Co-Op Now on Revision3
I was disappointed when I heard that 1up.com laid off the guys that put together The 1up show. It really was one of the only reasons I ever went to 1up.com afterall. Shortly after their unfortunate lay offs, the team decided to start up Area5.tv and their own video podcast called Co-Op. Upon visiting Revision3.com this morning, I noticed that Co-Op is now on Rev3!
This little fact was actually announced first in the latest episode of Rev3's The Digg Reel. The host, Andrew Bancroft, stated "We've got a new show on Rev3, it's called Co-Op." He went on to say "It's all about videogames and it's from the guys who brought you the 1UP videogame show." The show will be released every Tuesday so they'll be held to a tight timeline, but hopefully they'll be able to deliver good content that won't overlap Revision 3's The Totally Rad Show's gaming coverage too much.
I'm extremely curious about the business arrangement here since other shows that weren't produced by Rev3 such as Wine Library TV are no longer with Revision 3 after some tightening of their belts. However, I think it's a great home for Co-Op and I can't see how it wouldn't be a successful partnership. I'm wondering if Area5.tv will produce anything else independently since they've already got that going... Several people donated to their cause and helped them buy some new camcorder gear so I'm also curious if they'll be using that or Rev3 gear for their shoots.
Rollerhome Spots
On The Web
My friend Lawrence and I finally launched the Spots feature on Rollerhome.com. There's surely some bugs that'll still need fixing, but for the time being it works fairly well and I'm enjoying using it.
Why Spots?
Where Do You Want To Skate?
Spots is a feature that really makes Rollerhome.com the complete destination for everything Rolling related online. You can now meet new people in your area via the forums and profiles, find that perfect skate spot and plan a session with your friends. There's still a lot of fun things we could add in to make it even easier, but since Law's busy raising a youngster and working and I'm broke and trying to find a job or an actual income, it does make spending a whole lot of time on these things a little challenging.
Hopefully, with Spots going live we'll see an increase in traffic that might justify doing some ads or partnering with various companies for advertising deals. Obviously there are a lot of other sites out there with a similar goal or feature, but competition just means that people want this and we're hoping our delivery and ease of use bring in the users...
My Comcastic Experience
Comcast and their @comcastcares reps on Twitter have been mentioned as being one of the more progressive at dealing with customer service. Now more and more businesses have embraced social media sites including Twitter. This is a little of my recent Comcastic experience.
Comcast image courtesy of dmuth on Flickr
I've been a happy Comcast Internet subscriber for some time now, but over the last couple of weeks that faithfulness was challenged. It all started when I suddenly began experiencing extremely slow and unpredictable Internet access. I figured I'd reboot the modem and router to see if that would help and started doing ping tests on my router when it did not. I found that I was experiencing packet loss of up to 70% at the worst times! I was about to dial up Comcast but didn't have much time to be kept on hold and wanted a quick reaction. I've heard of success stories with @comcastcares, so I figured I'd send out a tweet... I quickly heard back from another Comcast associate on Twitter and he only really said that they'd need to send out a tech. I figured this meant they were taking care of it and acknowledged it was an issue on their side since I didn't hear anything else further and the next day I once again had decent Internet access.
Of course, the better service didn't last long. I called Comcast and set up a time for a tech to visit. What was interesting here was that when I mentioned that I asked @comcastcares on Twitter, they didn't seem to know what I was talking about and said my account didn't have any notes on it. They couldn't schedule a tech to come out till Tuesday and I agreed. Tuesday came around and everything was working again so I canceled my appointment. Once again, Tuesday night came around and the net was useless.
I did a little more research and found that I should check out my Cable modem's Status and Signal on my local network at 192.168.100.1. I found that I was getting low signal levels of < 27db at times and that these levels should be at least 30-35db. A more reasonable signal is anything about 35db apparently. Of course I dialed Comcast which led to a brief hold time and my insistence that the problem was not on my side. The representatives I worked with were all very understanding and helpful, but it's always tough to stay calm when your connection is acting up... I scheduled another visit and a tech was out in another 2 days. He was the best Comcast tech I've ever had and was able to verify that the problem was at the tap. He temporarily hooked me up to a slightly better signal line at the tap and scheduled a network technician to come out and fix the issue permanently.
I guess my lesson here was learning about the signal level I should get and just to call Comcast. I was on hold for less than a few minutes and they were all very helpful. @comcastcares may be better for some quick billing inquiries or something -- but I found that just calling was a lot faster and easier to have a good back and forth discussion. I still applaud Comcast in their efforts on Twitter, but it doesn't seem to be a perfect replacement for a good old fashion phone call yet.