Journey needs a Revelation, literally. They need to Escape to Steve Perry’s house and convince him to take up the microphone again. I was blissfully unaware that Perry replacement Steve Augeri had throat problems on the 2006 Journey tour and was replaced mid-tour. At first by Jeff Scott Soto and then permanently by Arnel Pineda who sings the 11 new tracks on Journey’s newest studio album Revelation, available now at Wal-Mart exclusively.

Major props to my music buddy Matt who yesterday through his good blog Addicted To Vinyl tipped me off to this news. There have been a lot of 80s bands releasing new music recently like Asia, Dokken and Whitesnake which I’ve bought and been listening to as well. I’m feeling a small 80s-type uprising. Good time to be a rocker again?

I went out yesterday and bought the Journey CD and have been (mostly) listening to it since. Although I’ll expand in greater detail below, I share many of Matt’s feelings on the vocals:

as much as Arnel Pineda might have the goods vocally, there is NO doubt in my mind that Cain and Schon kicked his ASS in the studio to get the results they wanted to hear on the album, and you can hear it.

Let’s cast aside my irritation that Journey pulled the same stunt as The Eagles by forcing me to get in the car and pay too much for gas to visit the local Wal-Mart. I would have much rather bought ‘Revelation’ online through AmazonMP3 or one of the other non-DRM stores. These music exclusives might be good for the band but they suck for those of us who would rather buy the music from our music retailer/e-tailer of choice.

Must admit that I agree with Matt on the Journey Revelation package as being a good deal for $11.88. Not sure if we should thank Journey, Wal-Mart or both for this one. How many new albums come with 11 new songs, a new singer singing 11 old songs completely re-recorded, plus a DVD of a bonus concert in April of this year.

First up, the re-recorded songs aren’t as good as the originals. They sound old — and not in a good way. Pineda is a somewhat plastic version of Steve Perry. Dude needs more emotion. On one hand I like the fact that they included examples that Pineda could sing the songs, but on the other this feels kind of Karaokeish.

“Wheel In The Sky” - too fast! Come on, Neal Schon, you’re great on the fretboards, listen to the timing of the original and compare. When Journey plays Wheel live they always play the tempo faster than the original and it doesn’t work as well fast. I imagine with a few beers in you, it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but without a buzz it’s easy to hear. Pineda hits most the notes, but seems labored.

“Faithfully” - this is Pineda at his best singing the classics, I liked this one. He’s close to feeling it here. Music is about as close to the original of any of the re-recorded tracks.

“Any Way You Want It” - Remember Caddyshack? This song will always remind me of Rodney Dangerfield cutting it up on the course with a dancing gopher. Pineda’s vocals and the music are faithful to the original. Nice job.

“Who’s Crying Now” - listen to the weak vocals right before the guitar solo at the end and that’s all you need to hear from Pineda as to how he inserts emotion into a classic (answer: he doesn’t). Disappointing. Schon smokes the guitar and the keyboards and bass are there. Sometimes it is the singer, not the song, and that can be no clearer than listening to Journey.

“Separate Ways” - the guitar isn’t mixed as heavy in this re-recording and it’s noticeable. It needs more layering in the mix and some more distortion. Sounds a little too raw for my liking and normally I like raw. The keyboards are as haunting as ever. This is a great Journey song. Pineda covers it ok until he reaches the part about “in vain - vaaaaiiiinnnn” it chokes. I’m surprised they didn’t have him do another take there. Major misstep.

They also do semi-decent re-do versions of “Only The Young”, “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Lights”, “Open Arms”, “Be Good To Yourself” (w/ extended solo? I like that) and “Stone In Love”. I think you get where this extra disc goes. It gives you an idea of what you might expect if Pineda had been Perry or [gasp] even Augeri. Bottom line: I don’t think it would have worked as well.

Onto the new tracks.

The 11 new songs on Revelation
I’ve been listening back and forth to the new songs and waiting for something to gel with me like a couple of the tracks from Arrival with Augeri on vocals and it’s not happening enough yet. Going to keep trying because some of the riffs are starting to stick out.

“Never Walk Away” - made me feel a bit like I did when I first heard Higher Place on Arrival, but I like Higher Place better because it has a better bass riff. I wish this jammed a little more. The Neal Schon guitar solo smokes, but stops short of really breaking out. It’s not a very strong introduction to Pinera vocally. He’s competent, we get that, but what else? This might have been something on Trial By Fire as a B-side reject, maybe.

