CRM Update – Apr 26 : 5:04 pm

Sandra wanted to contact Citibank about a fee, and figured that contacting them using secure account e-mail from within their site was a good way to do it. When she tried to send the message, the system rejected it, telling her to remove any special characters. “What special characters?” she asked. Turns out the e-mail form didn’t like quotation marks. At least it wasn’t apostrophes?

I have been charged $15 for an “Account Summary” that Citibank offers (via email) and they never said it is a paid service…

Molly Ringwald has kept a low social media profile over the last few years, but suddenly she’s embracing it in a big way. She joined Twitter last week and on Wednesday night submitted to a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” grilling.
As usual, the Reddit forum lived up to its billing and Ringwald, the muse of ’80s director John Hughes (who died in 2009), appeared forthright in her responses. Some of the most notable exchanges appear below:

AMA Molly Ringwald

KraVok: I read this on IMDB about breakfast club: “John Hughes almost fired Judd Nelson because of his negative attitude towards Molly Ringwald off camera…

The boys’ t-shirts at Kohl’s feature a monster truck jumping over a row of vintage convertibles and tall orange flames, and come with a free toy monster truck to match. This design turned out to be oddly prescient when customers inserted batteries in the trucks and they smoldered or caught fire. Yes, it’s time for the Consumerist Recall Roundup, with a diverse assortment of products lurking in your home, waiting to kill or maim you and your children.

Electronics
Lenovo ThinkCentre Desktop Computers – fire hazard

Babies and Kids
Safety 1st Cabinet Locks – lock can be opened by small children
Umbro Boys’ Jackets (Ross stores) – drawstring entanglement hazard
Louise Paris Girls’ Jackets (Ross stores) – drawstring entanglement hazard
Guidecraft Children’s Play Theaters – may tip over
Nan Far Woodworking Drop-Side Cribs – entrapment, suffocation, and fall hazard
Topeak Babyseat II Bicycle Carrier Seats – finger amputation hazard
Toy Truck Gifts with Purchase at Kohl’s – fire hazard

Home and Garden
Hydro-Gear Hydrostatic Lawn Tractors – crash hazard
Westinghouse Ceiling Fans – electric shock and fall hazard
Leggett & Platt Adjustable Mattress Bases – fire hazard
Viking Dishwashers – fire hazard
Office Depot Desk Chairs – fall hazard
STOK Gas Grills – fire and burn hazard
West Elm Folding Chairs – fall hazard
Husqvarna Grass and Hedge Trimmers – Fire hazard

Sports
Bon Hiver Freebase Snowboard Bindings – may shatter, posing fall hazard
GT, Giant and Trek Bicycles – fall hazard
Baja Motorsports dirt bikes – fuel tank leaks; fire and burn hazard
Easton Raptor Lacrosse Helmets – chin bar may break
Specialized Bicycle Components Bike Brake Levers – crash hazard

Medicine and Supplements
X-ROCK male sexual performance enhancement supplement – contains analogue to sildenafil (Viagra), may cause same side effects as Viagra

Food
Harry & David Kansas City Style Barbeque Almonds – undeclared peanuts

Facebook is testing a smaller, less invasive version of the “Trending Articles” insert that began appearing in some users’ Newsfeeds earlier this month.
Now, instead of displaying a vertical block of stories — between three and six, from the screenshots we saw before — users see just one headline, accompanied by a thumbnail, source, introductory text and the name(s) of the friend(s) who have already read it. To see more Trending Articles, users can click an arrow in the upper-right hand corner…

Amazon’s advantage in the daily deal market could be its shopping cart.
Last quarter, consumers purchased $17.43 billion of products from Amazon. As they piled their virtual shopping carts high with everything from books to camping equipment, they gave Amazon valuable information about their shopping habits.
Amazon already uses that information to recommend products. Eventually, they could use the same data to target daily deals.
Amazon took a first — and standard — step toward personalizing its deal recommendations on Thursday with a new preference profile…

Hosted by: Online Background Check Guide
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & ResourcesMother, Can I Trust Google?

