Don’t Accidentally Buy Stuff on Behalf of Your Customers

Today I went to add Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words to my DVD wish list on Amazon.com. A few minutes later I received an e-mail stating that my order was received and would be shipped soon. I did click ‘Wish List,’ didn’t I? How was I suddenly buying this DVD? Luckily, I caught this in time to canceled the order. No harm done.

But darn it, I was pretty sure I had clicked the ‘Add to Wish List’ button. On the other hand, I found it difficult to contemplate how Amazon could make an error like that. I figured it was user error, and I went back and retraced my steps to figure it out.  Here’s what I discovered: Continue reading →

Mobile Is Critical for Audio Podcasters: 3 Tips For Success

Heil PR40 MicrophoneI’ve had a few months under my belt now as an audio podcast producer and my two shows, The Movie Film Show and The Independent Entrepreneur, are off to a modest start. Bootstrapping these shows with almost no budget is not easy and the struggle to grow my audience has been, at times, frustrating.

But I’ve learned a lot so far about what works, and I’m sure there’s plenty more to do. Most importantly, I’m realizing the need to create mobile-friendly versions of my shows. Continue reading →

Privacy Paranoia

Many are paranoid about privacy, such as how our activity is tracked online.  One of the biggest objections I see is that Web sites and advertising companies will use our personal information in order to display more relevant advertisements to us.

Why are we so scared about that?

Americans, I think, are rightly concerned about “big brother” watching what we do, and many equate corporations watching our behavior and tracking our interests as impeding on our privacy.  But there is a fundamental difference between the real “big brother,” i.e., government, impeding on our privacy and a company supposedly doing so. Continue reading →