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Some Awful Corporate Marketing/Sales Speak By Netflix

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A few months ago, the team at YouTubeTV raised their prices to pretty much match traditional cable television rates. They justified their egregious price increase by saying they were adding new channels (the Viacom family of channels, among others) and investing in new technology. I, and many others, did not like the price increase at all and I, for one, thought it was insulting. The entire promise of digital “cable” programs like YouTubeTV, Hulu, Sling, etc. is the ability for the consumer to leave behind excessively-priced traditional cable companies and move to a more consumer-friendly and consumer-focused product where they can receive what amounts to a la carte programming. Forcing new channels on consumers without their agreement just feels too much like the traditional cable companies to me and if this is the way that YouTubeTV is going to operate, then I probably will not stay with them too much longer.

When YouTubeTV raised their prices, I contemplated canceling and being done with cable/streaming television for the second time in two years as I previously canceled Xfinity/Comcast a year and a half or so ago and then just didn’t have cable television for about six months (it was great). However, given that I use the family option provided by YouTubeTV (where others in my family can have their own YouTubeTV account under mine), I decided not to cancel the service… for now.

The one thing that I can say in favor of YouTubeTV and their awful, consumer-unfriendly price increase is that they (poorly) explained the need for the bump in price by providing an analysis of how the increase in the number of channels offered resulted in an increase in the price charged. Okay, fair enough (not “good enough” because it was a terrible decision by YouTubeTV, but fair – I get it). Well, Netflix recently announced that they are raising their prices and sent out this incredibly insulting, non-explanation email that is riddled with more corporate sales speak than actual information and justification. Check it out:

Awful email update/marketing from Netflix

The subject line of this email is, “We’re updating our prices — here’s why.” One would read that subject line and think, “Okay, let’s see what the increase in membership fees is going to be used on this time.” And then you read that email and all they say is that they’re going to keep doing what they’re doing. They justify the fee increase by saying, “This update will allow us to deliver even more value for your membership — with stories that lift you up, move you or simply make your day a little better.”

What?

What does that mean? How, exactly, is Netflix going to bring me “stories that lift you up, move you or simply make your day a little better?” What an awful message to send to your customers! Why not drop the corporate sales speak and, instead, tell your customers the truth? Why not just say, “Hey, production costs are not decreasing and licensing fees aren’t going down either, so if you want us to stay around and if want us to continue making our own shows for you to watch, then we need to charge a little bit more, okay?” What is so wrong with the truth?

Perhaps they do not want to come off as greedy by telling us the truth. Or perhaps that is exactly what the issue is here – corporate greed. Why might this be where my mind goes when thinking about Netflix? That’s easy – they just reported earnings of $6.44 billion (that’s billion with a B, folks). Yeah, they really seem like a company that needs to increase fees on their customers… during a pandemic…

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #2, Edition #1

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After a nearly 8 month absence, I’ve decided to bring back the Start the Weekend Right Link Series. There’s just too much awesome content that I run across on a daily basis for me not to share these links. On the topic of there being so much great content out there, if you find yourself visiting several websites each day and you’re looking for a better way to stay up to date on all of your favorite websites’ new articles, then I recommend signing up for a free Feedly account. I don’t get any kickback or reimbursement for promoting their product; I just think Feedly is the best RSS reader on the market and that everyone should use it! If you’re using another RSS aggregator, then consider following JerseySmarts.com at http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/ or if you’re already on Feedly, then you can follow us by clicking here.

Anyway, the link series is back. Enjoy the links below and get your weekend started right!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #2, Edition #1
5 Things I Wish I Knew Before College, Be Great Daily
One of my younger fraternity alumni started a blog focused on personal development, motivation, and inspiration. He wrote an entry that caught my eye because of its timeliness. With colleges across the nation kicking back into session either this past week or this coming week, I thought that now was the perfect time to share this entry. What are the 5 things that you wish you knew before college?

What If?, Danger & Play
Mike at Danger & Play has some of the best content on the web for men of all ages. This particular entry poses the question – what if? In this short, but thought-provoking read, Mike asks a lot of great “what if” questions. My favorite one was, “What if you live your life with a sense of urgency and purpose?” More people need to live life with a better sense of urgency. The time is now, people!

Great Leadership Isn’t About You, Harvard Business Review
This one is a little bit longer, but it really hits home on one of the core characteristics of great leadership. The article suggests that great leadership is about inspiring your followers to “share your enthusiasm for pursuing a shared ideal, objective, cause, or mission.” Amen! As the title of the article states – great leadership is not about YOU!

The English Major Has Lost Its Way, John William Pope Center
Keeping with the earlier theme of “back to school,” this is an entry about how the English major has lost its way in higher education. My undergraduate degree is in English, but I always knew that English couldn’t be the end of the road. In my graduate studies I opted to get a degree in Public Policy along with two different certifications – one in Public Relations and another in Curriculum Studies. You have to be diversified if you’re an English major. The third to last paragraph of the linked commentary gives a concrete suggestion to improve the English major curriculum, and I agree with the writer.

