Norway

About this TIDAL win-back campaign

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

WiMP sent me an email telling me that they are now called TIDAL, and as one does as a startup, they tried to win me back as a user by offering a three month free trial. I’m unhappy enough with the state of music streaming that I was going to give this a shot, but their campaign ultimately failed to win me over, for several reasons.

1. The link in the email goes to a registration page, with no mention of the email campaign. As a customer, I already feel like I’m in the wrong place, but as a developer, my guess is that this is just laziness. Someone probably added a parameter to the URL to track the campaign, but was sloppy on copy writing and custom code, especially in a foreign language (I browse in English).

2. I should be a registered user, because I had a WiMP account once that should have gotten transferred in the TIDAL rebranding. Since I used my Twitter account to register, I clicked the Twitter button on that page to gain access, but that ultimately results in an error message telling me that this account already exists. This is why you don’t recycle the general registration page for your win-back campaign.

3. I go through the email plus password process, where I have to enter my email twice, and then get an error message stating that “This email address is already registered”. Guessing that what it really wants to tell me is that my password did not match (that training as a developer comes in again), I try another password, and I am in. Or am I?

4. The next step immediately asks me for payment information. And this is where you’ve finally lost me. I’m here for a free trial, not to give somebody my credit card info, before I’ve even seen what the service is. If you want to run a free trial in this day and age, then you must not ask for credit card info until the trial is up, or users won’t even give your product a chance. I can’t believe I am seeing this.

5. Your only payment methods are VISA, Mastercard, Amex and Paypal? That’s bold. When I was at IMVU, we implemented several dozen payment options, and even in Norway I get a menu with at least three additional non-CC options. And while Paypal and VISA make up the the bulk of the payment, can you really say no to the additional revenue from SMS payments, bank transfers or prepaid cards?

6. Trying to send this rant to a human being at TIDAL leads me to their support page, and in roundabout steps to a Google Docs feedback form (more signs that there are no developers) which allows no more than 1000 characters. I understand that database storage space costs money, but WTF? This post is way above 2000 characters already. Are you sure that you 

“appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us”? I’ll send them a link to this post instead, and hope that they go through the trouble of clicking through.

Overall, I suspect that this

campaign

has not been properly A/B tested, and that the TIDAL business development team is not aggressive enough about chasing new opportunities. Sure, all of this requires implementation resources, and developers are expensive, but your competitors are willing to make that investment, and if you continue to leave money and opportunities on the table, they will be happy to take up your slack.

Death and Taxes

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

The Norwegian tax authority has sent me a letter to inform me that I failed to make a tax statement for 2010. No Shit, Sherlock! This could be related to the fact that I haven’t lived in Norway since 2009, something these guys are aware of, because they’re sending their snail mail to my US address. Also, we went through this at least twice last year – when they asked me to pay taxes for 2010 and 2011 in advance (forskuddsskatt) and we agreed that this was a mistake.

Do other countries have this problem? Is Germany still secretly hoping I’ll pay taxes for the past 10 years, and I don’t hear about this because they don’t know my snail mail address? I sure hope not.

Sent an email to the lady at the tax office who dealt with my problems a year ago, letting her know that it didn’t stick. I hope she’s still there, because there is no email address for complaints on this letter, and the letter took more than two weeks, so I’ll be damned if I use the postal service for this.

FK Zebra: Final Match on September 28

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

The filming for FK Zebra is coming to an end. It’s been a blast, I’ve gotten more excercise in these two months than in the entire previous year, met some cool people, did some fun stuff and played a lot of tough matches. The last match is on September 28th and he first episode will air on October 1st.

Sadly, our final match will not be at Ullevaal as planned. The grass is too worn out, they say, and I understand that the worldcup qualifications take priority over a bunch of nerds. So we’ll be playing on our home turf, at Haraløkka Idrettsanlegg. The event starts at 11 o’clock, the actual game at 14:00 sharp – I hope there will be a big group of supporters!

I’m going to be sad when this is all over, and I hope we can get together and play a bit more after we’ve all com down from the permanent high that these two months have been.

FK Zebra

~ Enno ~ 2 Comments

FK Zebra Logo

For those of you who come here through a google search for “enno rehling zebra”: Yes, I’m the guy that’s on TV2’s new football show FK Zebra. For those who don’t know what that is, we’re 16 nerds who are learning to play football, and we’re being coached by Norway’s former national coach, Egil “Drillo” Olsen. This is a lot of fun for us, and because most of us have never played much football before, and we’re playing with some football legends, it will hopefully also make good television. If you’re in Norway, tune in to TV2 Zebra in October.

