Jason Unger

My Best Idea, 1 Year Too Late

Posted by junger - 04/08/08 at 08:04:08 am

I have a million ideas for products. Literally.

Ask anyone who has ever worked with me, especially Andrew, who I've dragged along on a million cockamamie plans to strike it big.

(My biggest fault is that I have difficulty following through with new ideas, but that's a whole other story.)

Now when it comes to product ideas, it's easy to think of something that serves little to no purpose and has no chance of making money (see: Web 2.0).

So when I was browsing the DVD rack at Best Buy last year, I came up with what I thought would be a useful and potentially profitable idea.

You see, I always have this problem of not knowing when a "deal" is actually a good deal. Is that TV show boxset actually a good price? Is that thing cheaper here? How would I know?

These days, the answer is an iPhone (no, I did not have the idea for that — someone else did). But if you don't have an iPhone, how can you comparison shop when you're no where near a computer?

Simple: SMS information about the product to a service, which spits back prices from Amazon, Froogle, Buy.com, etc. Then you know if you have a deal or not.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Too bad I was one year too late on it.

iPhone users have their own application for it, pricecheckah. And even Amazon is getting into it, offering products for sale by text message.

Obviously, it's a good idea, if there at least three services doing it (or something like it). I'm not convinced it's a dumb idea to try and run with it, but I'm not nearly as excited about it as I once was.

Amazon Comes Late to the Blu-ray Party

Posted by junger - 02/20/08 at 09:02:00 am

Amazon to support Blu-ray format

Amazon.com Inc announced its support for Sony Corp's Blu-ray format on Wednesday, days after Toshiba Corp pulled the plug on the rival HD DVD format, as key studios and retailers also took Blu-ray's side.

The online retailer said it would continue to sell HD DVD products for customers who already use that format.

In other news, Amazon.com still sells Beta cassettes. "Brings out the full potential from your Beta(R) VCR"!

Amazon.com, Faster Than a Speeding Bullet (And Friendly, Too)

Posted by junger - 12/21/07 at 09:12:52 am

It's the busiest time of year for Amazon.com, but they seem to be up to the task.

On Tuesday, I ordered 24 – Season 6 on DVD, in preparation for my planned marathon on Monday. (I've already seen the season live, but do at least one or two watchings of the season on DVD every year.)

According to Amazon's notification emails, it didn't ship until Wednesday night. So you could say I was surprised when my doorbell rang Thursday and, sitting on my front stoop, was a package from Amazon.

Jack Bauer had arrived, so I'm all set for my Monday marathon.

I also had to deal with Amazon customer service the other day, using their hard-to-find phone number (1-800-201-7575). I purchased a gift card to email to a co-worker for a Secret Santa (or, as I say, Hidden Hannukah Harry) present, but it never went through.

The site didn't say what the problem was and gave me no way to fix it. So, I called up the 800 number, got a customer service rep quickly (presumably because not too many people call), and fixed the problem.

Isn't it nice to be treated well by a company?