Tag Archives: ACSI

Weekly output: gadget customer satisfaction, Google Pay fact-checking rewards, right to repair, Mozilla browser-choice report, AI image generators

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Through two years of building back my business-travel schedule, one frequent destination from the Before Times had remained off my calendar until this week: New York. My overdue reunion with NYC allowed an equally belated inspection of Penn Station’s Moynihan Train Hall (one thing I didn’t expect was how great it would be to see the sky through that glass ceiling as I ascended the escalator from the tracks) and not enough time to wander around that other city on the Northeast Corridor.

9/20/2022: Amazon Sees Uptick in Consumer Satisfaction With Its Fire Tablets, Kindles, PCMag

I got an advance look at the latest survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which suggested that Amazon’s e-readers and tablets have been winning some fans in the last year.

9/21/2022: Some Google Pay Users Offered Tiny Bribes to Check Transaction Data, PCMag

I decided to try to sell this story after Google prompted me in Copenhagen to verify that its app had correctly recorded a transaction at a ticket-vending machine in that city’s central train station–which should be among the easier paperless transactions to confirm.

Photo shows the slide identifying me and my fellow panelists: Lisa Kemp of Sims Lifecycle Solutions, Ildar Manoprov of WCell, and Dylan Jackie of Back Market.9/21/2022: Right to Repair Panel, BackForum

The gadget-resale platform Back Market had me moderate a panel at its one-day conference in Brooklyn, in return for which they covered my Amtrak fare from and back to D.C. This was originally going to be a one-day trip, but after Qualcomm invited me to an auto-tech event it was hosting the next day (with lodging covered), I opted to stick around NYC through Friday morning.

9/22/2022: Mozilla says users are being denied browser choice. It’s not that simple, PCMag

My first prominent endorsement of Mozilla Firefox happened 18 years ago, and yet I still found this report that browser’s developers to be surprisingly unpersuasive. 

9/25/2022: Why This Online Archivist Isn’t Feeling Much Angst About AI-Generated Art, PCMag

After arriving at Union Station late Friday morning, I bikeshared over to the Wharf for the conference hosted by The Atlantic that was a fixture in my Before Times calendar. The talk by the Internet Archive’s Jason Scott immediately struck me as material for a post, and then I had a moderately mind-expanding talk with him an hour and change later.

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Weekly output: slumping social-media satisfaction, Russia threatens to leave ISS, CHIPS Act, IRS direct e-filing, net-neutrality bill

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My workweek ended with a streak of only-in-Washington posts.

7/26/2022: Customer Satisfaction With Social Media Platforms Is Slumping, PCMag

I got an advance look at the latest results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, an ongoing survey project that’s been a source of story ideas since I worked at the Post.

Article as seen in the iPadOS Flipboard app7/27/2022: A Russian ISS exit could give NASA a hangover—then leave cosmonauts grounded, Fast Company

I could have written this explainer at twice its length and detail, but I’m also the guy who has a Lego model of the ISS rounding out my home-office decor. I’m glad that I ended this piece with some skepticism about Russia’s ability to walk away from the station after 2024, because by the end of the week Russia had clarified that it would not leave the ISS until launching its own space station in 2028–a goal that no serious observer seems to think within that country’s grasp.

7/29/2022: House OKs CHIPS Act to Boost US Semiconductor Manufacturing, PCMag

It’s easier to sell a bill in Congress with a clever acronym; this one’s title stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors.”

7/29/2022: IRS Asked to Consider Free, Direct E-File Tax Returns, PCMag

The “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” doesn’t have much in common with the “Build Back Better” bill, but it does retain that larger measure’s provision calling for the IRS to report back to Congress on the feasibility of providing its own direct e-filing site. As in, what Virginia had 12 years ago before a gullible General Assembly and governor fell for Intuit’s “Free File” bait and switch.

7/29/2022: Dems Look to Restore Net-Neutrality Regulations on Internet Providers, PCMag

I don’t get this bill. If Senate Dems can’t even muster 50 votes for Biden’s stalled pro-net-neutrality Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn, what makes them think they can get 60 votes for this sweeping expansion of the FCC’s regulatory authority?

Weekly output: TikTok (x3), Apple TV+, social-media satisfaction, AMC, TV metrics, NBCUniversal (x2), 5G flavors, Disney, Fox, tech journalism, Facebook and Twitter vs. Trump, Roku, Instagram Reels, election security, influence operations online

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This week was kind of nuts. I knew I’d be busy covering breaking news in the mornings for my trade-pub client FierceVideo while one of their reporters was on vacation, but I didn’t factor in how many entertainment and TV companies would be announcing their quarterly earnings. This put a dent in my ability to follow the now-virtual Black Hat and DEF CON security conferences that, were this a normal year, would have had me in Las Vegas this week. (Hacker summer camp friends, I miss you too and will try to catch up on your talks over the next few days.)

