"Frank Boettcher" <fboettcher (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote

Your assertion that Usenet is a quagmire and a company shouldn't be
involved in it.

I had and have nothing to say about your ex-company since you did not
name who they are.

As I said I can't judge your ex-compamny since you didn't name it. But I
will say that in this hypothetical situation of you hypothetically being
in your 50's and the hypothetically younger ones presenting such a
policy in a hypothetical company - well if this actually happened then
the people involved in such a decision were stupid fools.

Obviously not if you do not understand how to properly engage a company
on Usenet.

I gave 2 examples to you of real live companies that engage on online
forums, and you still insist that even in the face of companies actually
doing this, that it can't be done?

Absolute bullpucky. If a troll posts you answer the question, and if
he or she comes back with "that's bullcrap, yadda yadda yadda" then
you ignore it.

If your answer WAS bullcrap, then guess what - the troll has a point, and
you better figure out how to make changes in your company so that you
don't have to give out bullcrap answers.

If your answer wasn't bullcrap, then everyone on the forum is going to
be able to see it, and you have nothing really to worry about.

Any forum that has a chance of generating sales for a company is
worth participating in.

As I have said before Usenet really isn't a hotbed of new car buyers
and people don't make logical purchasing decisions when buying
new cars, so it would very likely be a waste of time for automakers to
participate.

But MANY other products are NOT like cars, particularly products
sold to niche markets. For example it would be a very good idea for
a company like Federal Mogul to participate in the Usenet group

alt.ballbearings

if such a thing existed, and if existing, was frequented.

If your ideas are solid they will generage credibility for them, that is
what establishes your online credibility. Same for me. I don't think
your idea about Usenet being a worthless quagmire is correct and I
have posted why, and the backup for this. You probably won't change
your opinon - but I'm not writing for you I'm writing for the group.
If I was writing for you I'd e-mail you. That is why it's a discussion
group. If others on the group agree with my ideas that is all that
I care about, and in fact it makes no difference if I'm really who I
say I am. What is important is the ideas, not who said them.

Fundamentally that is what this discussion boils down to. If for
example Chrysler decided to create an official representation here
then the point of that would be to get across that the Chrysler company
does care about it's customers and wants them to buy new Chryslers.

It just amazes me that you claim to be a Usenet expert and you haven't
grasped this fundamental thing.

Take old Nomen Nesco or whatever his name is. What gets people
rolling their eyes is the stupidity of the ideas he posts, not that it is
in fact Nomen that posts them. If Nomen quit posting all his airplane
design must go into cars nonsense, and started posting something
reasonable, then in a year that userID might start coming out of
people's killfiles.

Ted

"MoPar Man" <MoPar (AT) Man (DOT) com> wrote

How exactly does a software program "wear out"?

Companies that build for the bottom-of-the-barrel customers very
likely do put products together like this. But there are many many products
out there which are very well made and will in fact keep working
year after year, with no maintainence, repair, etc.

For example, lots of people have large inventory of SnapOn tools
which I think you would be out of your fricking mind if you asserted that
a SnapOn 10 mm wrench was designed to wear out in a predictable,
controlled way.

In any case, I would suggest that you consider the effects of the
Oil Filter Study that castigated Fram filters and was circulated around
a number of years ago (and is still available online) Fram chose
not to respond to this by improving their oil filter quality, to this day
Fram filters are still made with cardboard instead of steel inside
the filters, and that has certainly cost Fram hundreds of thousands
in sales over the years. More importantly, none of the other oil
filter companies dared to change their oil filter designs to do what
Fram does, after that study came out.

How are you going to prove in a court that a Usenet posting wasn't
forged?

Using your logic, this is already a liability problem, you don't even need
to be on Usenet. I can post that the seat belts in my van are a problem,
then forge an official response, then take both into a court and sue
Chrysler.

yeah, right.

And if you have an answer to that, well then I post that my seatbelts
are a problem and at the same time write a letter, Chrysler responds
with a paper letter with platitudes, I post the paper letter in an online
forum, and the result is exactly the same with the same liability issues.

The liability comment is nothing more than an excuse that people
in companies use to justify not participating in a forum, because they
cannot see any value in the forum, and they want something to tell
customers that are demanding they participate.

Ted

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

Oh, for that, as Micro$haft. They are experts at manipulating public
opion.

