Oliver Siodmak's Rants & Raves

To Steve Jobs,

Of the millions of people in the world who in some way have touched me – you will alway be someone whom without you ever knowing it has had a tremendous positive impact on my life and my career.  Through your vision, drive and unwillingness to compromise you have inspired me.  Through the products you developed at Apple you showed me that it is OK to lead instead of follow. To think differently and to want more from yourself and those around you.  You demonstrated through your example that if you believe in what you are doing and continue to encourage yourself and others to keep trying, you can accomplish great things!  I will always look upon your contribution to the human race and raw strength from your example.

Thank you Steve for being an inspiration to us all.

Sincerely,

Oliver Siodmak

I don’t usually expect companies to response when I post a comment about their service on Twitter, Facebook or other social networking site.  Hell, I often can’t get a company to respond when I post a message to them directly on their Customer Service web pages or email addresses.  Hertz how ever does a good job of monitoring Twitter and addressing comments (both positive and negative).

In the past when I have had problems with a vehicle they have directed me to the right support option and when I post positive comments (like above) they say thank you.  I respect an organization that makes an effort to “hear” what their customers are saying.

That helps build customer loyalty.

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I am happy to announce that Apple has just approved the latest update to the Fox Sports Mobile app.  This is the 3rd App release IBM has delivered for FOX.  It includes:

• Performance enhancements: 3x speed improvements over WiFi & 3G from the previous release
• Soccer: News, Scores & Schedules (by League), Video, & Standings
• MMA/Boxing: News & Video
• Motorsports: News (F1 & IRL)
• Nascar: Leaderboard, Race Details, (including Lineup, Live Race, Track info), Schedule, Drivers Index, The Chase
• Article sharing via Facebook
• Manual refresh button for news and scores
• Over 50 bug fixes

The IBM and FOX teams worked very closely together to significantly improve the app’s performance.  Additionally we have provided additional visual queues to notify the user when the app was unable to download content updates from FoxSports.com.

In addition to performance enhancements and bug fix we now have (say it with me) SOCCER!  That’s right — we now have News, Scores, Schedules, Video & Standings content for SOCCER.  Motor and Nascar fans will also be happy to learn that their content also available in this release.

A special thank you goes out to my development team: Greg Crisp and Mike Jones for their continued hard work and dedication to the project!

As always, I would encourage all of you to download the app and post your comments and rating in the App Store.  The more reviews we receive the better.  Also — please share the App link (http://itunes.com/foxsportsapp) with as many family, friends and colleagues as you know.

The release should be available for you to update on your iPhone or iPad before EOD today.

It’s hard to believe but in only 3 short days the Fox Sports Mobile app my IBM team and I developed for Fox is now the #1 Free Sports app in the Apple App Store – displacing ESPN!  Additionally — the app continues to receive exceedingly high ratings from new and existing users!  If you haven’t downloaded the app yet, check it out at http://itunes.com/foxsportsapp.

Additionally, the app is now appearing as #118 of all the free apps in the App Store!

UPDATE:  App is now #99th in the Top Free Apps category in the App Store!