CRM Update – Mar 08 : 3:03 pm

Think it’s your lucky day because a text message shows up on your phone offering you $1,000 in cold hard spending card cash at Walmart? It’s a scam, says the company, so don’t follow any of the directions given and don’t expect that gift card.

The text scam is hitting Denver lately, says CBS4, where a message arrives either on your phone or in your email inbox. It directs consumers to a site where they’re asked for their name, email address and phone number. You should not give out that kind of information, says Walmart in a statement to the news station…

Fact: Hotel remote controls are gross. A new app, however, turns your smartphone or tablet into a TV remote so you don’t have to share germs with every previous guest of your room.
The new app is produced by LodgeNet, a company that provides in-room on-demand entertainment to 85% of the American hospitality industry. But Todd Kelly, LodgeNet’s vice president of interactive and mobile applications, says the app was developed not just to serve traveling germaphobes. As mobile devices have proliferated in recent years, people increasingly turn to their smarthphones and tablets for entertainment at home and on the road — not a welcome trend for LodgeNet…

A bureaucratic mixup led to a very confusing Super Tuesday for one Boston-area woman. The 84-year-old showed up to vote in Tuesday’s primary election, only to be told that she couldn’t vote: she was dead.

“First thing I read [in the newspaper] is the obituaries. And I didn’t even find my name on the obituary page!” she told CBS Boston news, laughing. Officials figured out the problem: a mistake in the newest Fall River city census put the woman on the “deceased” list, but she was still a registered voter…

Everybody loves a bargain, and if you’re on the lookout for software at a great price, look no further than the Downloadcrew Software Store where you’ll find something to suit every taste and budget throughout the month of March.
Perhaps you need to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of your computer; there are a number of applications that can help you out, starting with Auslogics BoostSpeed 4. For just $9.95, a saving of 80 percent off the MSRP of $49.95, you can speed up your start times, clean out the clutter from your hard drive and more…

Google is celebrating International Women’s Day today by giving all the ladies out there a flower – the virtual kind, of course, placed in the middle of the latest Google Doodle.
Originally a socialist holiday, the International Women’s Day originated in the U.S., where it was first celebrated on Feb 28., 1909, by the Socialist Party of America.
The date was switched around quite a bit in the following years, and the significance of the event varied a lot in different countries…

Public broadcasting is the latest sector to tap startups for innovative ideas.
Code for America announced a startup accelerator earlier this year aiming to redesign government. RockHealth, a startup incubator launched in 2011, aims to disrupt healthcare. Now, a new accelerator launching next month hopes entrepreneurs will help define the future of public radio and television.
The accelerator is a collaboration between the non-profit public broadcasting distribution marketplace PRX and the Knight Foundation, which kicked in $2…

Codeweavers has announced the launch of CrossOver XI, its commercial port of the open-source Wine application that allows Linux and Mac users to run Windows applications without having to install Windows itself.
CrossOver XI sees the two previously available separate editions of CrossOver, Games and Pro, incorporated into a single application, and includes numerous platform updates and improvements. It also promises support for a wider range of applications than before, including Microsoft Office 2010…

We have been on a journey,my friends. Together we have traipsed, like Nostradamus, through the predictions for Social CRM in 2012. In case you have forgotten what we discussed or you are new to this blog, here’s what we’ve covered thusfar:

Social CRM in 2012: An Introduction
Gamification
Customer Experience
Insight Solutions
Mobile sCRM

It’s been an info-heavy ride and the end is now in sight, but before we can put our feet to the pavement and run towards that finish line, we have to lift our heads into the Cloud for just a little bit…

Joint ventures can yield tremendous results. They can also be a huge pain. Here’s how we learned to master certain rules of engagement, and make great partnerships.Partnerships, alliances, joint ventures: whatever the arrangement, businesses believe working together can lead to results that they would have a hard time achieving on their own. This can ring especially true for small businesses partnering with larger businesses. Seven years into working on my business, I can say without hesitation that past and present partnerships have been integral to Heritage Link’s success…

