Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Overture to buy search services Tony G. is consulting at Overture. The company plans to acquire some services of Fast Search & Transfer, another sign that it intends to compete more intensely for the Internet search market. [CNET News.com] 10:02:45 AM

IT Crisis Counseling Interesting example of a unique marketing mix. DriveSavers is a $900-a-pop data-recovery outfit that specializes in resurrecting priceless data from crushed, crashed, soaked and mangled hard-drives. The problem is that their new business prospects often make initial contact with the firm in a white-hot rage or tears, berserk at the thought of losing all their data. So DriveSavers has hired a full-time crisis-counsellor late of a North Bay suicide hotline to talk their customers down off the ledge and into the technicians' loving arms. "There's a whole range of emotions people go through when they lose data," said John Christopher, a DriveSavers engineer. "From anger to grief." When the company receives a call from someone who's clearly lost it -- which can happen several times an hour -- Chessin comes on the line to help the caller rediscover their happy place. Then the engineer returns to discuss the technical problem in detail. LinkDiscuss (via /.) [Boing Boing] 10:00:14 AM