What’s Wrong With Comcast?, The Atlantic
We all remember listening a few months ago as a customer tried to cancel his service with Comcast and the telephone rep for the cable giant refused to let him do so until the bitter end. It was the very definition of a public relations nightmare for Comcast. In the wake of the call being released, some folks began interviewing current and former Comcast employees to try to figure out what the problem is over there. This article sums up their largest problem – a company that is built on a fragmented structure. Not a good situation to be in. Not good at all.

Building a Better Teacher: An Interview with Elizabeth Green, EdWeek
Normally, I’d stay far away from posting links that direct people to articles on education-based websites. The unfortunate truth is that the public education industry is inundated with extremists and ideologues who are intellectually dishonest and blatantly lie to disgrace the people they assume to be their opposition. And most public school teachers are brainwashed by the propaganda organizations that they call “unions” (particularly here in New Jersey) so it makes having an intelligent conversations virtually impossible. This interview, however, is with an author who wrote a book about which teaching methods work in a charter school in Newark. Incidentally, this charter schools is also one of my clients, so I’m extra interested in their success. In fact, I’m so interested that I’m actually going to buy a physical copy of this book (who buys physical books any more?!) to see what the author has to say.

How Anthony the Developer Lost Over 200 Lbs… In One Year, Nerd Fitness
Sometimes, I’ll spend an hour or so reading through different motivational websites focused on realistic approaches to the world. Many years ago, though, I stopped reading blogs focused on the primary writer’s weight loss journey. Those blogs are a dime a dozen out there, but their abundance doesn’t bother me. I’m bothered by the “if I can do it, YOU can do it!” bullshit that accompanies most of these weight loss journeys. No, idiot. Your readers’ lives are different than your lives. They can’t do exactly what you did because they’re NOT you. A few years ago there was a semi-famous blog written by a guy who lost 125 pounds by counting calories and starting to work out. Big surprise he lost weight, right? And then after he stopped counting calories and working out? He gained 70 pounds back. Now he justifies gaining the weight back as being healthy. Amazing. The article linked here is NOT that website nor is it that guy’s story! This article is from a fun fitness website called Nerd Fitness and it talks about a guy who lost 200 pounds. I’m not suggesting you get inspired from what this guy did because he’s not you. However, looking at the pictures is pretty dramatic and eye-opening.

The Necktie, Doghouse Diaries
One thing I hate about working in an office is that I often have to wear a necktie. I liked the comic that I’m linking here so much that I pinned it to my office wall. Stupid neckties…

‘Six Californias’ Plan May Make 2016 Ballot, USA Today
This article may not be as recent as some of the others linked above, but it is certainly relevant. Particularly in our country, where we’re finally beginning to have a national dialogue about whether a two-party system works best for American and what elements are in place that keep the two-headed monster firmly in control of American politics. The map in this article shows how the state of California could (and should) be broken into six different states.

9 Striking Library Posters from the Great Depression, BOOK RIOT
If you made it down this far, then you already know that I was an English major back in college. You may have surmised from that information that I enjoy reading – which would be correct. One of the book-focused websites that I follow is BOOK RIOT, though not all of their content is focused on book reviews. Take, for example, the entry linked here. This is a post listing nine different library posters from the time of the Great Depression. I don’t know why, but I appreciated these posters – they were fun to look at for a few minutes. I hope you enjoy them!

Again, if you don’t already have one, then I recommend opening a free Feedly account. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!

Does Anyone Have Any Recommendations or Comments About Skype?

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With the economy the way it is and me constantly struggling to trim the fat from my website company’s annual expenses, I’ve started to look into voice over IP (VoIP) options for my telephone needs. Currently, I have a cell phone and a land line that are both paid for by the website company. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t spend nearly $100 per month on a ridiculous cell phone plan that requires me to purchase broadband access. Without the broadband access, I’d be able to reduce my monthly cell phone bill by a little over $30. That’s significant enough to warrant further research, but it’s not the impetus for this entry on the blog!

Recommendations anyone?

Instead, the impetus for this blog entry is the fact that I pay $39.03 each month for my land line phone – a phone that I use sparingly. Actually, if I use that phone for more than 50 minutes per month, I’d be surprised. Every once in a while I have a conference call that I need to call in to when I’m working at my home office, but it appears that I can still get on those calls if I have a VoIP service.

Which brings me to Skype. On my recent trip to Nashville, I was talking to one of my fellow Board Trustees told me about Skype’s effectiveness and cost efficiencies. From our conversation, I went on Facebook and asked whether anyone had any ideas or comments about the Skype product. These are some of the comments that I received from my Facebook buddies:

it essentially is like aol instant messenger with more options. You can make phone calls around the world, and also do video chats.. I use it for work a lot. Skype can also be added to some phones to make free phone calls if u have a skype account.

just remember that when your network or electric goes out… so does skype… However if you have a cel at home too… maybe not necessary.. also at times the quality is “Iffy” but as a positive, you can also do video calls…

Skype is wonderful. I talk to people all over the world, conference calls all for free!!

Get a Skype enabled phone and you can benefit from VoIP at home or even just sync your Bluetooth headset to your laptop and walk around making calls. I’ve used it while traveling overseas and it was a great cost saver.

