling products along with the Aspire One, since they will only sell X number of Aspire One units with Y number of other models. This is from the point of view of retailers. So does this mean the Aspire One will come in limited stocks?

Also, reports say that the SSD version of the Aspire One is unbearably slow on Windows XP, which might be a deal breaker for most consumers, who are more Windows-savvy. For those of us who are into exploring, well, there are other options, like possibly Ubuntu (or some variant thereof).

Things are getting a bit more exciting for laptop / ultraportable aficionados (like someone I know). Let’s wait for the Dell E series to come this August!

I don’t believe I’ve publicly announced this before (though I have put in discreet notices). If you’re interested in sponsoring this blog, then sponsorship starting September is open. You can purchase the entire 728×90px header space and/or the rightmost column 160×600px vertical space (to replace the adsense banners) for a nominal amount. I’m also introducing 125×125 buttons and text links on the rightmost sidebar. Discounts apply to volume—more than one ad or more than one month.

Google Pagerank is 5/10, with EatonWeb overall metric of 38.38%. Daily readership is at about 1,500 uniques with approximately 4,000 daily page views. The site has 220 RSS feed subscribers.

You can contact me in private for the rates, and to negotiate. If you’re interested in sites with wider coverage, I can also offer you ad spots on several Splashpress Media properties, including the Blog Herald, Tubetorial, Performancing, 901am and the like. More expensive, of course, but given the rate and quality of readership there, value is justified.

I’m not selling my soul. It’s just that while AdSense and the few TLA ads still continue to help pay the bills, I prefer having more control over advertising. And selling direct is always best—it’s cheaper for the advertiser, and I don’t have to split proceeds with the middleman.

Update: The masthead banner has been taken. I’ve got myself an excellent long-term deal for that one.

If you pay for something, should you still see advertisements?

This is one question that has been looming on my mind since the first time I ranted out about advertisements on Sky Cable a couple of years back.

When you pay for a premium Flickr account, do you get ads? No? When I bought myself a Flickr Pro account, the promise was for ads to disappear unless it was absolutely necessary to display advertisements. And Yahoo!/Flickr made good on their promise.

What about SkyCable? No.

Take Nickelodeon, AXN, Cartoon network, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel. All of these channels that feature ads for their own shows during breaks now also feature ads for Sky, Home Cable, and affiliated companies like Sky Internet.

I mean I pay PhP 800 plus (~$16 +) per month for a Sky Cable Gold subscription, and I expect nothing but quality ad-free programming. But what do I get? Advertisements.

Close to a decade ago, several of my dad’s high school friends who migrated to the US came home to the Philippines for a reunion of sorts. They were here to introduce a new web-based business system they were part of, called SkyBiz. This was actually a multi-level marketing system for selling web space and web builder packages (remember, that was the late 1990’s; think Web 0.9). We bought in, thinking of the great opportunities. I was, after all, techie-oriented. Dad was business-minded (ten years after, we’re a little of both!).

It turned out the business was a scam—a classic pyramid scam. True, a great number of MLM and direct-selling based businesses are legitimate (and big business worldwide), but this was just not one of them.

Distribution of $20 million dollars in consumer redress will begin in the near future for victims of SkyBiz, an alleged massive international pyramid operation based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The money for consumer redress is part of a settlement between the pyramid’s promoters and the Federal Trade Commission, which charged that their scheme violated federal laws. The settlement also bars the defendants from participating in pyramid schemes in the future, and bars them from misrepresenting business ventures. It bars one defendant from engaging in any multilevel marketing programs for life and bars three others from engaging in multilevel marketing programs in the for periods ranging from seven to 22 years.

I had actually forgotten about this for a few years, until I got curious about my online dealings in the past and Googled up a handful of names I could remember. SkyBiz was one of them. And the first few results were about the class action suit for SkyBiz. So I signed up. I couldn’t remember our actual account numbers and names, but the people over at the law firm were glad to help us get our needed information (we gave our full names, addresses, telephone numbers at that time, and the few keywords we recalled from our account names).

I then shelved the idea of receiving funds from them since we were advised it might take long to process.

So I was surprised to receive email just a few minutes ago that the SkyBiz Redress program was already sending out funds in the form of Mastercard debit cards. I’m not expecting a big amount, but the thought of justice being served, and that we were part of some benefits package, is comforting. I’m thinking the refund amount would at least cover for some hosting/domain expenses, and hopefully a full tank (or two) of gas!

But it’s in US Dollars, so I do hope establishments here won’t have a problem processing transactions with the card. Nonetheless, I do hope we get our cards soon!

