This week I figured I'd try something a little bit different. I'm not usually one for product reviews, except for talking about different websites from time to time. But lately, I've been fortunate enough to find a bunch of really good experiences with various products and services I've used, so I figured I'd use my blog to talk about them.
(Note to marketers and PR people: See -- bloggers really do talk about things positively, not just when they're complaining! Also, don't send me your pitches -- every single one of these products and services is something I found on my own. And if you send me an unsolicited pitch about your product, I guarantee I won't mention it.)
For each of these products or services, I'll be offering up a brief description, an account of my experience, a list of gotchas to look out for, what it costs, and then some guidelines of how to judge if you'll like it. These fall under the headings of What It Is, The Experience, The Gotchas, What It Costs and Recommended If You Like.
I'll be reviewing these products:
- Clear Card
- Mozy
- Virgin America
- LimoLiner
- ZipCar
Feel free to send me a link if you've written up anything about them that I should link to.
Looking forward to the testimonials, especially for Virgin America and ZipCar, both products I have used a bit over the past little while.
Would you mind if I stole your "Unsolicited Testimonial" concept for my own site?
Oh, and blogTO had a great review of ZipCar in Toronto about a year ago: http://urltea.com/29n6
Feel free to steal the idea! I think one of the most interesting kind of posts is reading first-hand experiences from people whose judgement you trust.
Passenger beware! I just took a trip on the LimoLiner and had a very bad and very costly experience. When I boarded the bus, I took my wallet out of my zippered tote bag to retrieve my license for the attendant, put it away, then I settled in. My seat tray wasn't working, so I asked the attendant if I could switch seats. She agreed, but told me I couldn't move my tote bag (which contained my wallet) myself. She said only she could move my bag, which incidentally wasn't that big, to the new seat because it is LimoLiner's policy that a passenger can't move a bag to another seat when the bus is in transit. This policy didn't make any sense and the attendant was acting very odd, but I went along with her and moved to a different seat, then she brought my bag over a few minutes later. That was the only time I didn't have my tote bag in my possession; in fact, I rested my feet on my bag throughout the whole trip. When I stepped off the bus to retrieve my keys, I noticed my wallet was missing. After I checked the contents of my tote bag in my car with no luck, I tried to return to the bus to look for my wallet but the bus was already leaving. The on-call manager (also the CEO) didn't get back to me until the next afternoon. When he called me back after checking about my wallet, he said the attendant didn't know anything about my wallet (What a surprise!) and they were not responsible. When I spoke with another LimoLiner attendant at their lot in Framingham, she told me that LimoLiner does not have a policy that a passenger can't move their bag to a different seat -- that that was ridiculous. I guess it was my fault for trusting that LimoLiner has honest employees.