It seems that the only way Brian’s girlfriend could keep the necklace he bought her at Kay Jewelers from breaking is to not wear it, which isn’t really the intended use of a necklace. It has now broken three times in the same spot. He bought an extended warranty, which would have been a good idea if the store would replace the chain instead of repairing it over and over. Instead, he has to turn in the chain and pendant for store credit and buy something else. Why can’t they replace the defective chain and leave Brian the pendant? Because they just can’t…

The best thing about the new iPad 4G (or “iPad New,” as I like to call it) is the retina screen. This 2048 x 1536-pixel screen makes people, places, things and games look real enough touch. It also makes the iPad’s 9.7-inch display (the same size as all previous iPads) seem somehow much, much larger. The retina display is certainly the attribute that stands out the most in my video walk-through.
There are, obviously, other highlights. I’d say the $4.99 iPhoto will be a big hit and is certain to undercut the recently launched, and more expensive Adobe Photoshop Touch…

Ford, always looking for a new way to promote its launches, is trying a unique approach to hyping its 2013 Escape: An interactive prime time reality series.
Called Escape Routes, the show will premiere on NBC and mun2 on March 31. The show, which will run for six episodes, features a cast of six teams of two who will vie in a road trip competition. (The photo to the right features Chekesha and Tiffany, who make up one of the teams.)
Each week, the teams will arrive in a new city (Los Angeles is first) and compete in a series of “spontaneous adventures and interactive challenges,” according to Ford…

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories.
Apple Unveils New iPad
The story of the day (week, month?) is definitely Apple’s launch of the new iPad. We’ve got you covered from all angles: check out our initial coverage, a recap of all the important announcements and details from Apple’s event and our review of the new iPhoto app…

Use these 4 steps to get back on track after a big revenue miss.Sooner or later, every company will face the unsavory prospect of missed sales numbers. Falling short of a quarterly or yearly goal feels terrible, but it also gives you an opportunity to root out the problem and get back on track.Take these four steps when you find your sales coming up short.1. Don’t Take Action … YetWhen you don’t make numbers, the impulse is to do something decisive—right away. But ordering a charge of the light brigade before you know the real problem is a formula for failure…

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of Japan’s record-breaking 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, the Japan-based Weathernews Inc. — the world’s largest private weather service company — has released a new service that warns of upcoming tsunamis in Japan online.
The service utilizes radars that can detect tsunami waves as far as 30 kilometers away from the coast, and capture images of them up to 15 minutes prior to their breaking on the shore. The waves must be at least 3 meters high — quelling any outcries of baby tsunamis that have little, if any, impact on human beings — but once they’re detected, the tsunami feed updates their progress across the Pacific Ocean every 2 seconds…

The effects of a wrong-headed sales strategy, and what to do differently.Sales guys are always chasing great white whales. But what happens when you finally do sign your coveted customer – and it’s a disaster?Angus Davis, the founder of Tellme, learned the answer to that question the hard way. When he first started his company in the late 90s, there wasn’t a sexier customer out there than Amazon.com. So when Tellme finally signed Amazon after five months of wooing, Davis and his team were thrilled…

Getting customer feedback is essential in the early stages of your company–but it’s what you do with it that determines your fate.Note: A version of this post first appeared on steveblank.com.The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It’s understanding who to listen to and why.I got a call from Satish, one of my ex-students last week. He got my attention when he said, “Following your customer development stuff is making my company fail…

KONY 2012, a documentary produced by non-profit Invisible Children, has gone viral in the past couple days, receiving millions of views on YouTube and Vimeo.
The video has also, however, begun to receive significant backlash from organizations and publications questioning the authenticity of Invisible Children. Many of the negative critiques have been targeted at Invisible Children’s practices as an organization, not whether Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, is a war criminal…