My brother B.A. ran into some persistent callers a few months back, and he found out these callers were part of MLM business trying to recruit him. I advised him that there are legit MLM businesses, and I’ve actually tried these (another company, not SkyBiz), and there are scams. I posted a couple of comments because the comment thread had turned into a flamewar zone, I had to intervene (supposedly neutral, but hey I’m opinionated).

I quote a paragraph I wrote there. This is how I do business, the Web 2.0 way.

True, business almost always entails networking. But some people misconstrue “networking” to be the ol’ pyramid/binary type recruitment where you have to recruit at least two people, who would have to recruit two each and so forth. To me, networking means connecting to people, and connecting people. You don’t necessarily have to have business dealings with anyone. But the fact that you’re connecting–as friends, associates, business partners, colleagues–builds up your reputation and your network of people. You will almost always find people to help you out this way.

If any of you guys are part of the redress program, congrats! Tell me if you’ve received your gift cards already.

So I posted yesterday about Max’s PR agent, Press Inc., handing out free passes to Max’s first day of offering its Power Breakfast line. I got 15 passes, while my mom got 10, mine I shared with some friends and relatives. About 9:00 a.m. this morning, we headed out to Max’s at Quezon Memorial Circle to avail ourselves of the free meals.

Our feedback: we were disappointed.

Food was above average. Coffee was excellent. But frankly the service was not so great. We had to wait more than an hour after ordering to be served.

We’re regular Max’s customers, so we would know if something was amiss. For one, we were seriously thinking that we weren’t given much priority because we weren’t paying customers.

Food

Okay, let’s first talk about the food. By the time we arrived, we were told the restaurant alreay ran out of their beef Tapa meal, which most of us badly wanted to try. So we ordered the fried bangus (milkfish), sausage, and pepperoni omelet meals, as well as champorado (chocolate rice porridge).

We were also informed by the wait staff that they were unable to serve their brewed coffee. So the served us instant coffee instead (and that was after 40 minutes of waiting). At this point, I was already a bit fuming because the PR people were showcasing Max’s Indonesian Arabica coffee as the highlight of their breakfast line.

Priority?

Service was slow, but this would’ve been understandable, since the restaurant only started serving breakfast meals today. But what ticked me off was that apparently some customers who came in after us were being prioritized. For instance, there was a couple who came in about an hour after us, and they were served within five minutes of ordering. These were the very same meals we ordered (sausage). They were paying clients. They finished eating and left even before we were served with our orders.

A friend of mine also decided to avail of his free breakfast there, and he told me service was really slow.

I told my mother I had half a mind to approach the store manager. And we did. We told him that we dined at Max’s because we were sent complimentary breakfast passes under the assumption that we could help spread the word by reviewing the food and experience on our blogs and online publications. And I told the manager that this incident would seriously affect how I would review the promo/offering. After all, being bloggers, we are usually honest and candid about our reviews. And we don’t even need to be given free stuff to write favorable reviews. If we really like something, then we would be glad to blog about it in a positive light, even if—or perhaps particularly if—we were paying customers.

The manager apologized, and told us they really weren’t exactly prepared to meet the huge demand in breakfast meals, and in light of this promo, about 70% of the clients this morning availed of the free meal. He also said the coffee machine broke down. I pointed out my concern that we felt being discriminated against because we were availing free meals. Other people were served quite quickly.

Served, at last!

It was only after talking to the manager that he told us he would follow up our orders. After about 10 minutes, we were served. And that included the brewed coffee.

I was quite okay with the sausage, but my wife and brother-in-law said the sauce/glazing was too overwhelming. The bangus was tasty, but a bit oily. And the pepperoni omelet was on the salty side. Saving grace for Max’s was the champorado, which was great—very chocolatey and creamy. And the coffee was excellent.

My mom and siblings, who were served earlier (they came in about an hour earlier than us), complained that their champorado was cold, though.

Bad taste

I also texted Blooey singson of Press, Inc. to tell her about the incident, and she said she will have Max’s management look into it. This is definitely bad press, especially for a company asking for honest opinions and reviews. And this should be a lesson to companies launching promos. They should not discriminate against people who would avail of free stuff.

So would we still eat at Max’s? I would say yes. It’s still great casual dining at reasonable prices. But then this incident left a bad taste in the mouth. Our time was wasted and we felt badly treated. So this will stick in our minds for quite some time. And we probably won’t recommend Max’s power breakfast line to our friends for now.

If I had reviewed Max’s Power Breakfast Line in tenminut.es fashion, their ten minutes would have been over long before it even begins.

Update: changed pronoun references to Blooey. I just realized Blooey is a she, and not a he! Also, apparently other branches were better. I hear they treated coupon-holders like royalty, as Noemi relates here (she also has a review of the Power Breakfast, but she dined at the Katipunan branch).