8/3/2020: Microsoft gets Trump green-light to buy TikTok, FierceVideo

I started this week by writing a bit about the biggest story in tech this week.

8/3/2020: Apple TV+ comes to American Airlines flights, FierceVideo

Writing about this addition to AA’s in-flight entertainment gave me an excuse to get a few quotes from one of my favorite avgeek bloggers, Seth Miller.

8/4/2020: Survey Shows Facebook Barely More Satisfying Than Comcast, Forbes

I got an advance look at the latest report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, allowing me to have this post up right as the ACSI published these findings.

8/4/2020: AMC’s second-quarter earnings could have been worse, FierceVideo

This was the first of four earnings stories.

8/4/2020: Time spent on TV viewing soars, says Samba, FierceVideo

My editor at Fierce pointed me to this study and asked if I’d heard of Samba TV; I said I had, and that a friend had tried to connect me with their CEO at CES last year.

8/4/2020: Layoffs loom at NBCUniversal, FierceVideo

I wrote up a WSJ report about pending layoffs for my third post of Tuesday.

8/5/2020: Thinking of buying a 5G smartphone? Finding your carrier’s flavor of 5G requires a taste for investigation, USA Today

We had to correct this column because I said a study released in May came out last year, an error I could only laugh about once it was brought to my attention.

8/5/2020: After a disaster movie of a quarter, Disney bets on Mulan, FierceVideo

The big news in Disney’s earnings call: It will debut Mulan in September as a $29.99 extra for Disney+ subscribers instead of sticking to a theatrical release.

8/5/2020: Fox forges ahead despite ad-revenue shortfall in Q4, FierceVideo

The optimism Fox executives voiced on their earnings call about sports returning this fall seemed unfounded at the time.

8/5/2020: Tech journalism, Lobsterclass

My friend Rakesh Agrawal (aka rakeshlobster on Twitter) quizzed me about the state of tech journalism and how startup founders might improve their interactions with the media for the latest in a series of product-management classes he began in May. Our Zoom chat got interrupted a couple of times by incoming WhatsApp calls that I couldn’t answer with “sorry, can’t talk right now” messages because my phone was already in use as my Zoom camera.

8/5/2020: Facebook and Twitter suppress Trump coronavirus video, Al Jazeera

The reason behind those calls: AJ’s English-language channel wanted me to opine about the two social networks taking down Trump shares of a Fox News video in which the president said children are “almost immune” to COVID-19. So at 11 p.m., I put my phone back on the tripod for yet another video call.

8/6/2020: Roku Q2: 43 million active accounts, $43 million loss, FierceVideo

I wrapped up my earnings coverage for Fierce by covering Roku’s quarter.

8/6/2020: First take on Instagram’s Reels: Yes, it’s a TikTok clone, FierceVideo

In addition to gathering quotes from a couple of analysts, I cobbled together my own art for this story by taking screenshots of Instagram’s new TikTok-ish feature.

8/7/2020: What becoming a poll worker taught me about securing the 2020 election, Fast Company

Security researcher and Georgetown Law professor Matt Blaze’s Black Hat keynote gave me an opportunity to share my own experience as a poll worker with a larger audience than this blog ever gets. We had to correct one error after posting; the National Vote At Home Institute, a non-profit whose CEO I quoted in the piece, is based in Denver, not D.C. as listed in its Twitter bio.

8/7/2020: From Russia With Lure: Why We’re Still Beset By Bots And Trolls Pushing Disinformation, Forbes

Stanford Internet Observatory researcher Renée DiResta gave an excellent keynote on day two of Black Hat about influence operations online and how China and Russia’s efforts compare.

8/7/2020: Trump issues executive order to ban business with TikTok, FierceVideo

I scrambled to get an explanation of what, exactly, Trump’s order would ban U.S. companies and users from doing with TikTok, and Public Knowledge’s telecom-law guru Harold Feld came through.

8/7/2020: NBCUniversal reshuffles entertainment leadership, FierceVideo

My week filling in at Fierce wrapped up with this recap of a reorg at NBCU.

8/9/2020: TikTok’s suitors, Al Jazeera

I usually don’t shave on Sundays but had to for this appearance on AJ’s Arabic-language channel to talk about why Microsoft and, reportedly, Twitter, might want to buy TikTok.

