Frustrating XBOX Live Problems during the Holidays

I am expecting to see huge numbers from Microsoft’s Video Gaming division this holiday season. It’s hard to say if they’ve dropped the ball or not with their XBOX Live service, during what is likely the most important time for the service to be 100%. But we’ve already seen comparisons such as “XBOX Live starting to have the stability of the 360 systems” pop up all over the place.

It’s not good when a paid service experiences issues during the whole holiday break. We’ve seen a bunch of updates from Major Nelson reassuring us that “the service was never completely offline.” The problem with that statement is that while it’s great for people who where not affected, it’s sort of a smack in the face for the rest of us. Everyone that I know that uses the service has experienced some sort of issue during these last 10 days, including myself. Most of us have had problems quite a few times during the last week, and it’s damn frustrating.

I don’t doubt for a second that when Major Nelson said “The entire LIVE team has been working day and night to ensure that you can have a great LIVE experience,” he was not exaggerating. The LIVE team understand they need to provide exceptional service, especially since it’s paid.

All that being said, I honestly believe that Microsoft needs to offer some compensation to all the LIVE users for these very frustrating problematic times. A free week or two of Live? Maybe 800 MS points? I have no idea what, but it would certainly be a shame not to take responsibility and make this right.

Netflix VS Blockbuster

Netflix

Even before I read “Why I Am Breaking Up With Netflix” by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, I was already seriously considering dumping Netflix. I have been a Netflix customer since their early beginning and I have always loved the service. That being said however, I do agree with most of what Michael says in his article.

For instance, when I return more than 4 or 5 movies in a month, I start seeing delays in shipments for my next in queue movie selections. Suddenly Netflix will receive movies I sent back to them a day or so later than usual. If they do receive my movies on time, it will take an extra day or so to send my next movie out. What bothers me even more than that, is the delays in getting the newly released movies which are on top of my queue. All of the new releases in my queue either read “Short wait” or “Long wait.”

From my understanding, they set newer customers to a higher priority for new releases so that they always get them first. Customers who are loyal get sent to the back-burner. While I do understand that getting new business is key to success, I do feel like it’s unfair to the customers who have helped Netflix get where they are today.

All that being said, I have never had a customer support problem with Netflix. Even though a few movies over the years have been lost in the mail, once I report them missing on their site my next movie automatically gets shipped out with no questions asked.

Blockbuster

I had never tried Blockbuster’s service which competes with Netflix, but I recently felt more and more inclined to try it. Blockbuster now allows customers to return movies which they received in the mail, at their local store. When you return a movie, you get to rent another one for free from the store, and Blockbuster will also send you the next movie in your queue as well. Recently they have started allowing video game rentals too, so you can pickup a game in-store instead of a movie - which is just another plus for being a Blockbuster customer.

However, Blockbuster has three big disadvantages as or right now. 1: What Blockbuster doesn’t have yet is the community support that Netflix has. Tools like Netflix Freak for OS X make life easier, and there are a lot more apps around for both Windows and Mac. 2: Netflix still has a much much deeper selection of movies than Blockbuster has ever had. 3: Netflix seems to be quicker to bring in next gen DVD movies(HD-DVD/Blu-Ray), and has a larger selection. Also, Netflix will automatically switch the movies in your queue to your preffered next-gen DVD format automatically.

Knowing all this I signed up for their 2 week free trial and decided to give them a chance. How are their distribution centers? As quick as netflix? How about new release delays? Coming up: My thoughts on Blockbuster’s service compared to Netflix.

Free Zooomr Pro accounts for Bloggers

Zooomr is currently giving free Zooomr Pro accounts to all bloggers that want them. According to their blog post the only requirement to getting your free Pro account is to post one image on your blog, which is hosted by Zooomr. Once this requirement has been met and verified, your account will be upgraded to Pro status at no charge.

Zooomr was developed by Kristopher Tate and is a direct competitor to other photo sharing services such as Flickr. Look for Zooomr 2.0 in a few days, as they are getting ready to release it.

