I don’t have lots of time to idly shop during the weekends, so I tend to do a lot of my shopping online. Last year I sunk a heap of cash into JCrew, and spent many evenings looking at ShopBop and Netaporter.

This year I’m going local(ish) and have been checking out Country Road and Trenery. There are  a number of changes I’d like to see that could improve the customer experience online, but first here’s what I love about Country Road and Trenery:

• They have their logistics and dispatch cranking. I can place an order at midnight and it is shipped the next day – and I have new clothes the day after. That is pretty awesome.
• Anything I want to return or exchange I can send back to Mt Eden. That’s Mt Eden, Auckland. Or if I like I can pop into a Country Road or Trenery store and get a refund direct to my credit card. I’ve done this several times – never been a problem.
• They have great social customer support – I’ve asked them a few questions via Facebook and they’ve always been very helpful and prompt in their responses (not just fobbing me off to some FAQs).
• New stock appears in a ‘New In’ category, so there is no need to trawl through all the dresses, jackets, tops to see what is new each time I visit the website.
• There is a wishlist feature for making a list of the clothes you like the look of but don’t want to buy right now  - and you can share it with friends and family! Great for present ideas.
• For sales that start at 6am Australian time, we are already up and awake in NZ and can get the jump on sale stock before Sydney & Melbourne wake up.
• They have a mobile app which integrates with their mobile website for shopping on my phone – should the mood strike!
• No nasty surprises from the Customs man who unexpectedly would like GST and duty on your purchase.

How can they improve?

To take their websites to the next level I’d like to see a few more features introduced – these could improve the customer experience and drive up sales and reduce returns, which can only be a good thing!

1. Better descriptions of the garments – for example, is it lined? What with? What is the fabric composition? Can it be machine washed?
2. Clothing measurements. At the moment I look at the knee length skirt and wonder if the model has long legs or short legs and where the skirt would sit if I wore it.
3. Ratings and reviews – it would be great to see what other customers thought of the garment. Does this one fit slightly loose? Was the fabric prickly on your skin? Were they happy with it? So many questions!
4. Both sites already offer a ‘Wishlist’ option for saving garments you like the look of. It would be great to get an email alert when these clothes go on sale, or when the stock in your size is running low (nothing like a limited supply to increase demand!).
5. Suggestions of other garments based on the one you have viewed “If you like this, you might also be interested in”
6. Live webchat with a shopping assistant on the website – so you can ask all the questions like “Does this come in green’ and ‘Is my size in stock at the Newmarket store’?

There is always an element of risk when you buy online. Sure that dress looks great in the photo, but when it arrives it might be the wrong fit, or the fabric is not great quality, or the colour in actual life is vastly different from the web. When you purchase from overseas, you have to weigh up the cost and hassle to return the garment – maybe it’s not that bad after all. Or maybe you can sell it on to a friend. Or maybe you will wear it once – because it only cost 40 pounds, right? With Country Road and Trenery, this risk of wasting your hard earned dollars is reduced down to almost zilch.

For those that don’t know, Country Road and Trenery are part of the same company – Trenery was launched about 3 years ago and has a more classic clothing range, Country Road features more fashion items.

The content is arranged in Collections – such as Best Thing I Found Online Today, Dear (blank), Food For Thought, IMHO, plus many others.

Originally when Medium was launched it was in a closed beta (the only people who like closed betas are the people inside the closed beta) and publishing access was only for a small group however everyone could read posts. But lately they have been loosening the reins a bit and slowly letting others start posting on the platform.

