(via TechCrunch)

As any dad who has a healthy relationship with his kids can tell you, never make idle threats. If you give an ultimatum and the deadline passes, you must follow through on your promises or you've lost all credibility.
 
Maybe that's why I laugh every time I get a 'last chance' notice for graduation photos. I graduated over eight months ago and haven't bit yet. I don't think a "special, limited time offer!" is gonna cinch the deal for me. . .

Folklore.org - Stories of the Macintosh

I spent much my childhood playing with a Mac.  My Dad's original 128k has the missing keys to prove it.  As you may have heard, the Macintosh was launched 25 years ago, today.  There are a bunch of really great stories about the creation of the Mac at Folklore.org.

Returning defective merchandise usually feels a lot like a trip to the DMV. It generally involves plenty of unnecessary waiting and a dearth of incompetent employees.
 
This is what makes a recent trip to Performance Bike special. I approached the counter with the defective lamp in one hand and a working replacement in the other. As I placed them on the counter and briefly explained the problem, the clerk slid the broken one towards himself and it's replacement to me. No receipt - no red tape.
 
I'm sure that the painful returns process at most chain stores deters some from reporting complaints. I'm equally sure that I'd rather be shopping at Performance.

When your business starts generating revenue, you need to begin paying quarterly taxes.  The IRS doesn't exactly appreciate you sitting on your owed money all year waiting for tax time.  They're due every 3 months, starting on January 15th.

If you either didn't pay taxes last year or have already have enough money withheld on a W2 to cover last year's taxes, you can skip the quarterlies.

As a new taxpayer, mine may be optional, but I wanted to get into good financial habits and pay them now anyway.  I went onto the IRS's online payment system and added myself to their database, including my name, Social, and checking account information.  Like many user registration forms, they send you a confirmation mail that you must use to activate your account.  The difference is that the IRS USES THE REAL MAIL.  What should have taken under 15 minutes to process instead takes fifteen days.  If my taxes were actually due today, I would have been screwed.

At the IRS, they know it's a new year - they just don't know what decade.

Most web applications track their success with big numbers - the number of pages clicked, the number of minutes a user is engaged. Ben Curren of accounting app Bootstrap quantifies success a little differently:

He wants his users to spend as little time using his service as possible. Ideally, the user would go months without touching the site, until tax time rolls around when he logs on once to see all his data is there waiting for him to print out and send to the IRS.

I don't even eat at Burger King, and I'm considering doing this. They have a new Facebook app that will only provide you a coupon for a free sandwich if you defriend ten people. You can broadcast the names of your sacrificial lambs in the news feed.

Brilliant.

Techcrunch today ran a story about free dating site plentyoffish.com, which is currently stomping on its paid competitors.  I peeked at the site and clicked a few profiles.  The site lets you browse through two of them before it forces you to register:

"49% of women who leave plentyoffish.com found their boyfriend here. Love really IS just a click away."

If you think about what that means, it's not terribly surprising - the only users who care enough to cancel an account are those who use the site in the first place.  If you don't go on the site, you'll never bother updating your relationship status or cancelling your account.  So, what it really says if nearly half of the active female subscribers successfully found a date on the site.  Still impressive, but much less so.

I doubt most potential users see that statistic and think about the women who tried the site and walked away without formerly canceling their accounts, or about how long the other 51% have been actively looking.  Instead, they happily picture themselves in the first 49%.  

I'd love to see what that tagline did to their conversion rates.  It's a clever little ploy that they wouldn't have been able to pull off without asking their users the right questions.

There's a dealer who operates two distinct businesses in her industry - a high-end, manufacturer-recommended repair outfit, and a low-end, aftermarket chop shop.

The executives at one of her OEMs wanted to commit fully to this year's new line, and sold its remaining inventory of last year's parts to her more reputable operation. The chop shop received a frantic phone call a few weeks later from the supplier's support department, who were desperate to source some old parts. Usually they'd keep a reserve on-hand, but it had mysteriously disappeared from their warehouse.