Weekly output: Facebook customer dissatisfaction, Facebook meddling in the Middle East (x3)

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Tuesday has me departing for Las Vegas for the Black Hat and DEF CON information-security conferences, aka Hacker Summer Camp. In addition to the usual risk of getting pwned, this year I and other attendees will also have to deal with a plague of grasshoppers.

Yahoo Facebook ACSI post7/30/2019: Study shows Facebook’s customer-satisfaction scores plunging, Yahoo Finance

A new survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed people’s contentment with Facebook plummeting to depths you could call Comcastic–except the cable company still rated lower in ACSI research earlier this year. If this post seems somewhat familiar, you may remember me writing up a similar set of ASCI findings in 2010. The issue of what we’ve learned about Facebook in the intervening years is left as an exercise for the reader.

8/1/2019: Facebook catches meddling from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Al Jazeera

The Arabic-language news channel had me on air live–twice in this day–to talk about Facebook’s announcement that it had booted hundreds of accounts and pages run out of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt for “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” its phrase for disinformation campaigns.

8/2/2019: Facebook catches meddling from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia misbehaving on social media put the Qatari network into flood-the-zone mode–not difficult to understand, given the enmity between the kingdom and Qatar–and so AJ had me on for a second day in a row to talk about this story. If you don’t care about Gulf politics, please consider that the Facebook-meddling move here of impersonating local news sources could work in the many U.S cities and towns now starved for local news coverage.

Weekly output: cybersecurity, pay-TV satisfaction, U.S. vs. Huawei, personal air transport, open-source SaaS, Collision conference

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I don’t have to fly anywhere Monday, which seems a cause for joy after the last six weeks of travel.

5/21/2019: Cybersecurity: In search of the Holy Grail?, Collision

This somewhat broad description yielded a talk on what we’re doing wrong in infosec with defy.vc managing director Trae Vassallo, Veracode co-founder Chris Wysopal, 4iQ CEO Monica Pal, and Emerson Collective managing director (and former Democratic National Committee CTO Raffi Krikorian. I will add a link to video of this (and the other panels I moderated in Toronto) whenever the organizers post it; in the meantime, enjoy the picture by my friend John Ulaszek.

5/21/2019: Comcast, DirecTV and others suffer another round of low customer satisfaction scores, FierceVideo

I wrote up the latest findings of the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey for my occasional trade-publication client FierceVideo.

5/21/2019: U.S. vs. Huawei, Al Jazeera

I talked to AJ’s Arabic-language news channel about the growing isolation of the Chinese telecom firm via Skype from the Collision speaker-prep lounge; if you watched this hit live, that setting should explain the dull backdrop.

5/22/2019: The race to rule the skies, Collision

My second Collision panel featured Gwen Lighter, founder and CEO of the GoFly competition, and Ben Marcus, co-founder of the drone-cartography firm AirMap, talking about efforts to enable personal air transportation.

5/23/2019: Open source in the SaaS era, Collision

Panel number three of this week called for me to interview MongoDB CTO Eliot Horowitz, and that proved harder than I’d expected: The stage acoustics made it difficult for mo to hear complete sentences from him.

5/24/2019: At Collision conference, Facebook and the rest of tech gets taken to task once again, USA Today

I wrote a recap of the conference for USAT that noted the general distaste for Facebook’s reach and conduct as well as the lack of certainty over what, exactly, we should do about that company.

Updated 6/29/2019 to add links to videos of my Collision panels.

Weekly output: customer satisfaction, net neutrality, Facebook interest-based ads

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Having a holiday shorten this work week was much appreciated. So was the chance to catch up with some of my college-newspaper friends Saturday; my unpaid, no-course-credits-granted time at the Georgetown Voice remains the most career-relevant thing I did in college.

Yahoo Finance ACSI post6/1/2016: New customer service survey says Comcast is no longer the worst, Yahoo Finance

This was the first story I’ve written in an actual newsroom in quite some time, thanks to me visiting Yahoo Finance’s NYC offices for the day.

6/5/2016: The FCC’s ‘power grab’ on net neutrality still hasn’t burned your broadband provider, Yahoo Finance

I was working on another story when I saw that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had yet again failed to cough up a ruling on the suit challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s net-neutrality regulations. I decided that I was tired of waiting on that court to write my next post about the net-neutrality argument and cranked out this over a couple of hours.

6/5/2016: Status with Facebook ‘interest-based’ ads is complicated, USA Today

This was yet another piece that I didn’t have on my list of story ideas at the start of the week. My summary to my editor after spending two hours bouncing e-mails back and forth with Facebook PR to discern the privacy models behind two of the social network’s ad systems: “This was one of the bigger reporting hairballs I’ve had to eat.”