I’ve posted a couple of times on Medium to try it out and here’s what I think:

The bits I like:

• Super easy to use, clean interface and typography, very simple and uncomplicated. No fluffing around with formatting and plugins
• Readers can add your post into a different category if they like – extending your reach
• Medium tells shows you how long – in minutes – it will take to read a post. Great thinking
• Seamless integration with Twitter (unsurprisingly) – your profile is set up in a couple of clicks or less
• Commenting is in the form of Notes on each line of your post, rather than at the end of the post
• You can allow other contributors to review your post before it is published (this is also a quick way to get publishing access to Medium)
  
  

The bits that need improving:

• No way to search for  someone who you know posts on Medium. You can follow a category but not a person – and no way of finding their past posts unless you find their Medium profile
• You can post something but unless you are very popular, it would be hard to get it to the top story in the category (top posts are voted up by clicking on the Recommend button).This means your post will get lost in the river of posts streaming past – a bit like Twitter really.
• Normal rules of SEO via Google do not seem to apply (no tagging functionality)
• The simple stats available to let you know how many have viewed, read, commented and recommended your post will fall short of people used to Google Analytics
• The lack of a support forum is surprising – assistance appears to be via FAQs or email.

As a reader, I’ve been loving Medium. I’ve been consuming new content and articles I wouldn’t have stumbled across before. I set up an RSS feed for the Editors Picks category which curates some of the best posts each day.

As a writer, I’ve enjoyed the simpler interface and uncluttered layout. It will be interesting to watch what happens over time as more and more writers are able to publish on Medium, and without a Follow function how this will impact the reach of the content you write.

Medium is still evolving so it is definitely worth keeping eye on. You can read my posts here over on Medium.

Instagram has always encouraged users to take photos and share them – right when they happen. That is the beauty of it – it is instant, a snapshot of that point in time. Sure the photos looks way cooler thanks to the handful of clever filters – and even cleverer, that encourages us to take and share more and more photos. “Look at my clever pic of this cocktail!”  ”Doesn’t my cat look cute in this?” “Have you seen this amazeballs sunset?” and so on.

But lately I’ve noticed an increased amount of grumbling as people post images that were quite clearly not taken on their smartphone. These are super sharp images, taken on a DSLR and post processed through an image editing software like Photoshop. Then they are shared on Instagram – beautiful, polished photos – but is that what this platform is all about?

Instagram recently announced on their blog:

“We do not offer the ability to upload from the web as Instagram is about producing photos on the go, in the real world, in realtime.”

I think the proliferation of these perfect, overly produced images is a shame. I liked the old days of Instagram – just seeing a few glimpses into the daily lives of people I followed, taken as they happened, and shared right then and there. It gave the platform a feeling of authenticity, of being genuine – not worrying about whether it was a ‘perfect’ shot or not. It is what it is, and that’s what I liked about it.

I hope this is not changing. Let’s keep it real, Instagram.

If you want to see lots of pics of my little cat on Instagram, or #WIWT, then you can follow me here: instagram.com/simonemccallum 

Also posted over on Medium.

No surprises there – that’s what Facebook is all about really. Or is it? For some, it is a never ending love hate thing. There is a swell of indignation from people shouting at their laptops “I don’t want to see these ads!!!” Or those whose sneaky Facebook stalking finally gets the better of them when they see something that can’t be unseen. They huffily deactivate their accounts, declaring their relationship with Facebook to be o_v_e_r. They vote with their internet feet, leaving the mega social network in an act of defiance, flipping a virtual bird at Zuck. That will show him, they cry, we will all leave Facebook and it will collapse in a heap of cleverly branded ashes. Oh yeah? You and whose army, you snort. Well you should too, they snap back, daring you with their eyes. But no-one follows the army of one – maybe a few stragglers mutter about definitely quitting Facebook after the weekend. Or maybe the week after, for sure. Then one day you notice they are back, their little green light glowing on the chat bar. Changed your mind, you ask casually. A mumbled response, something about contacting a friend who is on their OE, or sending photos of the kids to Mum. And so it begins again. The love-hate thing starts again.

