CEO’s Starting To “get it” When It Comes To Blogging

A long time ago I did a post about the best job search sites as well as a post on HotJobs Spam. I was really impressed when Craigslist CEO Craig Newmark came in to comment and share his thoughts.

More recently I did a post talking about how cool the techcrunch winner Mint.com looked, and how frustrated I was because I couldn’t use it. Lo and behold, Mint CEO Aaron Patzer stopped in to offer his apologies.

Today, at the bottom of a post venting about my bank I mentioned that Mint was working fine for me, and that I wish they’d combine with Cake Financial to form one uber financial system. And guess what? Cake’s CEO, Steven Carpenter, stopped by to offer his take.

Now, I’m not trying to stroke my ego when it comes to this blog. I barely get a few hundred readers each day. If you’ve heard of the A list, I’m probably a member of the D list. That’s what impresses me so much about these CEO’s stopping by to comment on my blog.

These guys clearly understand the importance of blogging and having a visible presence (or, as Robert Scoble calls it: Naked Conversation) out there for your customers. They’re taking time out of their day to not only read what people think of their services, but to respond to it as well. And that’s important as hell!

In today’s web2.0 world customers don’t want to see just a big ugly corporation. They want to associate a face, a voice, and a person with that company. It’s amazing how many companies fail in this regard. We’ve already seen how bad it can blow up when you fake it. Just look at the MagsForLess.com bot that posts the same text on every blog complaining about getting ripped off. That just makes things worse!

Nowadays most companies have blogs but they only use them to hock more product; and rarely comment back (if they even allow comments.) These same companies would never even think to interact with somebody on a different website, and that’s sad.

It’s great to see that many CEO’s are starting to understand the power of blogging. These guys are going to go places.

September 24th, 2007

Why Do Banks Suck At The Internet?

If you’ve ever done any online banking, you’re probably familiar with the whole concept of wish it was 2 factor authentication. Basically it’s their attempt to implement the “something you have (atm card) plus something you know (pin #)” idea on the internet. The only problem is, it uses something you know (password) and something you most likely will forget (grandpa’s nickname, pet’s name, business street name, or favorite mersenne prime)

Well my bank did something similar. They asked me for questions a very long time ago. Unfortunately they didn’t let me pick the questions, so I was forced to make up a pet name at a time I didn’t have a pet (among other things.)
Last Wednesday they finally presented me with one of these questions. It was the company street name one. Of course I have no idea when I filled this out, and haven’t used it for a LONG time so I couldn’t remember if it was Troy Center, General Drive, South Street, or Meyer.

I tried Troy Center. That wasn’t it. Restart… Oh shit I’m locked out.

Not only was I locked out, there’s no number to call, address to email, or automated form to get me unlocked.

Here it is 5 days later and I’m still locked out of my account. I just called the bank and to get unlocked it requires me to go in to the bank in person, and then for them to call another company to unlock my account. Ridiculous!

I also just noticed that everybody can login with their account #, and account numbers are sequential. Given that it only takes one improper try to lock an account, it would be very trivial to write a program that locks out every user simultaneously. It’s a good thing for them I’m not feeling mischievous today.

On a side note, mint is working fine now and it’s a great program. Try it out! I’m also liking another techcrunch runner up called Cake Financial. It’s like mint but for investment accounts. Those 2 should really combine.

2 comments September 24th, 2007