Proactive Networking Blog

We had the opportunity to test out a Google G1 phone for a couple of weeks.  I had really hoped that it would live up to the hype and I would end up keeping it.  It was not to be.  The form factor of the phone is nice.  It feels good in the hand, although not as good as the iPhone.  The G1 fixes what I thought was a major iPhone problem - annoying keyboard.  The G1 has a snap out keyboard that is pretty large and allows for very rapid thumb typing.  When you snap the keyboard out, the screen automatically changs from portrait to landscape.

Problem number one is no support for Exchange Active Sync, which is a must for the business user.  Hopefully, this will be fixed in the next version.  I think it was a mistake even to release the phone without this functionality.  Apple released the first iPhone without Exchange Active Sync and it hurt the iPhones adoption with business users.  Although, Apple had the built in killer app of the iPhone being an iPod.  I couldn’t find the “killer app” on the G1.

Problem number two, or maybe this is even more glaring than problem one, is Google’s choice of T-Mobile as the only provider.  T-Mobile’s network is generally useless in my experience, unless you are in a large city.  Even in suburbs of Indianapolis, coverage was spotty.  Or, even if I was in coverage, I would often not get what I would consider to be 3G speeds.

I hope that Google will add Active Sync and allow other carriers to sell the next version.  For now, I will continue to use a Windows Mobile based phone.

Unfortunately, I decided to return my iPhone 3G.  I had hoped it might replace my Sprint Treo 700wx.  I found out that ATT would let me return the iPhone within two weeks no questions asked if I didn’t like it.  I took the Treo and the iPhone out to California with me when I went hiking with my father.  The iPhone was nice, easy to watch Youtube videos (actually more fun for my son than for me), Exchange Active Sync email was very easy to set up.  The screen is just amazing.  Don’t know why Palm or HTC can’t come up with something to match this.  My father has the Sprint Instinct which is supposed to compete with the iPhone, based on screen alone, it comes up short.

The main problem for me was coverage.  ATT claims to have the best coverage, but I didn’t see it.  Driving into Death Valley from Vegas, I lost ATT signal 15 minutes before losing the Sprint signal.  Coming out of Death Valley, had Sprint signal 20 minutes before ATT picked up.  Neither phone had a signal on top of Telescope Peak, which didn’t surprise me, as this mountain is very remote.

Driving up 395 from Lone Pine, CA to Mammoth Lakes, CA, I was constantly losing signal on the iPhone, while the Sprint signal was solid.  On Mammoth Mountain again no signal on the iPhone, and although the Sprint signal wasn’t good.  I could find a few spots where both my phone and even my Sprint laptop card would work (we rode the gondola up Mammoth, why hike when you can ride!  It was our rest day anyway and I conducted some profitable business sitting in the cafe up at 11,100 feet.)

On Boundary Peak, no signal from either phone at the top (although I was darn near too tired to care), but got Sprint signal numerous times on the way up. Again Boundary is very remote, so no surprise.

No signal from either phone at Cottonwood Lakes, basecamp for Mt. Langley.  We decided to go light and fast, so I didn’t take either phone up, but last time I I climbed it had a great signal for the Treo on top of Langley.  I assume the iPhone would have worked too, as you can see Lone Pine, CA from the top and the iPhone works in Lone Pine.

We rock climbed in the Owens River Gorge, and amazingly the Sprint had signal, I can’t imagine where it was coming from.  The Gorge is pretty deep.  Again, iPhone was a useless brick.

Since for me it is important to be able to keep in contact easily,  I decided to stick with the Treo.  Plus the mess with trying to get six business phones out of our Sprint contract.

Maybe someday I’ll buy that Satelite phone and then I can go for the iPhone.

Been running off and on for a couple of years with an iPod.  Never have been impressed.  I always have experienced a rhythmic loss of treble as I run.  It sounds similar to when I used to run with a cheap Walkman playing cassette tapes.

Yesterday, I finally broke with what seemed like an unbreakable protocol and stuck the right earbud in my left ear and left ear bud in my right.  Unbelievably, the sound is now perfect.  I guess the fit of the buds was pressing against my ears and cutting of the sound as I ran.  I’m astounded that it took me this long to figure this out.  I would think that I would have at least put them in the wrong ears by accident once.

When I see R & L, I figure there must be a reason and I never questioned it.  I guess I need to see what other inviolable rules I need to break.

We’ve used Google Adwords extensively, for ourselves and many of our clients, but have not tried Yahoo Search Marketing until two weeks ago. I had always read that Google owned this category and that there was no point going anywhere else. Recently, after Microsoft made an offer for Yahoo, I heard that Yahoo Search Marketing has as much as 25% of the search market. Based on our results with Yahoo so far, my guess is that my initial perceptions are still correct - Google owns search.

At any rate, we had a very interesting experience with Yahoo over the past two weeks. I signed up for a Yahoo Search Marketing account on a Monday. I added a test ad group for one of our clients and put $100 on account to start the test. This client of ours has an extensive ad campaign set up in Google and spends over $100 per day on Google Adwords, average CPC is about $1.30. I set up the Yahoo ad group with a dozen of the best performing keywords from Google, and our best performing Google ad, that most closely matched these keywords. Interestingly, the CPC for Yahoo, for similar keywords was only 24 cents. So, at least Yahoo gives you a discount. We got nowhere near the traffic we get on Google.

After three days of running ads, we noticed that Yahoo had charged an additional $3,600.00 to our company credit card. I logged in to our Yahoo Search account and found that my Ad Group was gone and now there where dozens of keywords about loans, and the ad spend had been raised to $3,000.00 per day. I quickly called Yahoo. They immediately shut down the account. They promised to credit the card and re-setup the account within a couple of days. I asked how this could have happened and they said that I had fallen for a Phishing email. At this point I was incredulous. I had only had the account for three days, what were the odds that a Yahoo Search Marketing phishing email would have arrived in my Yahoo email account during that time. I said that I had responded to an email right after I signed up asking me to confirm my account. They told me that they don’t send confirmation emails. Thus, apparently I had fallen prey to a phishing attack.

The thing I find interesting is what are the odds that I get a phishing email purporting to be from Yahoo Search within hours of signing up for an account. In my opinion, this has inside job written all over it. Yahoo said they would look into it. To their credit, they did refund the money and re-setup the account. I’m not convinced they believe my “inside job” thoughts. The rep who re-setup my account, started to give me a stern tutorial on not falling for phishing emails. I told her my story and she said, “What are you getting at?” She did tell me Yahoo was looking in to it…

Let’s see if this works…