Back to the webinar. The overly scripted and emotionless voice droned on and on – I let the webinar run in the background while I waited for the Q&As (mainly to see whether it was live or not). I was tempted to submit a comment suggesting she put a bit of personality into her presso – after all, she was talking about a social network not computers talking to computers. I did send in a couple of questions – all were moderated and not visible to other attendees – one was answered with a disappointingly scripted response. And then it was over, she was off to talk to her next scheduled audience, mission completed, questions forgotten.

I was left with an eerie and surreal feeling of being in George Orwell’s world with the same messages playing over and over. And over and over. Just as we are stuck in the love-hate thing, obsessively refreshing our Newsfeed. Over and over.

This post was originally published over on Medium.

So what is it actually like being a juror?

Well, first up, there is a LOT of waiting. The court system doesn’t run like a finely tuned car manufacturing plant so to cater for all the uncertainties and last minute changes there is a fair amount of waiting around. On the first day I arrived at the District Court and went to the Jury Assembly Area where there were about 200 people waiting in a room. “Please check in” I was told (they did not mean on foursquare). I rummaged through my bag looking for ID – but surprisingly none was needed. My name was taken, matched up to a preprinted label, and then this was popped into the ballot box for later. I did wonder if there was an underground business in jury proxies for those who are summoned but don’t want to attend, and just ask someone else to attend on their behalf? Hmmmm.

As the trials got underway, the ballot box was spun around – just like Lotto – and a selection of names were called out. For a jury of 12, at least 24, but often 30 names were called, and then those people were transported up to the courtroom. I was one of 30 people selected for a trial for an estimated 3 day duration. If you think you need to be excused then you need to have a bloody good reason as the only person who can grant a dismissal at this point is the court judge. A few people in our 30 decided to try running that gauntlet – 3 were excused for varying reasons (eg language difficulties) however the judge refused to accept others and they were told to sit in the jury box. The defence lawyer used 3 of his 4 challenges (those people were sent back to the jury pool) however the prosecution used none of his. These challenges seem to be based solely on appearances – if the legal counsel doesn’t think that you will be supportive of the case (based on how you look), then you can be challenged.

One of the first things I noticed about court is that there are a lot of breaks. No sooner had we  been sworn in than it was time for morning tea! Court commences at 10am, morning tea around 11:30am, lunch (for 75 minutes!) at 1pm, afternoon tea at 3:30pm and then finish up between 4:30/5pm. Obviously a lot goes on behind the scenes, but I did think if they could just stretch out the day by half an hour at each end and have a shortened lunch then perhaps the court backlog would be a bit less?

I used to think a jury was made up of 12 people who were too stupid to get off jury service. However from the discussions going on, it was clear that there are less people being excused and the court is taking a harder line with those wanting to get out of their civic duty. Note that you are able to apply to be excused in the 2 years following serving on a jury – but you do need to request this, it doesn’t flag automatically.

For the duration of the trial (which I won’t go into), the jury was treated very well – it was clear that we were guests of the court, and the judge and counsel all made sure the procedures and expectations were explained clearly to us. There is no need to swat up on Boston Legal or CSI before attending a jury, it is all laid out for you.

Once the trial has finished, the important jury deliberation starts. And even more importantly, all mobile devices are removed until the jury reaches a verdict. Think of it as your phone being held hostage! There is no contact with the outside world until you reach a verdict. No biggie you might say, but to reach a unanimous decision may take some time. Our jury was initially spilt 25%/75%, and over the course of 3 hours, 8 people changed their minds. Ever seen 12 Angry Men? It was just like that (kind of). You are locked into the jury room until consensus is reached – if it goes past 9pm then the accommodation provisions are invoked. If one person refuses to agree with the other 11…. well, you could be in for a long night. Tricky for smokers too. Written transcripts of the court evidence was provided and this was extremely helpful. Amongst the 12 of us, we all recalled different things from the witness statements, so being able to review the transcripts of what was actually said was crucial.