Name: Zaarly
Big Idea: Zaarly is a marketplace for anything — whether you want to send your wife flowers, have someone bring you dinner or need someone to mow your lawn. Sellers are hiring locally and keeping money within the community, while providers are putting money in their pockets.
Why It’s Working: Zaarly enables anyone to become an entrepreneur — whether you want to pick up some extra cash or be a full-time Zaarly user, the platform empowers people in Zaarly markets to get things done…

Nearly Newlywed is a newly launched startup that lets women rent gowns and bridal wear by highly coveted designers, including Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Rodarte and Carolina Herrera.
The social media-powered online boutique lets women pay a fraction of the usual price tag — $10,000 to $15,000 — for designer wedding dresses. The dresses are guaranteed “nearly new,” meaning they have only been worn once or twice.
The small team based in Brooklyn, N.Y., connects with customers nationally…

Want to take care of your business? Take care of yourself.No pain. No gain.That mantra shaped the approach that athletes embrace in training. The harder you work, the better you get.Trouble is, as Jack Groppel and Ben Wiegand write in a recent white paper for Wellness & Prevention, Inc., it does not work so well. It can lead to anxiety, depression, burnout, and a shortened career. The same applies to what Groppel and Wiegand refer to as “corporate athletes.”The difference is that while athletes have embraced “sports science”–a more enlightened way of training that focuses on the whole person not simply the body–corporate high performers and entrepreneurs have not embraced it…

On Wednesday, Cupertino, California-based tech giant Apple revealed that it will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this year from June 11 through June 15.
Per established tradition, the convention will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone West, a favorite facility of the late Apple boss and iDevice pioneer Steve Jobs.
As always, the five-day conference gives iOS developers and Mac fanatics an opportunity to learn more about the future of Apple’s hugely popular operating systems…

Last year, Illinois joined the ranks of states passing laws requiring Amazon and other online-only retailers to collect sales tax on purchases by that state’s residents. Yesterday afternoon, a judge in Cook County, IL, surprised a lot of people by ruling this law violates the U.S. Constitution.

Before the law was enacted, Amazon and some other online sellers were able to avoid collecting sales tax because they do not have a bricks-and-mortar presence. But, like similar laws in a handful of other states, Illinois claimed that Amazon’s affiliate program — wherein anyone can use Amazon as a storefront through which to sell goods — included bricks-and-mortar locations in the Land of Lincoln, meaning that Amazon was obligated to collect sales tax…

The Women Presidents Organization announces the fastest-growing women-owned company at its 2012 conference.The fastest-growing women-led company in the country is not a hot tech startup or a Silicon Valley darling, according to the Women Presidents Organization, an association of women who own or lead successful companies. Instead, it’s BrightStar Care, a home healthcare and medical staffing company. That’s the company that tops the WPO’s fifth annual ranking of the 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned/led companies in North America, produced in partnership with American Express Open…

Google has released a new update to their ranking algorithm this week, aimed at isolating and penalizing websites that use particular spam techniques. From the official blog post:
“In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.”
So what constitutes a violation of Google guidelines? While deliberately avoiding being specific, Google has highlighted these tactics as problematic and likely to be targeted:
Duplicate Content
Keyword Stuffing
Link Schemes
Cloaking
Deliberate Redirects
Doorway / Gateway Pages
Unlike Panda, this algorithmic update has no cutesy name, simply the *webspam algorithm update* according to Search Engine Land…

An unwillingness to invest time in building professional relationships can limit your career. Here are some ways to reduce the stress of developing a robust network.Question: How many introverts does it take to hold a meeting?Answer: Two… as long as they both have laptops and Internet connections!*If you are an introvert-like me-you may have struggled in your career to network effectively. I find it draining to be at social events, especially with large groups of people. I often want to rush back home or to my hotel room and “recharge my batteries…

Doing Good for others is something that I don’t think we do enough of, and this week, Groupon offered a once-in-a-lifetime deal to do so.
This week, Groupon Grassroots offered 40 spots to spend nine days in Zambia (one of Africa’s most safe, politically stable countries), during which volunteers would teach, dance with and help poverty-stricken children.  The trip wasn’t cheap; it cost $2,000, but comes with a sense of a filled heart and the joy of spreading love to those who need it most…

A judge in Illinois has ruled against a law that would enable the state to collect tax on online sales from out-of-state companies. The ruling is seen as a promising victory for marketing affiliates as well as ecommerce giant Amazon, which has been lobbying against online sales tax in several states for years.
Judge Robet Lopez Cepero of the Cook Country Circuit declared the Affiliate Nexus Tax law, which was passed last year, violates the Internet Tax Freedom Act and the Commerce Clause of the U…

Back in February I wrote about an Australian website called Stayz, which is an Australian vacation rental website that gives users access to beach houses, cottages and a variety of other places to go and relax and have a good time. Stayz was launching a deal program for discounted rates through their “Great Stayz Get-together” program, and they’re now announcing that the program was a success.
The campaign was developed with Captiv8, a digital development studio and featured vacation deals up of to 50% off during the 100 day promotion…

New offerings include the AppExchange for Government and a training program on cloud deployment.

