Ticketmaster Customers: Check Your Spam Folder

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

From the “you may have missed this in real time” department:

If you are an online Ticketmaster customer, you may be eligible for a $1.50 per purchase discount on tickets purchased from 2012-2016. No joy, it seems, for those who buy tickets from November 2011 until the settlement is finalized and discounts distributed by email (not before May 2012).

The announcement subject line is “Notice of Proposed Settlement of Class Action;” the sending email, ticketfeelitigation@tgcginc.com. You not only need to check your spam folder; you need to think about old email addresses. How many people have kept the same email address on their Ticketmaster account for 12 years? I haven’t.

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Carnival of Journalism: What I Want For Christmas

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

My entry in theDecember’s Carnival of journalism, hosted by The Guardian Developer blog. This month’s question: If you are a journalist, what would be the best present from programmers and developers that Santa Claus could leave under your Christmas tree?

My wish for the Christmas elves? Put someone other than IT in charge of all CMS purchases. [There's an argument to be made that IT shouldn't be in charge of IT ... but that's another story.]

I make this wish (a not-very-veiled complaint) for the same reason that Don Norman criticized the design of stoves in The Design of Everyday Things. Landlords and housing developers are major purchasers of stoves. Thus, the person making the buying decision is focused primarily on price and reliability. Usability does not enter into the equation.
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