“Like A Sunshower” - has a rhythm that goes something like “Lights” but with a lot less charm and sans the catchy lyrics. Somebody turn up Ross Valory’s bass. It’s like they mixed him down. It’s not the same with him toned down.

“Change for the Better” - the only thing I’d change about this track is change to another song. Again, this feels like B-side filler from Perry’s worst Journey album: Trial By Fire. I’d add track 4: “Wildest Dream” to this list. Forgettable.

“Faith in the Heartland” - I learned from Matt’s post that this is a remake from a track on Journey’s last album with Augeri singing called Generations which I barely remember listening to on Napster (the legal one) and giving a C+ grade. Never bought that one, but might go out and hunt it down on AmazonMP3, iTMS or the Zune marketplace if it’s available. I like the opening riff, but it just feels like a dozen other (better) Journey songs to me.

“After All These Years” - has the familiar Journey ballad components, but Pineda lacks the passion to go with the score. It comes off like something one of the American Idol voted off finalists would sing instead of Journey’s lead pipes. This track is getting some airplay. It sticks out.

“Where Did I Lose Your Love” - Like the last track, I totally dig the opening riff, but then it we get to the verses and it doesn’t work as well for me. The chorus is very catchy though. Feels like something that might have been on Raised on Radio. B-side again, but I like this one overall. It’s starting to stick.

“What I Needed” - With the piano/keyboard opening you’re thinking Open Arms but it gets heavier. Jonanthan Cain can still tickle the ivories. Ok track overall, nothing groundbreaking.

“What It Takes To Win” - Love the delay and other guitar effects. The chorus isn’t catch enough, but this is among my favorites on the album for guitar work. This might be my favorite track of the whole lot in fact.

“Turn Down The World Tonight” - Next to “After All These Years” this is mellowest track on the album. One too many mellow songs, even for a Journey album. These guys aren’t Air Supply. Crank up the amps already. Give us some anthem rock. A ’show us the lighter’ song every once in awhile is ok, but we need that rocker to mix up the tempo.

“The Journey (Revelation)” - Instrumental. Journey isn’t known for having that many instrumentals so it’s a nice break. The music is ok, it’s no YYZ by Rush or anything but it fits the album.

Summary
I wanted to like Revelation more than I actually have so far. At least I bought it, unlike Generations, but once I lay down $$, I tend to even be more picky, not less. It’s kind of sad that after a day worth of listens I can only point to a single song that I will continue to listen to going forward. That song ironically titled “What It Takes To Win” doesn’t win me over for the whole album. I’ll keep trying to listen and see if something will stick because I feel like I’m missing some sort of brilliance here. I think it’s that I want to like this because it’s Journey more than anything, not because the music is that good.

Must admit I feel badly for Steve Augeri. He seemed like a nice guy and I could hear passion in his voice that I don’t hear with Pineda. I don’t understand what throat problems he had, if it was brought on by the stress of touring or something else, but I would have liked to see him stay — if he could medically anyway. From what I could find from some searching around on the web, it seemed like an amicable split, possibly due to medical reasons more than a fallout with the band. If you know more on the story, please use the comment section below or your blog to trackback in and tell me about the details. I’m curious.

Better yet Journey, just bring back the real Steve. Perry has been in the basement too long. It’s time for him to come out of hiding and do a real reunion with Journey. It’s kind of sad to see a band of Journey’s caliber playing smaller gigs when they used to pack concert arenas. If Diamond Dave and Eddie can hook up and Zeppelin can get together with Jason Bonham what’s holding back Perry?

In fairness to Pineda, he’s a competent singer and sings the songs well. I haven’t watched the DVD yet of his concert and maybe he tears it up vocally there. As a package for value I give Revelation high marks, but at the end of the day it’s not how many extras and much filler you jam into a CD package, the music must do the talking. Sorry, Journey’s Revelation is mostly lips sealed. Grade: D+

I can’t do what with my own name until I earn 40 Karma points?

This has to be among the most idiotic uses of karma point motivation I’ve seen on the internet, but I’ll get back to that.

If you’ve been Rip Van Winkle the last year, let me update you on the status of the tech web: the Attack of the Clone Wars are still upon us. And trust me it’s about as interesting as the Star Wars flick sharing the same name. I’ve been looking into and spending more time in other areas looking for, and at times finding, inspiration and excitement. More on that by separate post.