Affiliate marketing is when you sign up with companies to market and sell their products and/or services for a commission. Commissions are generally 25% or lower so be sure to check before you sign up. If you want to make a living online, affiliate marketing can be a good way for you to learn the ropes or add to your existing online business income.
Many of us (me included) make the same newbie mistake. We sign up for any programs we find, slap a banner or two on our website and then wait for the money to come rolling in…

Cash as a form of payment is rare these days as plastic takes over, and online it is all but nonexistent. Not anymore, though — Walmart now allows online customers to pay for their orders with the good ol’ Greenback.
Here’s how it works: customers place their orders on the website, and select “Cash” as the payment option. They then have 48 hours to take a printed-out copy of the order form and pay at any local Walmart store. Walmart’s demographics seem to support such an offering, so it is obvious why the retailer would offer cash as a form of payment…

The patched version of the latest set of updates for Microsoft’s Office for Mac 2011 is available for download.

A big pat on the back goes out to Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin – his state posted the most job losses in a year, more losses than any other state in all of America. He happens to be facing a recall in Wisconsin in June, so many of his constituents might take that job-loss into account when casting ballots.

The Christian Science Monitor cites stats from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which say that the cheese state lost 23,900 jobs between March 2011 and March 2012…

Best Buy’s Geek Squad and AARP have announced a new program, designed to help seniors make the most of their technology.
The Geek Squad tech support package for AARP members costs $169 per year. The program includes products discounts and support calls. Members can also receive phone, online and in-store advice from Geek Squad.
“AARP members tell us they appreciate the advantages that today’s technology brings to their lives, from staying connected with family and friends to improving their very health and well-being,” said Angela Jones, senior vice president for AARP Services, Inc…

By Jeremiah Owyang, originally posted on Web Strategy. In a stunning early finding of interviews with nearly a dozen social media agencies and software providers, I’m seeing a new trend: Social media agency of record (SMaoR) are now moving into advertising buying.   I’ve just spent a week interviewing a number of social agencies here [...]

Microsoft publicly says Bing is a core strategic asset for the company. But privately, could the Softies be exploring ways to offload it?

Customers at a Fazoli’s restaurant near Indianapolis got a bit of unexpected protein in their food, as several people claimed there were spider mites crawling around in their dishes and elsewhere in the restaurant.

FOX 59 says customers complained about the presence of the pests, prompting an impending visit from the health inspector.

“My friend sitting across the table said, ‘There’s something on your plate,’” one customer recalled. “I stared at my food, at the lasagna, and my sauce was moving!”

She and her co-workers complained to both the general manager and directly to the Board of Health…

The sometimes cliché photographs popping up in Instagram feeds have inspired a clever 22-year-old to create Twitter’s latest parody account.
Less than 24 hours ago, Hollywood-based Josh Helfferich launched @TextInstagram, which posts “your personal Instagram feed in a lightweight text format.”
The account skewers common photography trends exhibited by Instagram users, and it’s an overnight success, having gone from 400 followers Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET to more than 10,000 followers at noon Thursday…

Fans anxiously waiting for Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming parody film The Dictator to hit theaters this summer now have something to keep them entertained: an official movie app.
The Dictator: Wadiyan Games launched Thursday and Mashable has the exclusive.
The animated game, which is available free for iOS only, lets players step into the shoes of General Aladeen, the Middle Eastern dictator who Cohen plays in the movie and voices in the app.
Players choose among four athletic events — running, swimming, fencing and boxing…

While it seemed the little rebranding engine that could, JCPenney, was chugging along at an admirable pace, a lawsuit against the retail chain could make a bit of a kink in the tracks. A lighting design and branding firm is suing JCPenney for $40 million over their new logo.

The Chicago Tribune says Hudson + Broad Inc. is suing over JCPenney’s Fair and Square icon, claiming breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. They filed the complaint with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan…

That’s great news! Thanks Sibel & Robert! From: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com [mailto:webanalytics@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of sibel Sent: Thursday, April 26,