Ebay updates Payment policy and bans Google Checkout

Ebay has updated its Safe Payments policy to include Google Checkout as part of its list of online payment methods not permitted on eBay. According to eBay’s Safe Payments policy, payment service must have a “substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services.”

Google’s spokesperson said yesterday, “Google Checkout is not a beta product. Google has a long history in billing and payments for AdWords and for premium services, such as Google Video.”

“We want to work with everybody”

Yahoo Messenger 8.0 and Software Development Kit launching tonight

Tonight at 9PM ET, Yahoo! will be releasing Yahoo Messenger 8.0, and software development kit. The develpment kit will allow 3rd party developers to make plugins for Yahoo Messenger.

The Software Development Kit will be loacated at developer.yahoo.com/messenger and a gallery of the plugins at gallery.yahoo.com/messenger.

Plugins will be built using javascript and flash.

Yahoo Messenger currently has 60 million world-wide users.

Source: TechCrunch

SONY BMG launches Free Music Video streaming service

A new service called Musicbox Video was launched from Sony BMG, which streams Music Videos, artist interviews, and live performances. The videos will be streamed on the website with a flash-based player that utilizes technology provided by Brightcove, which will handle advertising for the service.

This move by Sony BMG comes after a huge growth of music videos appearing on sites like YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video and AOL Video.

The Musicbox Video service, just like its rivals, will allow users to share their favotire videos, as well as post them on their website via an embedded flash-based players.

No a big innovation here, it looks like music labels are just now starting to do what should have been done a year or two ago.

Source

Craigslist.org expands all over US and overseas

Craigslist.org, a free community classifieds and forums website, for posting and searching for jobs, goods, services, housing, or even dating, has expanded throughout the United States and overseas.

Craigslist was founded in early 1995 by Craig Newman, in San Francisco, Ca. Currently, Craigslist is rated in one of the top 100 Alexa sites.

Amazon introduces Amazon Grocery Beta

Seattle-based Internet retailer Amazon.com has introduced yet another a new retail section on its website. Amazon Grocery Beta was launched about two weeks ago, and currently offers more than 10,000 non-perishable grocery items. Unlike most other online grocery retailers which can only deliver to a very limited area, Amazon.com can ship their non-perishable items to any customer.

Amazon.com Grocery also has an extensive selection of natural and organic products for sale.

At Amazon Grocery, you’ll find longtime staples, from Kellogg’s to Jiffy Pop. You’ll find new entries, such as Kashi cereals and Kraft Easy Mac microwavable snack packets. And when we carry a brand, we’ll try to carry every flavor available: not just the most popular flavors of Jell-O, but all flavors, from apricot to wild strawberry and the 70 flavors in-between. We’re also making regional favorites like Andy Capp Hot Fries available nationwide, and making hard-to-find specialties like Zico Pure Coconut Water a standard part of our mix.

We are now one step closer to never having to leave our homes again. Thanks Amazon!

Introducing 30 Boxes Webtop

TechCrunch writes about a new service that was just launched from 30 Boxes, called Webtop. 30 Boxes is a simple to use, yet powerful, online calendar application, that adds community based interaction, and integration to other online services such as Flickr.

Webtop, is a web browser desktop-like application, which is a front end to 30 Boxes, with an OS X look and feel to it. With Webtop, you have full control of your Todo list and calendar, the ability to set and customize your own background images, and you can also launch other web applications straight from the dock(such as Gmail, Flickr, Facebook, Webshots, etc), which is fully customizable to your linking.

Yahoo! Photos Beta launching today

The beta of Yahoo! Photos is due to launch on Today, around Noon EST/9AM PST. According to TechCrunch if you login to photos.yahoo.com and see “try the new beta” on the top right, just click it to request an invitation. About 10,000 spots will be available in the next week, so make sure you grab yours early. More spots will be made available over the next few weeks, so if you don’t get one tomorrow don’t worry.

Yahoo Photos is the largest online photo site with 30 million unique monthly visitors (compare to Flickr’s 8 million). Flickr is for the early adopters. Yahoo photos used to be for the masses, but a few early adopters may be giving it a try, too.

Read the full preview with lots of screenshots at TechCrunch.