How does software wear out? By badmouthing it. Macro$loth tries to
release a new OS every 2 or 3 years. Regardless if the old one is
"worn out". They will make the old one seem "worn out" by
bad-mouthing it, by pointing out how old it is, and the rest of the
computer industry (and consumers) will buy it hook, line and sinker.

Then the newer one will be shown to have bugs and vulnerabilities that
far outstrip the problems the older OS had.

Because anything of any serious import will arrive on someone's desk
in the form of a registered letter from a customer and possibly also a
duplicate sent to the FTC or NHTSA or DOT. On-line public forums are
just a lot of noise as far as corporations are concerned and nothing
to take seriously. It will not hurt their business bottom-line to not
participate or be seen to be addressing issues raised in such forums.

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 22:05:33 -0800, "Ted Mittelstaedt"
<tedm (AT) toybox (DOT) placo.com> wrote:

Thank you. You're response has made my point better than I could.

Frank

"MoPar Man" <MoPar (AT) Man (DOT) com> wrote

For many industries, right now that is correct, although it can help their
bottom line to participate on these forums, and many do so for that reason.
For other industries that is incorrect, if they were to withdraw their
online
presense it would seriously impact their bottom line. And every year the
number of industries that can afford to ignore these forums gets smaller
and smaller.

There is no question also that there's money in those forums, you just need
to know how to dig it out.

Consider also that with the growth of $9.99 DVD's and the shrinkage
of television viewing that traditional advertising has become less and less
effective over the years. These trends are increasing and
eventually even the most backwards company is going to be dragged
kicking and screaming to the online forums by the need to compete.
Every year more and more people get online, the day is also coming
when (at least for the retail) the TV set and the computer will converge,
and it's within the realm of believability that the time will come that more
time will be spent in front of the computer than in front of the TV watching
TV programming. That's already happening with some population
segments.

Ted

"Frank Boettcher" <fboettcher (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote

Sorry that those grapes are so sour, man.

Ted

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

That's assuming the company wants to have an honest dialogue and not
hide problems. I can think of many genuine problems that DC and GM and
Ford purposely ignore and know that if they bide their time, they (the
problems) will just fade away (the modern "We're no worse than anybody
else" business philosophy). If they made an obvious presence on usenet,
they would never be off the hook in addressing genuine problems. In the
present culture of the automotive industry, I don't see how they could
maintain a presence - it would be, as Jeff Foxworthy would say,
pandalerium. The answers would be cleared thru a legal team, and would
be of no value to the consumer due to protecting their own interests and
obfuscating the fact behind the real problems that they had no interest
in fixing. If it doesn't help their bottom line, then there is "no
value added". IMO it would either be a PR and legal nightmare *or*
worthless information (designed to obfuscate). You can be assured it
would not be the former.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 11:16:32 -0800, "Ted Mittelstaedt"
<tedm (AT) toybox (DOT) placo.com> wrote:

with anyone who carefully and thoughtfully reads your response.

Frank

"Bill Putney" <bptn (AT) kinez (DOT) net> wrote

Bill, I hate to break it to you but the new car buyers DO NOT WANT
the automakers to address problems. If the new car purchasers actually
based buying decisions on the automakers addressing problems we would
have seen the automakers on Usenet years ago.

It's not the fault of the automakers. New car buyers only seem to use
emotional reactions to buying cars, not logical, as I've already posted,
that's why the automakers are not here, once again as I've already posted.

The issue I was addressing is that a great many products are in fact NOT
purchased based on emotional advertising gimmickry, and those companies
can benefit by a Usenet presence. Ole Frank there was arguing with me
because he thinks all companies sell products to exactly the same kinds
of markets as the new car buyer market, thus usenet is worthless for all
companies. I say that's bullcrap and I'm still saying it's bullcrap.

Now, I don't know the exact figures but let's assume for a moment that
the average car has a 15 year lifespan, and is sold an average of 4
times during that lifespan, or in other words averages 3-4 years with
each owner. (feel free to replace these with your own guesstimates)
That means that every year, only 25% of ALL car sales are NEW cars,
the remaining 75% of car sales are the previous years new cars that
are now being sold as used cars.

In short, 75% of the people buying cars out
there in any given time are NOT the market that the automakers are
building cars for. Think of that next time you wonder why the hell we
get such ass-backwards styling and designs in vehicles. It is only a
somewhat smallish minority of car buyers that the automakers are
building cars for.

Ted

"Frank Boettcher" <fboettcher (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote

But, of course you do! That's OK Frank, we know how hard that
thinking is for you anymore, we still love you though.

Ted