Mr Feedback

I have been asked to write a review about WhatsOpen.com.au. This is an unpaid review.

The idea
I think it’s an ingenious idea, and a simple one at that. I have sat around at home, wondering what was open at wee hours of the night. Particularly in regards to food (me love food) outlets. The website will let you know what is open in your area (as specified by you). The default time is set to “current”. You can even SMS a search term, and a response will contact the nearest venue, the distance, and the times it is open. Similarities are borne with WhatsOpen.com which is an American version, but you can sign up for the full beta to get international locations.

The website (design, features etc)
The venues are updated by the site administrators, and also by members of the public (which are approved by the site administrators). You can add venues here, and they will be updated as soon as possible by the administrators. The website has a very clean, neat and usable design. It gets to the point right away. Once you log on, you are faced with a search bar where you can type in any location in Australia. The great thing about the search feature is you can use vague addresses, or landmarks and the site picks it up. For example: I tried “Cnr Elizabeth Flinders Melbourne”. I was looking for Pepperoni’s Pizza (reviewed here), but it wasn’t listed. I promptly added it as one of the venues and it was promptly accepted by the administrators. It’s that simple!

The site has a Web 2.0 appearance, the blue makes it easy on the eyes. The simplicity of the site is what I like, because you don’t need to spend too much time on it to find out what it’s really about. The maps and distance feature is also a very smart way to localize the information.

The confusing part
I typed in “Racecourse Road”, and for the first 22 pages (and then I gave up), it brought up all the businesses in Victoria. That’s great for me because I am based in Victoria. What about Racecourse Road’s elsewhere in Australia. Therein lies a small gap in the system. As the site grows, you would expect it to be smarter by picking up which State you are from. So I chose: “NSW” as the preferred state, and it promptly brought up all the businesses that are open currently in NSW, but when I typed in Racecourse Rd it defaulted back to Victoria.

The advertising part
The site does not make it clear how advertising makes a difference to what you find in your search results. I do notice in their about page they offer paid advertising programs, so whether it’s already implemented in the question. A bit more information will be useful. There in lies an opportunity to Googlise the search to display “sponsored results” and make money from it.

Suggestions
Some of these suggestions I am sure the brilliant minds at WhatsOpen are already on to, but here goes:
* You have great database of information, so you need to get more people into it. A simple and effective way is to allow people to become members.
* Once there are members, allow them to interact with the site by allow them to rate the businesses, and comment on them.
* Once there are members, you can incorporate a social networking component to it - recommendations from friends is more valued than me finding a business through random search.
* When you search for a generic term, allow the results to be displayed according to state. This means, in the results page - split into the various states and allow the user to click on which state they would like (or better yet - default the state by detecting where the viewer is located)
* If you want to be real smart, then allow users (like me) set default locations (i.e.: during membership I provide my address/postcode and this becomes my default location). Generally, we would to find out WhatsOpen near our homes first, then everywhere else.

The cost
This is the best bit, it is free to use by the public. I am not sure how they are sustaining the service, and the company does not openly disclose if they receive advertising money from the businesses they list. None the less, its free for the public which is the most important aspect (and the one that matters) of the site.

Rating - 8/10 (ingenious concept, really looking forward to your development)
These guys are onto something special. It’s such a simple concept, and I am not sure why Yellow Pages or White Pages didn’t think of it. It’s a neat, simple, unique, and ingenious idea and with further development will go a real long way. Excellent work, certainly a site I will be using again. (Never mind the 8/10, it’s only because there are plenty more features you can add on, and I’m being harsh to motivate you guys!).

I’m in Sydney as I write this, and have a few more reviews up my sleeve. Just attended a pretty full on conference for 3 days, and I’m in information overload.

Recently, I received a letter from Virgin about my “unreturned modem”. This is what it said at the bottom in bold:

“Please note that if the Modem is not returned by May 23, 2008 you will be charged $400 for the Modem as per the conditions of your agreement with Virgin Broadband”.

Did any of you receive the same letter? I’d be interested in hearing from you. If you are new to Mr Feedback, check out my earlier posts: here, here and here.