If you’re hoping for inside information about the show or match results then I have to disappoint: we’re not allowed to give away spoilers (games industry folks will be familiar with the concept of an NDA), so I probably won’t talk about anything that hasn’t already been shown on TV. If you want to see what’s been written about us other places, the Facebook group for our team.

Going Native

~ Enno ~ 4 Comments

A list of things I have done in my attempt to become Norwegian.

  • learned Norwegian
  • learned to love brunost (not hard, the stuff is great).
  • cut myself with an Ostehøvel
  • eaten Lutefisk for Christmas dinner.
  • eaten Ribbe for Christmas
  • bought a suit and worn it on 17th of May
  • watched barnetoget
  • shared an appartment with Norway’s sexiest woman (according to Vi Menn)
  • watched all episodes of ‘Pompel og Pilt’
  • bumped into the King at an art exhibit (okay, that was accidental)
  • learnt to snowboard
  • gone cross country skiing in frogner park
  • watched a lot of ‘Typisk Norsk’ episodes
  • spent an entire afternoon watching curling
  • gone to several hundreds of ‘visninger’
  • eaten Rømmegrøt
  • made fun of the Danish language
  • gone sledding on korketrekkeren (several times)
  • been on Galdhøpiggen
  • gone over bessegen
  • bicycled from Oslo to Stavanger
  • signed myself up for styrkeprøven
  • joined a gym
  • gone on countless hytteturer, especially around easter
  • learned about kardemomme by
  • learned about janteloven
  • been in a reality show on national TV (only for a little while)
  • started a sizeable colletion of imported alcohol in my kitchen
  • complained about beer prices
  • learned to accept beer prices as a fact of life

That’s just off the top of my head, the list is woefully incomplete. And even after all that, I still feel I have a long way to go. My list of things that I haven’t done is probably as long. And the list of things I’m not even aware of that are part of every Norwegian’s common culture is even longer. It’s hard to become truly integrated.

[Listening to: Nordaførr – Vårvisa – Halvdan Sivertsen]

Norwegian Goodness: BigBang

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

Among the things I like best about Norway is the music here. For a country this size, it’s amazing how much good music they put out. I mean, compared to Sweden, Norway is really unpopulated. Yet how many swedish bands do you know apart from ABBA? Exactly. Me neither.

Today it’s been BigBang that have been playing in my head, especially their song “Something Special”. I like it, so by extension, you will like it too. Try to catch it somewhere, and while you’re at it, buy the albums.

What is the music like? It’s good old Rock and Roll, they almost sound like a 70s band, with Hammond organ, alternating accoustic and electric guitars. “Wild Bird” and “Girl in Oslo” were big hits over here.

Did you ever write my name with a fountain pen
in your books or on a table, did you tell your friends
that I was someone special?

There’s a concert at Rockefeller next month. I’m off to get me tickets.

while (!dead) ++age;

~ Enno ~ 1 Comment

Not just kaeng is adding one to the counter, I’m getting older, too. Tomorrow is my thirty-first birthday, and looking back, it’s been a pretty good year.

  • I’ve been to Lofoten, which is among the most beautiful places on this earth.
  • I’ve been to a fitness club for the first time in my life. And decided that it’s not for me.
  • I did a lot more outdoor climbing than the previous year. I didn’t manage Sån-ja, although I had hoped too, but it’ll happen. Next year. I climbed to the top of Svolvaergeita, though.
  • I’ve been part of launching two successful expansions for Anarchy Online. And I finally changed teams, and now I’m lead programmer on TLJ2, which is fun.
  • I made a few new friends, and got to know some other people much better.
  • I had an amazing summer, with kajakking, grilling at the beach, trips to Östmarka, swimming and climbing.
  • I read a few extrordinary books.
  • I became a member of Save the Rhino, and decided next year’s vacation.
  • I’ve looked at more appartments than I’d imagined without finding the right one to buy. It’s been kind of fun looking at how others live, though.
  • I went on some great cabin-trips, to Beitostolen, Trysil and Hemsedal.

Other “firsts” this year:

  • Sitting in an outdoor whirlpool at -20 degrees Celsius.
  • Stealing my own bike.
  • Games Convention.
  • Snowboarding!
  • ZZ Top in concert.