I had dinner tonight with Wes Boyd and Joan Blades of MoveOn.org. Lots of interesting ideas exchanged. 
I got the final answer from Hotwire. Sheraton sells rooms through Hotwire on nights they’re oversold. Hotwire doesn’t tell non-smokers they might end up in a smoking room. Net-net: they’re keeping the money. I lost $384.85. Ouch.
BetterBadNews deconstructs Guy “Who Gives a Shiitake” Kawasaki.
RocketBoom is searchable. And that’s not all. You can ask for (and they will provide) a RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures that tracks subjects of interest.
On the latest Gillmor Gang podcast, Steve Gillmor says I don’t link to him, and that’s still true, but I can actually spell his name correctly, twice in one paragraph. How about that!
Gizmodo: “I will keep telling people how much I love using my Mac while silently questioning my devotion to a company who would rather use the law than service to assuage their customers’ complaints.”
Skypecasts are “live, moderated conversations allowing groups of up to 100 people from anywhere in the world to talk to one another.”
Chris Pirillo: “Face it, folks — WinZip is dead.”
Next conference: Future In Review, May 14-16.
Harvard Gazette: “Lots of people at Harvard Law School’s Bloggership conference were busy tapping away on their laptops while the presenters spoke at the podium.”
There is something about Ponzi that brings out the love.
May 4, 2006 at 1:15 pm
“They’re keeping the money.”
That’s unacceptable. Did you tell them you are a famous blogger? They’ll lose much more than the $384.85.
May 4, 2006 at 1:25 pm
I told them it would be on my blog, and if they’re like Travelocity they’ll want to give me my money back when they realize how high it shows up in Google when people search for Hotwire. She wasn’t impressed.
With Travelocity they squealed and pleaded after blowing me off (when they thought I was just a poor schnook of a customer).
Good businesses take care of their customers, even if they can’t warn other potential customers about how they do business. And businesses that only care about adverse publicity and not about their customers don’t deserve to be able to buy their way out of the adverse publicity. From this point on they don’t get to issue a refund, and while I will accept an apology, I will not take down the bad review, ever, under any circumstances.
Hotwire is the smoking hotel system. If you don’t smoke, you’ll end up on the street looking for a room in the middle of the night. Better to pay a few sheckels more and get a non-smoking room, guaranteed.
And what about the state of California. Do they really still let hotels have smoking rooms? What kind of place is this?
May 4, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Man, that is so lame! Thank you for blogging this… my band deals with hotels a lot and now we know to steer clear of Hotwire.
Btw, I caught your Rocketboom interview recently and really enjoyed it. Very thought provoking stuff.
May 4, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I would simply dispute the charges with your credit card company. They offered you a non-smoking room online and didn’t deliver; you don’t owe them a dime.
May 4, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Interesting. I wonder exactly what rooms Sheraton is trying to sell through Hotwire, if they’re already overbooked? Obviously, they’re using Hotwire as a safety net. Properties will rent rooms at the rack rate, and fill in remaining vacancies with Hotwire customers. That means some folks — like you — get screwed,
I’ve never been shuffled off to a smoking room with Hotwire, but I have been stuck — “no, we can’t move you” — next to noisy elevators and ice machines in hotels with obvious vacancies.
I’ve been using Hotwire and Priceline only when I’m familliar with the hotels in a neighborhood and can accept staying at any of them. Looks like I’ll stop using them at all. I’d walk away from a smoking room, too.