Sadly, I had the receipt from Toll Priority who collected the modem in the pre-paid satchel. I promptly rang them up, and informed them of their mistake. The call centre guy did not seem surprised, and said it was an “oversight”. Bloody oathe it is! Hopefully this is the last I have heard from Virgin Broadband. These guys are a joke!

I recently joined up to SMSPup mainly due to lack of credit for my mobile. Yes, I use it up quite quickly so I wanted a free, easy way of being in touch via sms with family. Just the odd sms when I am at work. Besides, where I work - there is poor Optus reception for mobiles.

The way SMSPup works is by sending you promotional emails, and you click on them or sign up to their products (if you want to) and you get points. Each point is worth 1 free sms, which is mainly what I use it for. Their free sms service is quite prompt. So far I have not experienced any delays at all, but I have only been using it for a few weeks.

Anyway, I got a promotion to getting 50 free prints at Snapfish. This is a HP photo print service, and their prices seem reasonable. Anything free must be great right! In true Mr Feedback spirit, I quickly jumped onto this opportunity (sorry GetDigital). Here is my analysis:

The process
The uploading process was quite stream lined, and because my photos were quite small in size I just uploaded them individually. Didn’t bother with their quick upload software. I had a similar experience recently with GetDigital - read here. The best thing about Snapfish is that they offer UNLIMITED ONLINE STORAGE OF YOUR PHOTOS, as long as you buy something at least once every year. I wonder if they accept cheap purchases once yearly to get free storage. Seems like a great way to beat the system, because Flickr and other professional photo storage options can be expensive. Especially if you have thousands of photos. All those memories, and no where to put them. Ok, back to “the process”.

I created my album, and within minutes was able to upload all my photos. Then I confirmed checkout. I got an email confirmation, and I can easily view my “free order” in my Snapfish account. Read the rest of this entry »

After I bought my Pentax Optio S10 camera from Camera House, I have been getting 20 standard prints and one 10″ by 8″ per month free. I have been using this for a few months, and am quite happy with the quality of prints. I still got until December to go, and in total - thats 240 prints, and twelve 10″ by 8″ prints.

But, it seems different people interpret this deal their own way. I was told in March that I am only entitled to either one of the free offers, not both. But today when I went - the lady was quite happy to give me 20 free prints, and a free large print.

The self service machines are very simple to use, and it took me less than 5 minutes to complete what I wanted. But took them about 3 hours to get the prints ready. Fair enough, free items are their least priority. You can edit the photos (add text, black & white) quite simply using those machines.

This month only, they are offering free VIP membership for every camera bought. Usually this costs $20.

So if you buy a camera, then ask for this special offer so you don’t miss out. The prints are great! Customer service still lacks though. But who cares when it’s free right!

Read my post earlier on Get Digital, This is a follow up post.

I received a call yesterday from Wood Pharmacy (7th of April) about my package being ready. I ordered the photos on 3rd of April late at night, and the order appeared as processed the very next day (with confirmation email).
Here’s the incredible efficiency of this process: 5th and 6th of April were weekend days. So essentially, my 218 photos were printed the next day, and delivered the next business day. I picked it up from the Wood Pharmacy at Royal Children’s Hospital today.

The package was neatly fitted into a Get Digital Box, and clearly print labeled on the front. I am happy with the quality of the photos, especially for the price. I don’t know how they make their money, unless they are printing in the thousands of photos each hour.

Total cost: $23.80 (very reasonable).

I am going to start printing all of my digital photos (more than 4000 in total I think). These Get Digital people are for real.

Rating: 10/10 (anything else would be just pure evil!)
Really impressed, and you can expect 4000 X $0.10 = $400 worth of business from me. If you really want to impress me, why not try and give me a deal. I do deals! Find out how!

I needed a reliable way of storing my photos, and there is nothing more reliable that having them physically printed. I have had a terrible experience with digital copies, when my hard drive crashed in 2006 (just before exams too!), and I lost all of the data. My bad, didn’t keep any back ups, nor hard copies of files/photos. Lesson learned.

