New Jawbone + Jabra MiniGel ... Glue?

For the commenter who asked about the need to use glue to hold the Jabra MiniGel in place on the new Jawbone...I haven't needed to. On the original Jawbone, the MiniGel didn't stay on all that well, so I know that a number of folks used some type of super glue to provide a better seal. My own reluctance in using glue on the original was a concern that glue build-up (schmutz) on the ring of the Jawbone would make it difficult to reattach the MiniGel when it eventually came off.

On the new Jawbone, I haven't even contemplated using glue, for one key reason. To ensure a suitable fit in the ear, and to ensure that the cheek doohickey thingie (Voice Activity Sensor) is properly pressing against the cheek, I've found that I rotate the MiniGel to about 8 o'clock (viewed when holding the new Jawbone with the VAS facing south) before placing the Jawbone in my ear. I then rotate the Jawbone upwards a smidge (to 7:30 or so) to ensure a good solid fit. Using glue would prevent me from doing so. Thus, no glue. Even so, I don't find the MiniGel jumping off the Jawbone itself. Due to the lack of a suitable carrying case (oh, how I miss the beauty of my Plantronics 640 and 655), I carry my new Jawbone in my pocket. Sure, the MiniGel falls off sometimes, but that's life--reattaching it to the headset takes about 3 seconds.

By the way, tomorrow marks the two month anniversary of the new Jawbone's introduction. If you were with us back then, you remember that Aliph somehow managed to not have their Club Jawbone ready to go on launch day. Two months later, they still don't. If you look at my post from the day after the launch, you'll note that the Club Jawbone page basically said, "Go play in traffic. Not only do we not have our stuff together to have our free fan club ready at this time, we're going to be so wildly successful we don't even have the need to capture your e-mail address for further company communications. Don't call us, Child, we'll call you."

Well, two months on, and still nothing. I'm intrigued (kind of like when Scooby needed a snack) by the relatively obscure link in the bottom left corner of the lower navigation bar. Either go to the Jawbone website and look for the "CJ" in the diamond shape, or just click on the image here. Two months on, bupkis.

Two months worth of potential leads. Two months of potential opt-ins from customers and prospects. Two months of letting the (obviously non-existent) CRM package populate itself. Two months worth of consumer touch, pissed away because somebody can't make a decision on how to put up a simple web form that asks users to enter an e-mail address, with the promise of contact sometime in the future. Aliph management is obviously asleep at the wheel when it comes to inbound marketing. Maybe the plan is to go to CES again next year and give away another couple of barrels full of Jawbones. Sure doesn't do much for cost of sales in my mind.

So, David Welden, Roelof Botha, and Gaurav Garg--you're the guys with the investment in Aliph. Maybe you guys can knock some sense into your management team, because Internet Marketing 101 and CRM 201 must've been electives they chose to skip.