GigaOM » teleworker

Needle weaves fans, customers and companies together

Terri Griffith — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:39:17 +0000

Companies and employees are finding unique ways to work in a world supported by mobile Internet access. We’re seeing growth in coworking, and telecommuting in general, and Needle is a great example just how far you can push these ideas. Needle provides client companies with the tools and people to link product experts, or fans of the brand, with current and prospective customers in online chats. I met Needle’s founder and CEO Morgan Lynch recently at his office, an Airstream megabus worthy of the rockstar team he’s invited on the road. Lynch says the bus is a good way to demonstrate the power of “the work anywhere model.” He continues,

Today we’re all plugged in. The best performance you’ll get is when people work from where and when they want. If you shove somebody in a cube and force some training, telling them to do things they wouldn’t normally do, they won’t be as creative … and giving recommendations is a creative process.

This isn’t your grandparents Airstream. And this isn’t a 20th century form of telecommuting. Needle provides a platform that brings fans, brands and customers together. Needlers, as the fan/experts are known, can be selected by the client company if it has existing connections with its fan experts, or by Needle through the client company’s social networks. The key is that Needlers are passionate fans who love to talk about the brands they cover.

Map of Needlers and realtime chats – shown on screen inside the bus

The platform is built to access these experts wherever they are and help them engage with their brands in a manner that works for all the parties. The company works with clients to find the times they need to staff their customer response chat lines. It also customizes the incentive packages for each company based on the focus the they’d like the chats to have.

I had the chance to talk with the following Needlers:

Doug Fleming
Needle Client: Astro Gaming
Location: Oceanside, Calif.
Age: 25
Details:

Began gaming when he was 6 years old, began competitive gaming when he was 16
Started Needling in February 2012
Needles about 20 hours per week
Has already done 1,200 chats

Nick Joy
Needle Client: Skullcandy
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Age: 26
Details:

A die-hard skier, moved from Seattle to Utah for the snow
One of the first Needlers — began in April 2010
Needles about four hours per week
Quickest response time on the Skullcandy Needle team

Michelle Graham
Needle Client: Under Armour
Location: Snohomish, Wash.
Age: 41
Details:

Married, mom of two boys
Started Needling October 2011
Needles about five hours per week
Lifetime customer satisfaction score: 9.7

They each had a story to tell about their client company and how the control and flexibility of the work style is something they greatly value. Lynch says that Needle leverages the idea that work is an activity, not necessarily a place. I heard several versions of, “Earn some money, earn some points and work for my favorite brand.” Nothing about going to the office.

Noelle Bates, vice president of community for Needle, and Lynch both talked about the quality of the people they are bringing to the table. They don’t think these experts would go to work in a call center, even if the call center were local to them, and the odds that the experts live near their favorite brands’ offices is small.

I mentioned Zappos, another company with fanatical fans and employees, and JetBlue with their work-at-home customer service representatives. Lynch pointed out that Zappos employees still have to commute to get to work, whereas the Needlers can work their way across Europe (as Nick Joy did), work from airplanes, work wherever they have a reasonable Internet connection. JetBlue’s approach requires a telephone and high speed Internet, more than the mobile-friendly requirements to Needle via chat. He concludes, “Your workforce shouldn’t be constrained by where they live.”

My colleague, Jessica Stillman recently summarized research showing that remote work can boost productivity for creative work. The founders and employees at Needle seem to agree. Do you?

Images courtesy of Needle.

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Just What Do We Call Ourselves, Anyhow?

Mike Gunderloy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:00:00 +0000

We are (obviously) fond of the term “web worker” to describe the WWD audience. But there are other terms that get thrown around a lot: “digital bedouin” is popular among the cutting-edge set, “telecommuter” seems to be the darling of the mainstream media, while “teleworker” gets heard in government circles. But as the folks over at Plantronics point out in launching their TeleWho? contest:

It’s 1973 — Elvis has popularized the sequin jumpsuit, the country is embroiled in Watergate, and the term “telecommuter” is first coined.

