The popular Consumerist blog listed 22 tips for getting the best deal out of Dell as leaked by a former employee.  Dell responded by sending a nasty legal threat.  The blogosphere responded negatively and Dell after spending the day thinking about their position said, “”Okay, we goofed. We shouldn’t have sent a notice.  To my earlier point, we appreciate the reminder from the community. Point taken.”

Clearly Dell is paying attention to its customers.  Ken Fisher noted that, ” The silliest thing about it all is that the 22 tips are by and large all well-known strategies for getting the best deal out of Dell. There’s nothing in the list that’s damaging to Dell or particularly revealing—at least, certainly no damaging than what could already be found on forums across the Internet.”  In any event, while it would have been smarter for Dell to have avoided the incident, they showed good judgment in their response.  WTG Dell…

The Big in Japan team is working with Rupert Murdoch’s FX Networks (owned by News Corporation) to build a customized version of Fancast based on the highly popular PodServe podcast system.  Update: For clarification, FX Network is a client of Big in Japan. The system combines a highly scableable ruby on rails application with a VoIP based phone system capable of handling more than 30,000 telephone connections.

This summer we began working with the producers of Nip/Tuck, the Golden Globe winning drama, on their community interaction efforts. The program is cables’ top-rated series with adults 18-49 with more than 2.6 million viewers. The first program consists of two fan generated podcasts. The first is titled the Nip/Tuck Fan Question Podcast. Where viewers can interview each member of the cast or crew. Each week five of the best questions are answered by the appropriate cast or crew member and then the content is posted to the system. The second is titled the Nip/Tuck Fan Comments Podcast. Each week the IVR system will prompt viewers to comment on various topics about the show.

The system consists of a white label version of PodServe using multiple load balanced DELL Poweredge servers to consume and organize recordings generated from Podcall using one or more Dell Poweredge servers running in series to generate dialtone, outbound calls, covert .wav and compress into .mp3 ready for iTunes. The tightly integrated system is known as the Fancast system. The servers are located in our state-of-the-art data center and network operations center. During programming our technicians watch the program on one screen, server and call statistics on another and errors on a thrid.  Starting this week FX will begin to promote the launch of the system using television advertising.

Will it work? According to Arbitron/Edison Media Research more than 27 million Americans have listened to a podcast, half of whom are under 35 years old. Using the Fancast system, Nip/Tuck’s producers can empower their own community of 2.6 million viewers to deliver content via iTunes to more than 30 million iPod listeners. Converting just 2% of those iTunes users might deilver 600,000 viewers to the program. Additionally, FX has the option of inserting advertising into the consumer generated content as they moderate and process it allowing for additional marketing channels for their advertisers.

The Fancast system, launched in June 2006 and presented that same month at Under the Radar, combines PodServe and Podcall into a single platform allows users to easily create recordings for inclusion within hosted podcasts. Podcall is a multiprotocol PBX on Linux that provides all of the features you would expect from a high-end PBX and more. Podcall supports voice over IP in many protocols, and interoperates with all standards-based telephone equipment. Podcall can serve as a gateway to PodServe for inbound, outbound telephone lins (POTs or IAX) as well as conference bridges. Features include: Automated Attendant, Blacklists, Call Detail Records, Call Forward on Busy, Call Forward on No Answer, Call Forward Variable, Call Monitoring, Call Recording, Call Retrieval, Conference Bridging, Fax Transmit and Receive, Interactive Voice Response, Predictive Dialer, Route by Caller ID, SMS Messaging, Spell / Say, Talk Detection, Text-to-Speech, Graphical Call Manager, Outbound Call Spooling, and TCP/IP Management Interface.

We have been talking about blog monitoring for some time.  Last year we began offering it as a service.  Soon it became clear to us that monitoring served as a crutch for many companies allowing them to feel good, but ultimately not making much of a difference.  We would produce reports and client’s wouldn’t have the slightest understanding of what we were talking about.  They were not in the conversation, instead they were simply reading the translated trascripts we provided.

Today we still help companies monitor blogs, but instead of doing the monitoring we teach them the “how” and the “why” allowing them to join in the conversation.  Josh Hallett, our go-to-guy for design, wrote about his experience with Nikon in a post titled, “Big Thanks to Nikon.”  Josh details how Nikon’s team read his blog post about the D80 and his need for a new SLR before its release.

Nikon, to their credit, found Josh’s blog, recognized his interest in their product, understood his need and provided a solution.  I suspect they created a “fan for life” in Josh and it doesn’t hurt that he was already talking about Nikon.

If your organization needs to listen better.  Start by listening for problems - i.e. to avoid getting Dell’d - before they become nightmares.  Then begin listening to your fans, and think of ways you help your average-everyday fans become rabid sales machines for your company!