On the chat/conversation/social front, Pownce and to a much lesser extent Jaiku (acquired by Google last year) used to be the hip, cool services to visit when Twitter was down. Both those services are getting a lot less buzz, at least from the people I’m following. FriendFeed is continuing to gain traction as it offers something a little different than the others: a master aggregator of your activity stream. At least the activity you are exposing through FriendFeed, anyway. FriendFeed has added more features to share new content and create conversations around links like their quasi-chatroom called simply, rooms. I haven’t dipped a toe in there yet, but am open to suggestions for good rooms to join.

I’ve also been reading some praise being left at the welcome mat of Plurk. This morning I went and registered and what’s the first thing I see when I hit the form submit button?

The expression on Mr. T’s face is priceless. I couldn’t help but smile. Resisted the urge to add the caption: “Hey suckah, if you think Plurk is going to beat out Twitter I’ll bust you up.”

I’m a fan of the A-Team and all but how is this any positive sign of the future for Plurk when with a pinprick amount of the traffic and users that Twitter has currently they are having downtime and error screens during registration? I know, it’s a new service and we’re supposed to be patient, give the new kids a break. Label this premature extrapolation but I’m weary of cutting any of these wannabe clone services slack.

I should point out that despite the error screen above, it appears like my registration actually worked. I was using Firefox 2.0.0.14 in case any of the Plurk devs are lurking and curious. No matter, I doubt seriously it was a browser issue.

To me this illustrates the biggest problem with too many Web 2.0 services these days. Are we truly analyzing if using these clones are a lateral or downward move over more popular, similar services? My excitement level for a lot of these ‘new’ services has waned considerably in 2008 because I don’t see much in frequently writing posts like this one asking what is new here? What’s different, what’s fresh? Plurk has a somewhat interesting post that shows messages on a different style timeline. Woohoo, somebody get Murdock out of the mental ward. And karma points to encourage more activity at a site are a breakthrough? Not.

No loyalty for web services
I haven’t seen anything that exciting and different with Pownce and Jaiku versus Twitter. Sure, there are a few features that differ between them but by far the most useful component of the three is the number of people using the service (Twitter). Whatever service has the crowd in a service geared around social interaction, has the lion’s share of eyeballs and mindshare. Wrong or right, like it or lump it, that’s the way it is. Due to sheer numbers MySpace and Facebook remain leaders in their field, despite the attempts to nip their ankles by clones.

Today, what’s the #1 complaint about Twitter? It goes down too much. Any service — new, old, experienced, inexperienced, in beta, etc — has no breaks in this department. I don’t care if it’s FREE now, or ad-supported or whatever, because we all know it won’t be free forever. It’s surprising Twitter hasn’t busted out a monetization strategy by now, maybe the reality is what they keep saying: they don’t have one. The Twitter crew doesn’t strike me as being the most organized team. They just got a $15 million cash infusion, so maybe they’ll be able upgrade the backend. They say they’re trying.

I’m in Plurk now (lol, big deal) as of June 6, 2008. Feel free to add me as your friend/follower/fellow virtual drifter and I’ll try and return in kind. Name squatter more likely, as I was in Twitter originally.

Forgive me for going Lemming on this one because I’m not seeing what makes Plurk special. And the whole karma points motivation thing I started this post with is lame when somebody — including a freaking bot — can setup a competing Twitter account (assuming it’s not down) and have access to all that services benefits instantly. No hoop jumping. No spamming your friends “in real time” to sign up.

You have the comment space below, your own blog (trackback in), or use another service to show me the way; I’m not only listening here. If a miracle happens and Plurk somehow becomes more popular and stable than Twitter, I’ll use the service more. Ain’t web loyalty a peach?

Although I’d put your money on Mr. T making a comeback with a ‘new’ version of the A-Team happening first.

Think I’m going to get my own 800 psychic line going. Call me and pay me several dollars a minute so I can predict what happens 1/10th of a second into the future.

Bummer that I’m not special, a study says you have this not so mystical power too:

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake. When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world.

Next time you’re complaining about lag on your game du jour, remember even you have lag. How about that? Somebody get Madam Mortuus The Misfortunate Teller on the line.

Being a videoblog/podcast host is a transitory profession. Don’t sign any long leases.