I researched some companies that offer prints of digital photos. I came across Get Digital. They have excellent prices (10c standard print), and great gift items too.

The process
I created an account online, and began the process. I had some issues with uploading my photos, because the java applet would not load appropriately for me. So I had to manually uploaded all 218 photos! (10 at a time) Took me a while, but I got there in the end.

The service
During the process I emailed customer support and to my surprise, my email queries were answered within a few hours. Here are some examples:
- Query sent: April 3 12.48PM, Reply: April 3 1.29PM
- Query sent: April 3 10.01PM, Reply: April 4 8.34AM (note: overnight response to late night emails!!!)
- Query sent: April 4 10.45AM, Reply: April 4 10.57AM (note: 2 minute response time!!)

That is incredible! I have never experienced such fast customer support from a private organization.

Then April 4th morning at 8.39AM, I got this email:

Dear Raja Devanathan
We would like to advise you that your order (Order Id: ********) has been processed and is now being dispatched.

Please allow 24 hours for Melbourne Metropolitan and for all other locations, please allow 48 to 72 hours for us to deliver your order to your chosen pickup point.

Order Pickup Point
——————-
WOOD PHARMACY
R CHILD’S HOSP’L FLEMINGTON RD
PARKVILLE, VIC, 3052
Ph: 03 93474205
——————-
If you have any queries please feel free to call us on one of the number provided below or simply reply to this email.

That’s phenomenal!

Inside tips
* If you want gift items, do it at the same time as printing photos because the $2 handling fee is charged each time an order is placed
* If you want super duper quality, then this may not be for you. Remember, a 10MP image worth 4MB printed onto a 10cm by 15cm photo might turn out well despite Get Digital compressing the images. I wonder if image compression is an issue when you order larger prints such as canvases.

Suggestions
* The image uploader program is annoying, and takes ages to load. Easy way to provide an alternative is to allow more than 10 photos to be simple uploaded at a time.

This is an interim rating, so I will follow up the post with an official rating once I get my photos and check the quality. So far, a big thumbs up.(What is an interim rating?)

Interim rating: Excellent

I was accessing my Optus online account today and got this message.

Okay, here’s the irony. I am using Optus Wireless (Broadband Unplugged Turbo G Fast Wireless Broadband) to access the Optus homepage, and they tell me that my internet connection is slow. Priceless!

Click on the image for a bigger / clearer picture. If the image is scaled, click on it once more to zoom in. This happened when my modem told me I have full HSDPA bandwidth.

Update (06/04/08): It seems Optus is very slow for web browsing, despite getting reasonably good results on official speed test results. This seems to be consistent problem - investigate here. Comment if you are having trouble too.

Update (12/04/08): When you type “optus wireless broadband slow”, you get the 7th result as this. Read what it says straight after: “We’ve noticed your internet connection is slow…”. This is a Google gimmick, not an Optus fault, but still funny! Click on image for larger view.

Mr Feedback was initially hosted on Weebly, but soon my blog outgrew the features provided. I found Weebly very easy to use, but sometimes a bit unreliable. It takes significant amount of time to load, even on a 1.5mbps connection - but once loaded - things move pretty smoothly. Despite being a free service, you get customer service through email. I found the service through TechCrunch.

Customer service
I was not expecting any support at all, but it is good that they provide it anyway. Questions are routed through their support service. Basic answers can be found there too. Response times varied, but usually within 2-4 business days. There were several kinks in Weebly design itself, but there are still developing. Their response checking service is useful if you are waiting for a reply.

The features
I wanted a service which was easy to use, and displays it as I am editing the website. You can also design a blog which is what I used. Under a single account, you can maintain a few websites and the service is totally free which is excellent. One of the best things about Weebly is the ability to switch designs on the fly without causing much interruption. I guess its similar to Wordpress somewhat with the theme selectors. The drag and drop interface makes editing very simple, and you can add as many web pages within the site as want.

If you have existing domain, you can link it up with your Weebly site so it appears more professional. You can also buy a domain from them, after publishing your site, but it is quite expensive ($20+ USD).

