The Buzz

Since People’s United Bank upgraded their site, I’ve heard from a lot of you via the previous entries, talking about the good, the bad and the indifferent. The Post heard from enough people that business writer Rob Varnon took a look into what was going on.

More recently, the Running Balance column, although taking slightly longer to add than promised, has debuted in the new software. That alone has made a world of difference for me.

Second, People’s for the second time since the upgrade has issued an E-mail featuring some of the most popular questions, and actually these questions have been hitting many of the points heard on the blogs, including the lack of Mint and Quicken support at the moment. The following question and answer is from their E-mail sent earlier today:

“I’m having trouble using mint.com®, quicken.com® or quicken mobile® (personal financial management websites). Can this be resolved?

If you are noticing issues with websites such as Mint.com or Quicken Mobile in accessing your accounts, please be advised that these websites are not operated or supported directly by People’s United Bank. On your behalf, we have contacted the operators of these websites to inform them of our site upgrade. Once these companies have corrected their websites, People’s United Bank accounts will again be accessible via these third party services.”

Mint had this to say on their support site about the People’s link not working:

“We have filed this issue with the People’s United Bank (CT) account to our engineering team and they’re working to fix it. Sorry for the frustration this is causing. Unfortunately, we cannot give you an ETA on its fix.

Fixing these bugs could really take some time. And users need not fret, since we’ll inform you through forums or we’ll try with personal email if we already have any important information regarding this.

Our engineers are continually fixing product bugs and functions. Please bear with us.”

People’s United also addresses how to get your information into the Quicken software:

“Currently, we only support the WebConnect feature in Quicken. With WebConnect you can download your Account Activity transactions into Quicken after logging into People’s United Bank Online.The DirectConnect -also known as One Step Update- feature within Quicken is not yet available.”

So for those who do electronic banking, do note that work is under way, but obviously things aren’t there yet.

I will note that People’s seems to be going above and beyond to get out via E-mail answers to common questions about the upgrade.  Of course, for people who have less common problems, we’ve been hearing from you too, and I encourage everyone to skim comments on the previous entries to see what’s worked and what hasn’t.

Amazingly, in the over 100 posts I’ve written in the past thirteen months on The Buzz, I haven’t made mention yet of one of my favorite online music sources, Pandora.

Taking songs or artists you input into Pandora as a starting point, and using like and dislike data of tracks it then suggests, Pandora has introduced me to all sorts of music, both songs I’d heard and forgotten, and music to which I’d never been introduced. Trips to iTunes have followed many times as a result of my discoveries.

It turns out I’m not alone. New research from NPD Group shows services like Pandora boost music sales by 41 percent, proving that music discovery services can help drive incremental sales. By comparison, services that let people select their own music don’t do as well (they provide a 13 percent bump in music sales). That, to me, seems obvious; if you choose what you want to listen to, you’re not as likely going to discover anything new.

The numbers are U.S. only, but seem about right – services that don’t give the user complete control are likely going to introduce listeners to things they’ve never heard; that in turn spurs sales. From my personal experiences, services like Pandora, that analyze the music and find songs that have similar traits, does a good job of making recommendations, and is worth it if you’re on the prowl for other selections.

SOURCE: CNet via TechBlog

Apple has reached its latest milestone this week: the 10-billionth song has been downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. Apple has also released a list of the top 20 songs in terms of downloads since the store launched, and not surprisingly most songs are on the new side; it would stand to reason that the newest songs were put in front of the largest audiences, and therefore would sell the most digitally. After all, there were a lot less people using the iTunes Music Store when it debuted in April 2003 on the Mac, and in October 2003 on the PC.

The iTunes Music Store’s history has been all over the map, but its dominance was assured by smart moves throughout its history by Apple. Sales may have been crippled for awhile due to DRM restrictions, and sales have likely fluctuated with the introduction of variable pricing.

But no matter how you slice it, that’s one impressive accomplishment, and the numbers will surely get higher with the iPad added into the mix later this year.

SOURCE: Apple via Engadget

I always am a sucker for these sort of things, but a woman has started a blog showcasing her attempts to try to exercise for a year without paying for a membership. On the plus side, she has the fertile New York City market to tap free passes; but she also is doing something that is the media version of a bug zapper: someone trying to be frugal during an economic downturn. So the New York Daily News wrote about her, and with her name more freely out there, it might hurt her chances.