Remember Amanda Congdon who had a popular gig at Rocketboom and then went onto presumably bigger, better things at ABC, only to last less than a year. Enter example two, Veronica Belmont, the initial video host of Jason Calacanis’ current video brainchild: Mahalo Daily. Belmont ditched Mahalo Daily awhile back and is starting June 5 as the new videoblog host for Qore, a paid subscription-based videoblog show which sounds to me like paying to watch commercials for games on the Sony Playstaton 3.

In fairness, let’s review what the official PS3 blog says will be part of the Qore subscription:

Qore has been developed to give PS3 users early access to game related content at a level of quality, interactivity and depth. Everything is filmed in HD. Qore will feature exclusive news, developer interviews, in-depth game previews and behind-the-scenes looks at PlayStation games and special access to game demos, special beta invitations, game add-ons and other downloadable game-related content.

Calacanis was smart enough not to charge viewers for his paid advertorial for Mahalo, what is Sony smoking? Why are they are charging for “special access” to game demos? Some commenters on the PS3 blog post are rightfully complaining while at least one commenter says this is in line with print game magazines which charge too much for information you can usually find on the web already. Nevermind that many of these print game mags are struggling to stay afloat. This is 2008, not 1998.

Shooting the video in all HD is smart and the game add-on part might be worth paying for if they are giving away songs to games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero but my guess is most of these add-ons will be lame things like different characters or backgrounds. Yeah, yeah, maybe it will be only [sarcasm] $24.99 a year for a Qore subscription of 13 episodes, but I’m skeptical that it will be worth $2.99 (single episode price) per episode. For Sony’s and fellow gamer’s sake I hope I’m wrong. I will happily buy in if they put some good exclusive add-on content in there.

Let me throw Sony a bone. Get us access to HOME — for free. Quit delaying and give us more games in the Playstation store. I’ve only been saying this since launch day and doubt any gamers will disagree. Sony could have bought Atari (ATAR stock had been floundering) dirt cheap and put all of their games in the PlayStation store and didn’t do it. No, instead they want to charge us for the privilege of being teased about some bright gaming future (Look at what’s coming in months … years). Advice to Belmont: don’t put all your eggs in the Qore basket. As popular as the Wii is (where can one buy Wii Fit at anyway? Sold out everywhere), she would have been better doing a Nintendo Wii show — perhaps an exercise show to go along with Wii Fit — that was offered for the special price of — drumroll please — free. Strike that, horny gamers would pay $2.99 to see a good looking girl doing Wii Fit workouts.

Come on, Sony. Really.

Bought my first album from the Zune marketplace this morning.

Wasn’t my intention to shop there as I’ve been enjoying shopping for DRM-free music at AmazonMP3, but decided to do some comparison shopping on the Whitesnake Live In The Shadow Of The Blues album between AmazonMP3, Zune and iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The AmazonMP3 price being higher was what motivated me to look around a bit.

The most expensive (not pictured above) was iTMS at $19.98 for 256kbps bit rate AAC encoded. Next was AmazonMP3 at $17.98 and the best price by a mile was 800 Microsoft Points ($10.00 USD) in the Zune marketplace.

I was somewhat skeptical of the Zune marketplace pricing being so much lower. What would be the bit rate of the files? Unfortunately, the Zune store doesn’t tell you — or if they do, I couldn’t easily find the answer.

I did some searching around and tried to find out what bit rate the Zune MP3 files were encoded at, but didn’t find the answer anywhere. I decided $8 or $10 was too much of a savings not to at least pull the trigger. After juicing my account with some more Microsoft Points I purchased the Whitesnake album. Then I went to Windows Explorer and right clicked on the properties of the track to see the bit rate was 320 kbps!

Very cool! I didn’t know the Zune store sold MP3 tracks at 320kbps bit rate. This will make a new spot for me to comparison shop for new MP3 music. I didn’t check Napster to see what their price and bit rate was like, but that’s another possible place to buy MP3 albums from these days legally. Too bad with Zune, iTMS and Napster you need to run their software to surf the store. Score a point for AmazonMP3 in the convenience department.

In the above comparison shopping the Zune store had the best deal, but I’m sure there are/will be other cases where the Zune store isn’t the best. For example, Whitesnake’s newest album Good To Be Bad is selling for $8.99 at AmazonMP3 and $10.89 at iTMS (iTunes Plus) and in the Zune store for 900 Microsoft Points ($11.25). Even though I prefer the 320kbps I bought Good To Be Bad at AmazonMP3.

My ears can’t tell the difference between 256kbps and 320kbps, but a couple months back I re-ripped our entire CD collection to 320kbps. I’m fine with anything 256 and above.

