I just received the first shipment from StartupSchwag. They send out promo items from startups to people who are interested in this normally free stuff for a small 14.95 fee. I was excited to get my hands on the package as I have been waiting for it since signing up for the service after reading the post about it on TechCrunch.

While I was aware that this would confirm all my thoughts that I have regressed into total dorkville I was eagerly waiting with much anticipation. I was hoping to find cool new companies, interesting items, and something that really kicked things off.

Boy was I disappointed. The package was sent in a typical USPS priority mail bag and looked like it had been through a long journey. I immediately opened the bag to see a glowing green shirt bearing the TechCrunch logo. I then realized there was no paperwork or any other information in the bag. I almost missed the 3 stickers and foam star that were accompanying the shirt.

I don’t have pics at this time but will add them shortly. While I may have had high expectations I would of though a little thank you note or welcome note would be appropriate. Also why not something that explains the companies on that same sheet, I am sure the companies would gladly provide a quick description of what they offer.

I was tempted to immediately cancel the subscription but I am going to give it one more chance. Hopefully they had some internal issues that have been worked out otherwise I cannot see Startup Schwag gaining much momentum.

Microsoft Demographics Prediction Tool.

It is always useful to know your audience so tools like this are always welcome. They are not 100% accurate like most tools but they offer an insight and a good ballpark range. Sometimes its fun just to mess around and see what it spits out.

Thanks to Marketing Lane for the tip.

A time has come and gone with Joost. No need to request invites!

They have been using the private beta as a way to get people interested in the site for about 2 years. They have finally pulled the plug on the exclusivity and are allowing anyone who wants to check out their system access. It was an amazing marketing feat that they were able to get so much attention to a closed and invite only platform. I doubt they would have had the same success and amount of users had they done this from the beginning.

This reminds me of the little kids on the playground that only want something that they cant have, once they obtain the object it doesnt provide them with much gratification. This was the case with Joost, a neat concept and a very real possible market mover but as of now it is still on the playground.

SubvertandProfit is known for allowing people to buy “diggs’ on the popular digg.com news site. Today they opened up the marketplace so advertisers can buy positive ‘thumb up’ from StumbleUpon for any url of their choice. The first thing you would think of is that the here comes the spam, while that may be a valid concern to some I do not think this will have much if any effect on Stumbleupon and the users. StumbleUpon would of been riddled with spam long ago if it allowed direct URL votes to count into its system.

Here is the screen shot of the basic field that advertisers will use when filling out a request and below are the guidelines direct from Subvert. Its pretty basic, they fund the account and buy stumbles for 1 dollar.

StumbleUpon Guidelines

User

• It is ok to thumbs up stories that you were not assigned with your account. In fact, we encourage you to do so.
• You may have stories to thumbs up even if we don’t email you.

Advertiser

• Please note that in order to avoid detection by StumbleUpon, we spread out votes on your content over the course of several days.
• Please limit the number of votes you buy for a particular URL to 30 per week.
• If you have a site with multiple pages, try to split up the votes between some of the pages. For example, if you run a blog, you could buy votes for both your homepage and individual posts.
• We reserve the right to reject any advertisement!

Most of us who have been doing actual advertising on Stumble (you can buy placement for 5 cents directly from Stumble) have noticed that a direct thumbs up does not drive traffic in the way that one does if it was sent by the Stumble toolbar. This means that if you go directly to a site and thumbs up it the vote doesnt count as much (or any) as it would if it happened naturally through someone stumbling.
What this means is that this attempt to game StumbleUpon does not work and will have almost no impact on the community. There is some talk that if you send a url to a friend then it shows up in their toolbar and if they then thumbs up the site it counts in full. This has not been confirmed yet.

This might work for Digg but StumbleUpon will probably not be affected by this. This battle may have been over before it began.

This is not going to happen now. The music industry has ‘promised’ Congress that they will not enforce the new rates, for now.

In the world of telephones not much has changed over the past 50 years though things may be changing. Voip services have nearly become mainstream with Vonage, GrandCentral was recently acquired by Google and promises a one number for all approach and many, many other startups have tried to gain a share of the multi trillion dollar phone industry. Did you know Bill Gates is no longer the worlds richest man, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim whose fortune is now at an estimated $67.8bn (equivalent to 8% of Mexico’s gross domestic product) putting him in the lead by a whopping $8.6bn. There is a lot of money in this industry and people are starting to take notice.
So the problem is that automated phone systems suck, some of us even make cheat sheets to get around them. The web is opening up other ways to avoid this ongoing and growing headache.

Here is how Bringo works. You don’t even need to dial your phone. Just find the company you want to talk to in their directory, type in your phone number, and a couple of minutes later Bringo calls you and connects you to an operator at that company. I cant wait until thee guys release a mobile client that we can use on our cells, this would almost be too good to be true. The days of yelling operator, pushing ### and 000 are hopefully coming to an end.

“We’re planning numbers porting after the beta period.”

I think eBay is in the wrong here, and Google took the high road when they could of played this game and everyone would of lost, especially eBay.
You can read more over at TC.

Apparently it’s an issue, and for some reason, asking them to speak slower wasn’t an effective solution. So, the wizards at Fujitsu have built a special phone for DoCoMo which will be targeted at the elderly that (no, seriously) will slow… down… the… speech… of… the… person… you’re… talking… to. It’s designed to slow down their speech to about 70% of the speed that they’re actually talking, elongating each word. However, to avoid too much of the “lag” problem, it makes sure that you never get more than 1 full second behind. If it hits a second, it speeds back up to real time.

The phone has all the other standard features of a phone for the elderly (large display, large buttons), and also a built in pedometer and an 80-decibel alarm in case they “they should fall over and need to attract attention.” Unfortunately, when someone comes to help them in person, the elderly person (apparently) won’t be able to understand their rescuer since they’ll probably be speaking too fast and there’s still no tool for them to slow down the speech of the person standing in front of you.

From Techdirt.