There are a couple of annoying kinks I noticed. For example: blog posts can be edited (similar to Wordpress), but if they want a paragraph with picture - you cannot edit the text. So, you are forced to edit the text as a paragraph and then repost it as a “paragraph with picture”. You cannot host forums, other interactive features but I am sure they are planning an upgrade sometime.

Suggestions
For a free service, Weebly does an excellent job and has won some great awards. I hope you take the feedbacks you receive into account and work on removing those annoying kinks. Thank you for responding to my support requests.

Rating - 8/10 (great service)
Maybe, I am being a bit harsh on a service provided for free. But that is their concept, and there are some really annoying kinks which are irritating. Weebly is excellent for the novice web/blog publisher but I found you may soon outgrow the needs of your site.

I have been with TPG ADSL (1.5mbps - 20gig download - the old plan) for over 2 years now before swapping to a wireless service to accommodate my needs with in my new home. I thought I will provide some insight into their service. TPG has come a long way since I joined them, and they have plenty of products to choose from now. Overall, I have been satisfied with their connection quality, but there are some issues with customer service.

The connection
I was quite a high end user before I switched to wireless, and I started work. I used to download songs, and be constantly streaming video from YouTube. TPG was excellent for that. I have recommended them to my parents, who are happy with their connection. The speeds are very close to 1.5mbps, but of course where I used to live - ADSL2+ is still an issue. My particular exchange does not support them.

The service
I am sorry to say, there are plenty of issues here. Just read this guy’s plight! Their email support team is non-existent. I have emailed them at least 20 times, and never have I received a response. This is very poor. If you need support, you have go through the pain of ringing them and speaking to some person in Asia who pretends to be Australian. The waiting times are miserable, unless you call at odd times (i.e.: early morning). Plenty of people out there would agree with this observation. None the less, once you are up and running - things tend to run smoothly.

I consider myself as having quite basic IT knowledge, and it was an issue when I got connected up because support would not talk at my level.

The prices
The prices are very competitive when compared to other options. TPG has probably the best value in the market today, particularly with their ADSL2+ plans. They also have IPTV trials, and free VOIP. They do not charge for uploads, and there are never excess charges which is comforting to know.

Inside tips
* Call at odd times to get through to support quicker, and don’t bother emailing them.

Suggestions
* Start replying to those emails people, you can’t avoid me forever!

Rating - 7/10 (Better than average)
I was quite happy with TPG but it was time to move on to bigger, brighter and slower internet in the form of wireless. You can catch my Virgin Broadband analysis here. I have signed up with Optus recently, and it is turning out to be a nightmare - stay tuned for that report. TPG is a great product, only if you get it up and running without much hassle.

Recently, I had moved into my new home and faced a dilemma that it only had a phone socket in the lounge room. This meant I had to buy extended phone wires, and connect it to my PC situated in the 2nd bedroom / study. I also have a laptop, with an inbuilt wireless card. So I was investigating the options for wireless broadband in Melbourne, and a few came to mind and they are: Unwired, Virgin Broadband, Optus and Vodafone. There are plenty of alternatives, but generally wireless internet is very expensive in Australia. Broadband Choice or Broadband Guide are good places to start if you want to search for options.

I signed up to Broadband at Home for the 2GIG $60 p/m plan, but canceled it after 7 days. See why below!

The Speed
I did not have much issue with the speed. For the most part it was as fast as I needed. If you are serial downloader, or online video streamer then this may not be for you. The maximum speed achieved is 512kbps. Rarely do you achieve this speed. I live in an area where the coverage is not full speed, none the less it was plenty for emailing, general browsing, and the occasional streaming of video.

The telephone
The technology is quite innovative. You do not need any phone lines, nor a even a line connection at home. Your phone connects to the your free modem/router and you hear a dial tone. I believe the calls are routed through their mobile network. The quality was excellent. I used it to call customer support, and some friends interstate and no one picked that I was using the wireless broadband for my calls. I was quite impressed. The free calls is a great deal if you use your home line for local, and national calls. But read the fine print, because you will be charged for 1300, 13 calls, but not for 1800 calls.

Of course, you can surf the net and use the telephone at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »