Visual Thesaurus

So, for my first rant, let's talk about ThinkMap Corporation, producers of Visual Thesaurus and other cool data-visualization tools.

I like Visual Thesaurus. It's almost as good as a thesaurus and much more fun. It reminds me of the really cool thesaurus that was built into the original WordPerfect, though now with dancing! If you aren't familiar with it, check out the free demo.

I do a lot of writing, often on airplanes and other places where the net is inaccessible, so I bought the desktop version of Visual Thesaurus (for about $40) a year or so ago. I was a little impatient at the time, so I bought the "download" rather than having them mail me a CD with the software.

Just this month, my employer has generously bought me a slick new laptop, a Dell E4300 (which arrived with a crashed hard disk, but that's a story for another bloglet). It's faster than the old one, has 50% longer battery life, and weighs about half as much. The only cost to me is the effort of moving all of my files, programs, and configuration settings to the new device.

I'm a pretty complicated guy, so I had to reinstall about 30 different applications, most of them copy-protected. This meant contacting some 15 different software companies, assuring them that the old laptop was retired, sending them my new macID, and getting new "keys." Every company I talked to, with the notable exception of ThinkMap, was perfectly reasonable.about this. I understand the need for copy protection, we all want to be compensated for our work. For completeness, here is a partial list of the companies who pleasantly and efficiently supported my move to my new laptop:  Microsoft, Adobe, National Instruments, Hamilton Technical Services, Texas Instruments, Symmetricom, Quadravox, OriginLab, Mentor Graphics, SolidWorks. Clearly all of these companies  understand that copy protection needs to be as easy and transparent as possible for your loyal paying customers. It's the carrot and stick methodology, right? You can't skip the carrot.

O.K.  - so I went to the ThinkMap WWW site, entered the download "code" from my original purchase, and it came back with "Sorry, this has been downloaded too many times." I went to their "Customer Support Inquiry" tab and typed in the story about the new laptop, assured them that I was not a thief, etc. and requested a new download code.

After two days with no response, I went back again and typed in the whole story again, perhaps this time with a little more frustration.

A week or so later, I tried calling them on the telephone, which was one of these automated systems where you pick from the menus until finally you get to the Visual Thesaurus Customer Support line, which told me to got the WWW site and hung up on me.

Not to be discouraged, I spent a little time Googling ThnkMap, found that they're a spin-off of one called "Razorfish" and picked up the names of the CEO and CTO. With a little more Googling, I found their Email addresses. For reference, they are:
CEO - Michael Freedman (B.A. Fine Arts, U. of South FL)   mfreedman@thinkmap.com
CTO - Marc Tinkler (B.A. Architecutre, Carnegie Mellon)
Sorry, I don't have the Email addresses here. I lost them with the E4300 hard disk.

So I wrote a nice explanatory Email to Freedman and Tinkler. I figured that maybe the technical/business leaders of ThinkMap were unaware of the poor treatment that was being given their customers by the support/sales department and that, if I made them aware of it, they would want to step in, help me out, and fix the problem before it frustrates other (loyal, paying) customers. It was certainly my expectation that this would be the last of this and that I would be subsequently contacted by someone from their Sales or Support group and we would be done with this. But no, it's been a week now and still I have heard nothing from ThinkMap.

To summarize:  My "download key" was rejected, I have twice requested support on the WWW site I've tried contacting them by telephone, and I've written a personal Email to the CEO and CTO. I have yet to receive any response of any sort from them, not even a "sorry but we think you are a thief." I think that I have done my due diligence here. Certainly, I have worked as hard as anyone should have to in order to use a product that they have already paid $40 for.

ThinkMap is incorporated in New York and has a mailing address in NYC. They are at least partially owned by a couple of VCs:  Motorola Ventures and GFT Technologies. Today I will file a complaint with the NY Attorney General's Consumer Affairs office and cc a copy to GFT and Motorola Ventures.