Overall, I would recommend serving on a jury. The most frustrating part is the uncertainty of whether you’ll be selected and how long you will need to attend for. Once you are on a trial, then things get interesting and time flies by. It is fascinating seeing the workings of the NZ legal system, and the weight of deciding the future of the accused is not to be sneezed at. You may be surprised to know that over 300,000 people are randomly selected each year to serve on juries in NZ.

At the end of the day, if you were accused of a crime and went to court – who would you like to be sitting in the jury box?

Edited: Found out from @radiomum that actually the counsel has all the information on the electoral roll (such as age, occupation and address), so this can be used for jury challenges too.

Last week I read this NY Times article about free photo editing app Tadaa describing it as a ‘sophisticated Instagram alternative’ – sounds intriguing!  So over the weekend I gave Tadaa a whirl to see how it compared with other apps on my iPhone such as Instagram and Camera+.

Now I love Instagram as much as you probably do – their filters are the bomb. But there are a few things about Instagram that irk me. Like how all photos must be cropped to square. And how you must share your photos even if you just want to apply Amaro and save to your camera roll for emailing to your mum. Like the clumsy reposting/sharing of images. And how you can’t tell if someone is following you. Not biggies, but still slightly irksome.

Tadaa is a clever little app – it is aimed at high end iPhoneographers so it packs in extra features not available in Instagram and Camera+.

Things I like about Tadaa:

• Unlike Instagram, your photos can be viewed inline on Twitter if you share from the app (Twitter Cards still supported).
• Photos do not need to be cropped to square!
• You can view the live filters through the lens as you take the photo! Great if you are setting up a shot. Just swipe your image to preview the next filter.
• The preloaded filters can be dialed back when applying (eg just have 78% of the filter strength applied. Or 24%). You know when your Hefe filter is just too Hefe? No more on Tadaa.
• You can reorder the filters so you aren’t scrolling through them all just to get your fav one at the end.
• The HD Tilt Shift feature allows the depth of focus/blur to be adjusted with fine controls – radius, shape, degree of blur. Plus an image select feature that allows you to apply a function to just a selected part of the photo. This. Is. Amazing.

Tadaa Image Selection Tool

• Brightness, Contrast and Saturation are all adjustable for each image
• You can save your photos to Camera Roll without sharing on Tadaa
• Reposting of photos is easy
• It is free with no hidden charges

Things I didn’t like as much about Tadaa:

• Who can be bothered creating another community of people to follow etc? Especially when Instagram is so well established.
• Auto sharing on Facebook displays like sharing a link – not like the Facebook-owned Instagram which shows the whole photo.
• You needed to switch the location feature off each time – irritating. There should be a global setting.
• The UI can take a little bit of getting used to.

The Facebook Page gives you handy hints on how to use the app, plus heads up when a new filter is released (they are often only available for 1 -2 days for you to install).  The Support FAQs are also worth a quick read for hints on how to use the app. You can import all your Instagram photos into Tadaa if you like, and keep them in sync via a setting.

With last year’s Instagram debacle ballooning the Tadaa registered users to almost 2m, it is the next hot thing. Only available on iOS at present (sorry Android), and there is no dedicated iPad app as yet. They are a small team of 5 beavering away in Germany so hopefully they will soon be snapped up by Twitter and replace that hopeless photo editing app Twitter launched last year.

After a few days of using Tadaa, I think I will just use the photo editing and give the social community a miss (there are only so many apps a girl can fit into her life!). If you enjoy zooshing up your photos, then the advanced features of Tadaa are definitely worth a look and the iTunes ratings are excellent.

You can download Tadaa here.

Last week I was lucky enough to receive a complimentary delivery of My Food Bag (thanks Pead PR!). Putting the social media kerfuffle about the launch to one side – what is My Food Bag actually like?  Initially slightly skeptical, after a week enjoying delicious dinners,  I’m a fully converted fan. 