For those stuck on the Microsoft Points to $USD conversion, just multiply the points by $0.0125. I wish Microsoft would show the $USD price in parenthesis or something, but it’s not that big of a deal to use a calculator or remember that 100 point multiples are $1.25.

Another example of a recent purchase: Def Leppard Songs From The Sparkle Lounge bought from AmazonMP3 for $8.99. That one isn’t even available in non-DRM version from iTMS or the Zune Marketplace.

Don’t think that the iTMS is the only place to get DRM-free music these days. Comparison shopping is required to find the best deal. Too bad these online stores don’t put out an API so somebody can mashup a best deals for DRM-free music to save music shoppers even more time. There’s an idea.

Today I’m doing my first ever reinstall of Mac OS X. Why? Too many Leopard lock-up problems and crashes. I never had any problems with Tiger and Leopard worked good for the first month. Since then, nothing but problems. Unfortunately I keep running into the following error screen:

The first part of the error message seems self-explanatory: “The installer could not validate the contents of the ‘Essentials’ package.” It’s the second part that disturbs me: “Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.” So I’m suppose to call Apple and say? Hey, I need some help validating my package, my Essentials Package, you know.

Seems a little crazy.

To all the Mac gurus out there, what does this mean? Shouldn’t this ‘Essentials package’ already be stored on the Leopard disc? I cleaned the Leopard DVD and am trying again. I’m going to Google this as well. Got to be something simple like a dirty disc …

Update 12:18pm PST: Looks like RAM issues might be the culprit here.

Friday May 30, 2008 8:08am PST: Later yesterday I got the Leopard install working. I didn’t replace RAM, I just kept trying/retrying the installation. The 4th or 5th time (I didn’t keep count) it worked. The first thing I did was conduct all the updates and it is working good again.

Probably the coolest part of the OS reinstallation was being able to use a Time Machine backup to get back to a reasonably recent snapshot of what was on the system. Nice, I didn’t lose any applications, files or network settings. Time Machine is a lot like System Restore on Windows and runs on an external USB or Firewire drive. Very handy.

Where did you go over the Memorial Day weekend? Or did you stay home and save the wallet stress at the pumps? Can’t blame anybody on that front, we’re seeing $4.09 prices here and Diesel at $4.99/gallon.

We went to Montana, then over to the Grand Coulee Dam, a majestic, serene place.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we caught Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull, which took in over $150 million. The 3pm and 3:30pm showings were sold out and I’m fairly certain the 4pm where we got tickets at 2:40pm was sold out by showtime.

Theater atmosphere was crowded but unceremoniously quiet. One person clapped at the end of Crystal Skull and throughout the flick there were no cheers and only a scattered few chuckles.

The crowd seemed exhausted.

My bottom hurt in the seat which I had to keep switching to get comfortable. The popcorn even tasted old. This sums up the experience which was the opposite from Iron Man (go see that one, if you can, it’s great), which we saw a few weeks back.

Crystal Skull wasn’t terrible, I mean come on, it’s Indiana Jones, but when compared to Temple of Doom, the weakest movie in the franchise to date, it measured up too few times to matter.

The plodding plot
The plot takes place in 1957 and Indy (Harrison Ford) is sporting gray. It’s not long before the KGB is up to no good and thrusting him into a warehouse in Nevada in search of a crate of great value at gunpoint. He’ll escape, of course, but in a more lethargic way than the past. You’ll wonder at times during the fight scenes if Indy is mired in quicksand (and unsurprisingly, there is a quicksand scene later!).

Following a totally unbelievable escape from danger (lead-lined?! BS), Indy is met by a biker with a switchblade fetish in a coffee shop. I couldn’t decide if this was suppose to be the passing of the torch from old to young, but Shia LaBeouf is no young Harrison Ford. I found LaBeouf whiny, unpolished and forcing the overplayed action too much. No thanks if the series continues without Harrison Ford. Spielberg has already said there is no Indiana Jones without Ford, but I’m not buying it. I think Indiana Jones will turn out like James Bond and the franchise will continue well beyond Spielberg’s and my death.

I’ll try and stop with the plot description there. Trust me, you’ll start yawning too if I go much further.