The end result is this should be fun to watch. Right now, she’s a month in; I wonder how she’ll do in the end!

SOURCE: Buns of Steal via Consumerist

Certain Sennheiser headphone models include a replaceable wire, an innovation that extends the life of the headphones.

Sometimes, the simplest technology and innovation can make the biggest difference. Although not a new innovation, a recent situation reminded me of something I’ve thought was awesome for quite some time now.

Sennheiser, whose USA division has their headquarters in Old Lyme, makes a line of headphones with a feature that makes perfect sense: they allow you to replace the headphone wires. Anyone who keeps a pair of headphones long enough knows that eventually, due to the way the wires get used and jostled around so much, eventually, they start to fray or become defective. On a pair of headphones, the only normal recourse is to buy a new pair.

That’s where the genius behind this line comes in. Instead of buying new headphones, you pop the old wire out and replace it with a new one. The only drawback is you can’t generally find the wire in stores, but my replacement from Sennheiser came fairly quick. (I personally ordered two, though, so I’ll have a spare in the wings when this one kicks out.)

My headphones are no longer available, but more than five years after getting my pair, two successor models (which looks an awful lot like mine) are available on Amazon. Note that these are more expensive headphones than the throwaways most MP3 players and other devices come with, but the whole point is you won’t have to throw them away anymore. The headphones have more than paid for themselves, and they still sound great.  I used to buy cheap headphones, but when I first discovered this working at my first job in the late ’90s, I bought a pair.  My dog decided she liked them too and chewed them up, so I bought the model I have now.  I’m on my fourth or fifth set of wires by now, but the headphones themselves are still in great overall condition.

I highly recommend them for people who care about how their music sounds, but are fearful of buying more expensive headphones due to their normally limited shelf life.

Happy Monday!  Here’s a quick post to get the week started on a light note:

Denny’s doesn’t know it’s own Twitter handle.  In fact, it hasn’t known it for months, as on its menus it has been encouraging people to follow some guy from Taiwan.

It kind of sucks, but it’s surprising that Denny’s doesn’t fix their menus.  Of course, it’s a pricey mistake, but that’s why everyone should have access to a good copy editor (and I’m not just saying that because I am one).

SOURCE: CNet via Gizmodo

I’ve talked here before both on subscriptions and how they’ve proliferated on the Web, and Hulu’s likely paywall addition as part of the rumor mill. Now, another plus/minus sort of rumor: Hulu may be available on the iPad… but as a subscription.

Given the iPad’s lack of flash, it’s easier to make this decision, because Hulu would have to be developed as an app using HTML 5 technologies or some other alternative to serve the video. So while they’re at it, why not establish a subscription fee?

Of course, Apple’s also a TV program provider, and they are working to push the price of TV shows down to 99 cents an episode, which would offer an alternative to Hulu, if also paid, but with the added benefit of some sort of ownership of the digital episodes.

Still, with the iPad not out yet, we won’t know for certain until the product hits stores later this year.

SOURCE: AllThingsD

In light of the recent battle with Scripps networks over carriage fees for their two networks, HGTV and Food Network, Cablevision is turning to its customers, asking questions to determine what they consider the value of certain networks and how angry they would be if they were removed.

Assumedly, this is so they can go into negotiations with the networks with information about their subscribers as another way to play hardball.

It’s easy to pile on Cablevision over the loss of networks or their “greed” in not wanting to pay more for networks. Indeed, many blog readers attacked Cablevision when the skirmish was ongoing, but both sides had something to lose. For Scripps, it was the revenue per customer, and the higher that number, the better they do. For Cablevision, any increases would inevitably be passed onto consumers, a certain percentage of whom balk each time rates go up and defect to a growing number of rivals, such as DirecTV and AT&T’s U-Verse.

So it makes sense that Cablevision starts to gauge the relative worth of a network to their subscribers. The odd thing is they are asking about whether a customer watches broadcast TV, which is a change-up. No matter what though, this could lead to more protracted battles, and the removal of such channels from cable line-ups during these battles, on a more frequent basis, which results in no winners at all.

SOURCE: via AllThingsD