Here are my top 5 reasons you should consider giving it a whirl:

1. The food is so fresh, you can smell it. In fact after a week, the bag of rocket was still fresher than the supermarket variety. Organic, free range and fresh from the farm definitely does make a difference to the taste. It’s how food is supposed to be!
2. Delivered free to the door means less trips to the shops – no battling the supermarket queue at 6pm! Which means more time for other stuff.
3. You know how you have 3 or 4 recipes that you fall back on all the time? This is an easy way to add another few to your list. Nadia’s recipes were easy and super tasty – we gave the chicken dish another run with friends over the weekend, and it was met with much awe and comment.
4. On a Sunday night you are sorted for dinners for most of the week. Nothing like crossing that off your To Do list.
5. You’ll be eating healthy, balanced dinners for the week. No guilty takeaways on the way home from the office!

My Food Bag is definitely something I’d order regularly – probably not every week, but maybe once a month. You can read my previous blog about it here.

Orders close on at midnight on Monday for the Sunday delivery. I’m off to place mine! www.myfoodbag.co.nz

Salmon Nicoise Salad from the Classic My Food Bag

It is interesting to see this being picked up by developers and advertisers. Here are 2 examples of how this is translating into the app and advertising space.

Diesel ran a competition to win one of their retro Pre-Internet Shoes. Entry to this competition was by not using social media – the more platforms you signed up to shun for a period of time, the faster the challenge was completed and you were entered into the competition. The competition app monitored whether you’d Liked, Post or Shared on Facebook for 72 hours (shorter if you added Twitter or Instagram in as well). If you did, then you were out.

(Sorry, the competition has finished).

The second example is this Avoid The Shopping Crowds app by a team in Netherlands potentially has a lot of gotchas.

It analyses Foursquare, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Gowalla to see where the social media activity is, then does some magical algorithmic calculation based on crowds density, and voila – it will tell you where everyone isn’t (and presumably get a park first time round the car park). If it works, it would be awesome at Christmas shopping time.

PS – one of the gotchas is that it is only available in Amsterdam. Sorry.

It will be interesting to see if more of these examples surface, or whether we reset our expectations gradually over time, and the oversharing and time sinking become more acceptable – or perhaps we subtly  change our behaviour?

While writing this, I was reminded of this blog where a Kiwi fellow had hooked up his house to the internet. Visitors to his website could see how many times the fridge door had been opened, how busy the catflap had been that day, which lights were on in the house (including the ability to turn some of them on and off yourself), and even how many times the toilet had been flushed (no cheating on the drought restrictions here). It is no longer active, but still an interesting experiment in ‘frictionless sharing’ as the folks at Facebook would call it.

Here are the top 4 things you need to know about My Food Bag:

• Food is all fresh, organic and free range, delivered to your door
• Meals can take between 30 mins to an hour to prepare and cook 
• Cost is $179 for 5 meals to feed 4-5 people, or $139 for 4 meals to feed a couple
• Ideal for busy families, foodie people - you should have an easy/intermediate level of cooking expertise

Fronted by MasterChef 2011 winner Nadia Lim and 2012 Businesswoman of the Year Cecilia Robinson, and with the backing of NZ business leader Theresa Gattung, this new service delivers organic, free range ingredients to your doorstep – plus recipes – that will sort out your dinners for the week. Being a busy mum of two, my ears pricked up at this, and I leapt at the chance to give it a whirl. On Sunday night, 3 massive bags of fresh produce were delivered to our door. Unpacking them was a bit like Christmas – and it required a serious round of Fridge Tetris to squeeze everything in! Surprisingly enough, I found we already had some of the ingredients in the fridge – probably a reflection of ex Nosh Mike Wale’s involvement in the company. The 5 meals for the week had been emailed through in advance and looked delish – and healthy as well. Additional ingredients that would be needed had been helpfully listed but these aren’t anything you wouldn’t already have (such as olive oil). The typical meal involves 20 – 30 minutes preparation, plus cooking time (which was between 20 – 40 mins for this weeks recipes, with the exception of the salad). The Food Bags are priced differently: $179 for the Classic (5 meals for a family of 4-5 so around $9 per person for each meal), and $139 for Gourmet (4 meals for a couple so around $17:50 per person per meal). Our Classic Bag contained smoked salmon, lamb, chicken, one vegetarian meal and a home made pizza (check out the pictures below). The Gourmet Bag for the same week contained duck, fish, lamb and eggplant. The delivery comes with 5 glossy recipe cards for each meal which contain all the instructions required, plus nutritional information and markers to indicate whether the meal can be frozen, and if it is gluten/dairy free or vegetarian. Glancing through the recipes I’d say that they are more complex than your basic spaghetti bolognese so you’d need to be prepared to run with that on the nights you were following a recipe.  The service is very well branded and marketed with an uncluttered and easy to use website, 0800 line, social media platforms all up and running, products clearly branded – right down to the nutmeg in a separate bag with a My Food Bag sticker across it.

