Recently in Don't be a jerk Category

Someone posted on Reddit, "Verizon stealthily installed a BING search app on my Blackberry last night which caused my phone to crash while I was sleeping thus my alarm didn't go off. It's 1:10PM. Good morning, Reddit. F--- you Microsoft/Verizon."

Companies have been getting cavalier with software update policies. Let's say on the transparent-end of the spectrum, the user has to, on his or her own accord, press a menu item to check if there are software updates. On the opaque-end of the spectrum, you have an automatic update that reboots your machine with you none-the-wiser. Probably the furthest to the right that I'm comfortable with is the Firefox policy, of downloading the update and then automatically installing when the app isn't running. When you run Firefox again, it gives you a notice telling you what happened. It's all about striking the right balance between convenience and transparency.

Do not reboot my device for me. That would be like the superintendant unlocking my room to swap out my AT&T Phone Book with a Verizon one just because he's getting a kickback.

This is evil customer service and evil user experience design. I pray for the day when companies run by stooges like this no longer exist.

Note: I don't want to imply that Google isn't evil by this category definition of evil. But rather that all software companies can and should aspire to have more kinder user experiences and software policies

New York Magazine writer Lindsay Robertson (on her Tumblr no less) describes the "Do's and Don't's of Online Publicity." These parts stood out to me (in bold):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE means FOR IMMEDIATE DELETE to any blogger with any influence. Period.

...

Pick eight blogs

...

She told me her secret: she only publicizes to eight blogs. She picked the eight blogs that covered her client's subject, TV, that she liked the most on a personal level, read them religiously, and only sent them only the content she thought each blog would be into. While the rest of the publicists in her company were sending out mass emails to everyone, hoping to get bites from Perez Hilton, Gawker, HuffPo, or wherever, this publicist focused on a lower traffic tier with the (correct) understanding that these days, content filters up as much as it filters down, and often the smaller sites, with their ability to dig deeper into the internet and be more nimble, act as farm teams for the larger ones. A site can be enormously influential without having crazy eyeballs, because all eyeballs are not equal. MANY times - I would say almost every time, that I posted one of her client's items on my site, they were linked back within hours by the big guys, who probably would have tuned her out otherwise.

(via kottke)