Spielberg and company should have kept the science fiction out of Indiana Jones. The Nazi backdrop worked better than the Crystal Skull using the late 50s. The ending left me shaking my head, not cheering. While exiting the theater a guy in front of me was griping about the science fiction elements too. His friend replied: “hey, it’s Indiana Jones, you expected realism?” If you’ve read the Tommyknockers by Stephen King, or heck many of Spielberg’s past sci-fi flicks, key parts of Crystal Skull feel way too familiar.

Cliche.

That is arguably Crystal Skull’s greatest flaw: the story feeds off other stories we’ve seen before — not in an Indy film, no — but stories that no longer fascinate the way they did the first few times around. We paid $19 for two tickets and $19 for lousy popcorn and soda. There were a few bright spots in Crystal Skull, particularly the romantic interplay and paying some respect to past Indy’s, but it all begged for a power nap. I’d recommend waiting for Blu-ray/DVD. It’s better than the average blockbuster and will make plenty of money, but it’s not the Indy film we’ve been waiting all this time see.

I would have liked the eye candy better in 3D on IMAX, if that is an option, go for it. Worst of the four Indy flicks to date, but still somewhat respectable. It isn’t the abortion that Lucas did with Phantom Menance, and is more in line with Revenge of the Sith vs. the first three Star Wars films. I’m left wondering if the Spielberg + Lucas magic is gone? Hope not. Grade: C+

Got to get this one off my chest. Women who use hyphenated last names bug me. If my wife had been the type of woman who wanted to use a hyphenated last name, I would never have married her.

Now wait, before you bash me for being shallow. Look ladies, you marry someone, you don’t have to take his last name. You can keep your maiden name, but I do not like at all the whole maiden_name-married_name convention. The whole hyphenated last name thing needs to fly to a distant galaxy and never return. Those who have stage names should keep their names whether they get married or not. That’s part of your brand.

And while we’re at it, it’s 1000 times worse if you do this online. Women, I know you won’t listen to some blogger who doesn’t even have a last name, but I beg you to stop pointing at yourself, intentionally or not, with your 25+ character names. First rule of internet naming common sense: choose something short.

That’s at least partly why my name is ‘TDavid’ and even more preferably: TD. It’s easy to type, easy to remember, and easy not to screw up (but some people still do and miss the capital ‘T’). If you want to be Jane mynameisimportant-soIusetwoofthem make that your problem, not ours.

Ahhh, I feel so much better. I’ve been waiting to write this for years. I made it a Twitter message before blogging this, here are a few heartfelt responses before pressing the publish button.

@claynewton writes: “@TDavid, I don’t think it’s pretentious in the least to hyphenate. The “last name” matter is as complex as the fabric of our culture”

But *online* why hyphenate @claynewton? It seems to go against the KISS principle. Look at Twitter with 140 chars. 180 for married women?

@Trula: “married women who hyphenate aren’t being pretentious. it’s just they don’t realize the point. the name issue is mere icing.”

And then Trula’s follow-up: ” @TDavid take his name, keep your name, hyphenate. none is more valid choice. you’re still married, complicit in patriarchal institution.”

Ironic, but this post might seem pretentious to some. Wow, it’s also the second post of the day, been awhile since I could say that (gasp). Feel free to weigh in below whether or not you think hyphenated names are pretentious and please note that I didn’t use any freaking hyphens in the title, ha!

Many of the comments I’ve been reading about Microsoft’s Live Search Cashback program since the official launch yesterday have been negative. I’m not exactly ecstatic about the service, but can a service that is trying to help you save money be that bad?

Unfortunately, too many of these opinions seem to be coming from people who didn’t fully try out the service. Instead they seemed to have glanced the service over, whipped a post up as fast as they could and competed to write the best ‘let’s trash Microsoft’ posts they could so they could race to the top anchor spot on Techmeme.  If you go off hyperbolic headlines Microsoft is being accused of: bribery, stealing ideas and more. I don’t want to read armchair quarterback opinions about what this means for the future of Microsoft gaining search share from Google, I’d like to know if the Cashback service is worth using.

Fact: considering the Cashback program’s own FAQ states that it can take several days for a purchase to even show as "pending" there can’t be many true Cashback customer experience posts out there to draw from yet. Pure logistics.

Some commented on the shopping experience like Danny who points out that the Cashback team sort of went halfway by not providing important comparison shopping features like reviews. He also labeled the system "complicated." I think the word Danny meant to use based on his post was convoluted, not complicated.