This concept is based off a similar business model in Sweden which Managing Director Cecilia Robinson spied when she was visiting her homeland a few years ago. The business plan was hatched while she was in labour (!!!) with her now 6 month old child and from then on, it was all go. Robinson says the service is aimed at working parents or modern lifestyles – anyone who is time poor. The philosophy of the service is to stay as close to the ingredients as possible, so the produce is farm fresh where available (a reason why they wouldn’t considering partnering with a supermarket, says Robinson). Although I chose the Classic option, the recipes are aimed at ages 8 and up, so the fussy palates of the little people in our house may not warm to the salmon nicoise salad in this week’s bag, but I could easily use the ingredients for a different meal for the kids.

Robinson also says that Facebook and social media will be important tools for the service (if you’ve ever used Instagram you’ll know what I mean when I say food and social media are a match made in heaven) and feedback received through these platforms will help guide new options such as featuring your favourite recipes twice per season. A quick look at the My Food Bag Facebook page shows a few requests for special dietary needs such as all vegetarian, low carb, gluten free, weight loss and personalisation to allow a pork free Food Bag. The service is flexible – you can order either weekly or fortnightly, and are not locked into a fixed term subscription – you can even change bags each week which is great for busy households or even blended families.

My Food Bag would be ideal for weeks when you might have a guest staying, or would like to try a few different recipes with delicious food – at a very low risk of failure. Chatting to a few friends and people round the office suggests there is a lot of interest in trying out the service –  anyone with a foodie streak in them will take to this like a duck to water. I’m looking forward to trying out the recipes this week – it is a great feeling to know that you have the week’s dinners all sorted on Sunday night. One less thing on the To Do list!

I noticed the other day that Facebook asked me if I would like to pay to send a Facebook Message to someone who I was not already Friends with. A bit of tinkering around and before I knew it, I was being asked to pay nearly $10 to send a message to our NZ Prime Minister, John Key!  Strangely enough, it wasn’t a consistent charge for everyone – it was 66c for someone else, and nothing for others (including Mark Zuckerberg – although others have been charged USD$100).  I was advised that “the payment helps confirm your message isn’t spam which isn’t allowed in Facebook Messages”, which may be true, however it does also appear to be another potential revenue stream for the monolithic social network. It’s an option that Facebook are currently trialling (not everyone seems to have this ‘feature’ available) and is connected to some changes made last year to Messages so they are filtered depending on the options you’ve chosen and whether you are connected to the sender on Facebook.

Here is some more information on how the Message filtering works. And it might pay to check your ‘Other’ Inbox – you might find some messages there that you actually wanted to receive. This poor mother was sent a Facebook Message by the police to inform her of her son’s death - and it went to her Other folder, so she didn’t find it until 20 days later.

It is an interesting move by Facebook – I doubt it will be well received. And in the meantime, you might want to consider using good old email, or Twitter/ LinkedIn to get in touch with people outside of your Facebook network.