Last month, Zachary and his girlfriend adopted an adorable dog, Sophie, from a rescue organization. She had been transported across several states from a shelter to her new home, but arrived extremely ill. Her new family rushed her to the veterinarian, where she got badly needed but expensive treatment. The vet claims that Sophie should never have traveled in her condition, and would have showed symptoms long before the transport left. The rescue claims that she wasn’t sick before departure…

They’re small things–but they can completely change someone’s day.I left the company years ago for another but I still run into former colleagues. Usually the ensuing conversation involves something along the lines of, “Hey, did you hear about the (latest management decision I think is really stupid) at the plant?”This question was different.“You worked there for almost 20 years,” my ex-coworker said. “Is there anything you wish you could go back and do over?”I thought about it later…

ClothingKohl’s: [Apparel] 30% Off Entire Purchase with Kohl’s Charge w/ Coupon SHOPNSAVELane Bryant: [Womens] $25 Off $75 or $50 Off $150 or $75 Off $225 Purchase w/ Coupon MARCHGCLB + PrintableMaurices: [Apparel] ‘Create Your Own’ Sale – Save Up To 20% Off, no code needed

Computers and Electronics

Newegg : [Computers] [Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB Internal SATA III MLC Solid State Drive $129.99]Newegg: [Computers] [HIS Radeon HD5770 1GB HDCP PCI-E Video Card w/ DiRT 3 Game $69…

If you need to investigate the inner workings of an SWF applet then there are plenty of great free tools around that can help (Flashbug being particularly useful). It seems these are now going to have some major and official competition, though, as Adobe Labs have just released a major inspection tool of their own in the new SWF Investigator.
Open the SWF file of your choice — either locally, or online — and the program will tell you much more about it. The SWF Info tab displays its tags, exported classes and header information; the Disassembler works with ActionScript 2…

Drowned out in all the hullabaloo over Apple’s unveiling of the next iPad was its announcement that its cloud storage of movies had gone live. Those who have bought movies from iTunes can now stream their films onto their Apple devices. Two studios, though — 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures — aren’t letting their films come out and play for now.

According to the L.A. Times, Fox and Universal are holding out because of hitches in their deals with HBO. Both studios say they’ll work out the issues soon to get their films in the cloud, which includes movies from Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros…

Ask.com is launching an iPhone app on Tuesday that experiments with a new question-and-answer format for the company: quick polls.
The app, Pollroll, makes it easy for users to publish and respond to quick questions, such as “Last night’s shirt, ok to recycle?,” “Where is the best party at tonight?” and “What should I order at Franklin BBQ?” Poll creators designate answer options (respondents also have the option to leave comments) and can include a photo if they choose…

Serious about getting more feedback into your organization? Start by finding out how you’re doing. Part 2 of 2.In the recent column How’re We Doing? No, Really, I mentioned an executive who asked “How do I integrate effective, casual, and simply more feedback into the daily rhythm of my organization?” Let’s assume you want more feedback for all the right reasons – you’re looking to continuously learn, and to help you organization do the same. And let’s also assume you’re willing to lead by example…

Wells Fargo continues to phase out its free checking offerings, tacking on a $7 monthly fee in six states. Even existing customers whose free checking had been grandfathered in will have to start paying up. Oddly, the bank declined to name the six states affected.

CNNMoney, which identified New York as one of the states in which the fee will be implemented, reports the bank stopped offering free checking to new customers in 2010. Last year the bank started peeling back free checking in many areas, and now it’s thrown the six mystery states into the pile…

You’ve heard it or have seen it posted…Someone saying they can say whatever they want, post whatever they want and no-one can do anything to them.As if the First Amendment is their sword and shield. And you can’t do anything about it.Freedom of speech. Three words that get thrown around and written about so often that what the expression means is more about misinformation than truth.And misinformation can be detrimental to online professionals as they try to separate the wheat from the chaff and understand a right so important to the foundation of the United States that the founding fathers made it the first amendment to the Constitution to better clarify what rights belong to its citizens…