Using Cashback is pretty non-complicated, just search for what you want, go to the store with the price you like — if you are logged into Cashback (and you only have to login once) then you’ll see a message that your shopping at the merchant’s site is being tracked for Cashback. Then it’s very much like any other shopping experience online. Danny’s fellow writer, Barry, has walkthru screenshots. Complex? Hardly.

Yesterday, I went through and searched for something I wanted to buy — and was available from a merchant using Cashback — and ordered. Other than having to fill out the necessary ordering details at the merchant’s site, the process was straightforward. Like any other online order. People like us who do a lot of shopping online are used to the process. The only caveat is that we go through the Live Cashback search first. Big deal? Not really.

Where is your favorite online store?
Now here’s a bigger deal when it comes to online shopping: what if your favorite online store isn’t part of the Cashback network (yet)? My wife complained that Cashback didn’t have her favorite online store: Bed, Bath & Beyond, so she wouldn’t be using it that much. They offer an A-Z list (search.live.com/cashback/stores) of what online stores they are partnering with and while it’s a decent list, it’s not all inclusive, meaning you won’t be getting any cash back from those stores unless they offer their own deals. Hell might freeze over before Amazon surfaces on the list.

This is a major flaw. How can any useful shopping search be valid if it only includes search results for stores that are being partnered with? Wouldn’t it be more useful to show all shopping search results and simply display 0% cashback (since the site isn’t a Cashback shop partner)? Allow shoppers to toggle on/off non-Cashback partners. Now that would be useful and empower the people. I like it. Do it, Cashback team, please.

Since Microsoft isn’t making any money from the deal, I don’t understand why this isn’t an option at launch. Fine, toggle it off by default, so you highlight your own partner list, but who do we want to help most here? The people in your network or the shoppers?

Cashback order price accuracy
Loren suggests offering free shipping, not cash back, a la Amazon Prime (emphasis mine):

For instance, I wouldn’t do a Detroit-style cash back program, instead I’d join up with UPS and FedEx and provide free shipping for everyone, or free shipping upgrades, if the company already provides free shipping. This is a lot easier to communicate I think than a nebulous price-oriented cash back program.

Loren, what is nebulous about the cash you get back? You see exactly what your rebate is before clicking through to the store’s website? However, I agree that the shipping and handling can add up, check out my order of Gibson guitar polish below, which is half the price of the item ordered (ouch):

There are a couple other problems here. Compare this order email receipt to what Live Cashback showed me:

Notice that Cashback doesn’t show any tax being charged. You’d think since Cashback knows where I’m located from my Live profile, they would be showing tax being charged. Second, and I’m not sure who to blame this one on. The guitar polish showed as ‘available to ship’ on the merchant’s site but when they emailed me a receipt see what word is hyperlinked: backordered. Huh? That’s a quick way to annoy your customer: by showing them on the website that something is available and yet sending them a receipt that shows the opposite.

Good news: this morning I received another email that the guitar polish had been shipped. I logged into Cashback to see if my $0.80 showed as ‘pending’ yet? Nope. Again, the FAQ says it can take several days and not to contact them until 7 days has passed. I will add another post or update this one below or in the comments if/when I’m credited with $0.80.

You like saving money, don’t you?
For me the bottom line is will I remember to use this? When I’m shopping online, I tend to have specific stores in mind. Stores that I trust and like doing business with while a number of the Cashback stores I’ve never heard about erodes my confidence. I don’t frequent the deal sites as much as I should, so having Cashback show me different stores comparatively helps, but as mentioned above I’d like to see the option to aggregate all the online shopping sites and let me decide if I care about the rebate.

One of the reasons that I use Google more than other searches is because it feels like it is giving me the most relevant search results. When I shop for something, I know what I want and don’t just want to buy it at the cheapest price, I want to buy it from a store that won’t give me service nightmares. Live Cashback is a start, but feels incomplete.

Finally, the title of this post mirrors my biggest concern with rebates: you have to wait for them. I understand that they can’t credit a sale right away because of returns, but I’ve become very leery of rebates. I won’t label them a ’scam’ but they feel like they are because of the length of time it takes to get the money back to you. If a store is going to discount me, then they should do so at the time of sale, not later. Mike at TechCrunch ran a few sales through and his rebate showed right away, so maybe I chose a slower site to report back to Cashback that I made a sale?

This negative connotation may not help Live Cashback gain enough traction. A system which minimizes the error correction and time customers wait for these rebates would help. If I were on the Cashback team, I’d be pushing to make this service as useful as possible for shoppers. It doesn’t feel there quite yet. What do you think?