Billshrink saved me no money on my phone bill

[TC] Billshrink Launches to Save You Money On Your Phone Bill:

Billshrink, the new startup that aspires to simplify the often painful process of choosing and comparing mobile plans (and eventually other services), has launched in beta. … The site offers an ostensibly impressive feature-set.

Let’s take a step back. There are only four mobile phone operators in the country (AT&T, Spring, T-Mobile, and Verizon). Chances are, only two of them get decent reception in your house anyway. Sure they slowly started launching unlimited plans in the last few months, but other than that their plans have been the same for the last five years and you already know what they are. Thanks Billshrink, you’re really helping us out here.

With all the AJAX they stuffed into their website, it’d be nice to at least see the phones. Nope, that’s not an option.

Coverage map, on the other hand, is an option. Now I can finally see which carriers have blessed me with their coverage. Let’s bring one up:

So who has the worst reception in greater New York City area? Turns out it’s Verizon. Perfect 3-bar coverage from Midtown Manhattan to central New Jersey! Are we just picking random numbers here? Apparently so. I love it when they lie right to my face. Is that how they get their funding?

StreetAdvisor launches new services, drops common sense

[TC] StreetAdvisor Launches New Services:

StreetAdvisor will today launch a range of new upgrades that will give homeowners, renters, and buyers a more complete picture of where they could live. The new StreetAdvisor provides a real-life “insider” view that provides users the ability to learn and share vital details about where they live, including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, and public services in a similar way to travel review sites. Recommendations and negative experiences about local businesses, entertainment and services will also be supported.

Call me crazy, but the first thing I do when I get to this site is type “NYC” in the search box. The top result is “Nyac, Alaska, United States”. Is it just me or should it be easier to find America’s biggest city?

Speaking of New York, the top street in the United States at the time of writing is New York’s own E 19th St. Clearly the website is very new as there is only one review there. And I thought being featured on TechCrunch meant instant popularity and multi-million dollar valuation. Maybe it just needs some time.

Let’s backtrack a little at this point. The point of StreetAdvisor is to provide information on your neighborhood. Then why is Broadway, the longest street in the world that spans the length of Manhattan, all one neighborhood? Apparently SoHo and Harlem are the same thing.

 

Update (based on comments):

MSN Maps (or Live Search) does not find “NYC” either, but this is not a review of web-based map services. This review pertains only to one web service. I expect it to work reasonably well. If this is the fault of the API they chose, then perhaps they made the wrong choice, so it is still their fault. Also, I doubt they are using Microsoft’s API for search considering the maps on the site are from Google.

Also, it turns out I was wrong about Broadway. The streets are broken up by zip code, so Broadway 10001 and Broadway 10031 are in fact different neighborhoods. However, both share the same header – “Broadway, New York, New York, United States”. Unless you compare the URLs or maps on the two pages, there is no indicator they are actually not the same. And neither tells me whether it is 10001 or 10031.