Skype is sweet because its free and you can communicate with someone from long distance instantly.

All of this is good information. Based off of these seemingly good reviews, I did some more research and found out that I can get a yearly subscription to Skype for $30. That subscription will allow me to have unlimited calls in the United States and Canada (unlike my buddies on Facebook, I don’t make international calls because, well, I don’t know anybody outside of the United States!). I also found out that I can get an “online” telephone number for about $30 per year (after discounts). This would allow people to call my Skype account from their land line or cell phones.

On top of that, in order to get the maximum use out of Skype I’d have to get a webcam (though I really don’t foresee a need for me to make video calls, but who knows). I have a microphone and stereo headset already, so I don’t really need those items (but I’d probably buy new stuff anyway). On the low end of the hardware necessity, I could potentially spend nothing and just use my existing microphone and stereo headset. If I wanted to just get a mid level webcam, I could spend $20. Or I could go for the total package and get top of the line stuff for over $100.

Hardware costs aside, moving from my land line to Skype would reduce my annual telephone expenses from $468.36 with Comcast’s land line to about $60 with Skype. That’s a pretty significant drop for a very small business.

With all of that said – can anyone reading this blog entry out there on the interwebs offer some advice on whether or not I should move to Skype or a different VoIP service? I’m interested in reading your thoughts!

Scanning Through Search Engine Results… Weird…

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One of the great things about running a website (or, in this case, a blog) is seeing how your readers get to your site in the first place. I know that I have a lot of family and friends that read my blog (thanks guys!), but the majority of my hits come from search engines (thanks Google, Yahoo!, and the rest!). As a webmaster, I am sometimes baffled by the search terms and phrases that bring my readers to me. In fact, I thought I’d look at the last five search phrases that brought some of you to this website.

Please note that I’m not looking at the top five most popular search terms – that would be a different entry altogether. I’m looking at the last five search phrases that landed someone on JerseySmarts.com. It should also be noted that the last five search phrases brought readers here from a Google search engine.

Searched Phrase: terry weldon new jersey 2009
Ah. Nice one. For those of you that don’t know, Terry Weldon is the former (scumbag) Mayor of Ocean Township in Monmouth County. He was also a public employee of the City of Asbury Park. This man is as corrupt as the day is long. The JerseySmarts.com page that this searcher landed on talked about how Terry Weldon was the epitome of a scumbag.

Searched Phrase: comcast customer care number
Over the summer I had some issues with Comcast’s customer care. Something wasn’t quite right when I was looking for FOX News HD on my cable box. You can read what this particular searcher found on JerseySmarts.com by clicking here.

Searched Phrase: diet books for men
It was only a few days ago that I posted my review of The Eat-Clean Diet for Men. In case you missed it (or in case you can’t scroll down the screen here…), feel free to head on over via this link. I’m probably the happiest about this particular search phrase because it shows that the content that is placed on JerseySmarts.com quickly rises up the ranks in the search engine world. You listening to that, advertisers?

Searched Phrase: guys trip to nashville
Every once in a while one of my entries has something to do with an event that someone else is planning. Clearly, this searcher was looking for ideas for a trip to Nashville for he and his buddies. Well, when he Google’d this phrase he landed on JerseySmarts.com and an entry that I uploaded over the summer reviewing my most recent trip to Nashville.

Searched Phrase: roxbury high school football
Go Gaels! A few days ago I made it very clear that, as a member of the 1998 State Championship football team from Roxbury High School, I am completely behind the current team as they prepare to play against East Orange Campus High School this weekend at Giants Stadium. I know that I speak for the entire 1998 team when I say good luck! Many of the guys will be in the stands and we want to see that state title come back home. The guys on the current team have made all of Roxbury Township proud with their excellent performance this season. We’re all pulling for them to win the big one this weekend and they can definitely do it!

Whoever searched for that term found my congratulatory post to the current team (as well as some pictures of me from when we won the state championship 11 years ago) when they landed on the page linked here.

And there you have it – the last five searched phrases that brought some of YOU to JerseySmarts.com. If you happen to be someone who landed on this page thanks to Google or another search engine, please feel free to leave a comment telling us what you were looking for and if the search engine that you used gave you the right answers.

When Will Comcast NJ Receive Spike HD?

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Enough is enough already with waiting… I’ve been asking the folks at Comcast when we’re going to be able to receive Spike HD in the Monmouth/Ocean county area and they keep telling me that it’s coming soon. I’ve been asking for over a year – close to a year and a half, actually. Does anyone out there know when we’re supposed to receive the Spike HD channel in this market?

I wish I knew more about the process of delivering a channel to a specific area. I feel like it probably isn’t much more than coming to an agreement with the channel’s ownership (in this case, Viacom) and then flipping a few switches. Makes you wonder what is taking so long to get this otherwise simple process completed.

One of the reasons that I’m a little bit angered over this delay is because Comcast recently added Spike HD to certain markets in New Jersey. Why couldn’t our market be included in that update?! Anyway, if anyone knows when we’re going to receive the Spike HD channel in the Monmouth/Ocean market, please let me know. Thanks!