A surprising number of people contacted me to ask who I intended to write to at Verizon in an attempt to kickstart a dialogue about the issue of them slapping a goofy advertising/Quicktime appendage to every MMS message…an appendage that cannot be turned off.
As you know, pinging any leader at any large company requires patience and ferreting out emails, but I’ve found going after people in public, media or press relations is usually a good idea as these people “get it” when it comes to negative buzz. If the buzz reaches a cacophony, then it’ll get to the right executives.
So here are the folks (and the areas for which they’re responsible) I sent the note to this past weekend and the email itself:
Handsets, Product Distribution, Marketing
Brenda Raney
908-306-4834
Brenda.Raney@VerizonWireless.comCustomer Experience, Information Technology, Business Continuity
Tom Pica
908-306-4385
Thomas.Pica@VerizonWireless.comPublic Policy and Regulatory Affairs; Wireless Multimedia, Data and Internet
Jeffrey Nelson
908-306-4824
Jeffrey.Nelson@VerizonWireless.comCorporate Strategy, Policy
Jim Gerace
908-559-7508
James.Gerace@VerizonWireless.com
Ms. Raney, Messrs. Pica, Nelson and Gerace,
As a brand new customer who was initially delighted by Verizon Wireless, I must inform you of my profound disappointment over something you’re doing that agitated me so greatly I took the opportunity to expose it to my widely read tech blog. The issue? Your voluminous appendage of content to the end of every MMS message which cannot be manipulated, managed or turned off by your customer.
My firm is focused on Web 2.0, the emerging participatory internet culture (blogging, podcasting, vlogging, et al) and the rise of online community. It is therefore so startlingly obvious to me that catering to the current and accelerating class of users creating digital content is critical to the adoption and rising use of your profitable, high speed network and its ability to handle significant amounts of data traffic. I’d assume you are interested in leveraging the considerable investment made in EVDO (as well as future network expansion) and catering to this class of user is key to market penetration as well as current and future customer loyalty. This one Verizon policy of appendage to every MMS message is one that will prove to be a deal-killer (or minimally a customer experience demoralizer) for the legions of us out here interested in increasing the efficacy of our communications via your mobile network.
ACTION: Please consider immediately providing tech savvy users (with appropriate warnings) with the ability to turn off the voluminous content slapped on to the end of every multimedia message sent via your network — or completely eliminate said content.
If interested, feel free to read my blog post as it more cogently and clearly articulates my concern and argument: http://borsch.typepad.com/ctd/2006/06/verizon_doesnt_.html
Also, I’d be happy to discuss it live and you can reach me at one of the numbers below.
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Steve Borsch
CEO
Marketing Directions, Inc.
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I’ll let you know when (and God forbid…if) I’m contacted by anyone.
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