No doubt because it’s not catchy enough for advertising, the Plantronics folks want to replace “telecommuter” with some other term for “today’s always-connected-but-not-always-in-the-office worker.” Actually, they want you to come up with it for them.

The entry form is simple: contact info, your new term, and an explanation. The prizes include $1700 worth of home audio gear and Calisto Pro phones, which we called “the web worker’s dream phone” last year. So winning won’t make you rich, but five minutes of work with the right idea might get you a nice new bit of gear.

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Amazon’s Streams a Pipe Dream?

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:06:11 +0000

Yesterday we learned that Amazon will launch a pay-per-view streaming service in the next few weeks. Since then, Silicon Alley Insider was able to extract a few more nuggets about the service from Jeff Bezos: You’ll be able to stream rentals and purchases, prices will be the same as Unbox, and you’ll be able to watch movies right away.

But what does it all mean? Is it a good idea for Amazon? Amazon PR is being incredibly tight-lipped about the whole thing, but here are some initial thoughts.

Since the service will stream, you’ll have to watch it on your PC (Unbox movies are currently Windows-only). That is, unless Amazon’s planning to turn the Kindle into a set-top box, which would just stream the scripts for all the movies.

Consumers are used to paying nothing for streaming; the ad-supported model has helped make Hulu a hit. So will people cough up $3.99 to stream a movie? That seems like a stretch. At least the Roku hides the “fee” by charging you $99 for the box and making it part of your regular Netflix subscription.

Streaming also presents a technical issue inside the home should someone else in the house hop online and start gobbling up bandwidth. I’m fine with buffering and pauses when the content is free, but if I’m paying to watch a movie, my tolerance level for interruptions would be pretty low.

On the plus side, depending on what it negotiates with the networks and studios, Amazon could offer a library of content much bigger than Hulu, with more movies and TV content from the likes of CBS. But I don’t know if that will be enough to persuade people to fork over for the privilege of instant watching. A full-length movie isn’t something I usually decide to watch spur of the moment, and typically not something I’d want to watch on a smaller PC screen. TV shows are better-suited for instant gratification, but with so many free options available, why pay $1.99?

But it’s not just the Hulus of the world with which Amazon is competing. iTunes doesn’t offer streaming, but you can watch videos as they are downloading. I can’t imagine that slight time difference actually making a difference. VOD through cable won’t offer as much content, but it’s immediate and on the big screen.

As we noted earlier, there are still a lot of questions. What type of streaming technology will be used? Will it require a plug-in? Will there be HD?

During Amazon’s last earnings call, Bezos barely touched on his company’s digital initiatives, other than to say that he was “extremely happy” with them. Even studios admit that the digital movie downloads aren’t gangbusters right now. But will streaming be the way for Amazon to kick-start the business? That’s the real question to be answered.

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Q1P with 2 GB: quick benchmark test

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 16 May 2007 21:16:58 +0000

Just a quick screencap with results of CrystalMark on the Q1P with 2 GB of memory. I don’t believe that comparing it to my recent Q1P benchmarks with 1 GB (score: 14873) is an apples to apples because while the unit is the same aside from the memory module, I’ve rebuilt the machine since then, i.e.: it’s configured differently. Ideally, the best test would be to run CrystalMark with 2 GB of RAM, which I’ve done above, and then swap the 1 GB module back for another test. Regardless, I wanted to share this little bit of data for now….testing still underway. So far, I’m very happy with the upgrade.

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Yahoo Music … Playing in Mono

Om Malik — Thu, 12 May 2005 14:51:18 +0000

Yahoo Music has resulted in a lot of fuss (most complete coverage on PaidContent) and violent reactions on the stock market. Just would like to point out things which make it a difficult pill to swallow for now – it works only on Windows XP, it works with about a dozen music players, and doesn’t support Mac. In music industry parlance, this is an EP, not the full album! Alternative viewpoint from a Yahoo insider, obviously!

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