The story of Crap
Michael likes his iPod, concerts, and non-fiction.
He had way too many singers to keep track of, and would take months or years to find out (by chance) when they'd released new CDs. Shoot!
It drove him nuts when he missed a great concert because he hadn't bothered to check local listings that weekend. Dang it!
And he never liked missing a new book just because he didn't see the article that reviewed it. Crap!
So he built "Crap, I missed it!"
FAQ
General questions - Our company - Amazon bestsellers - New albums/books - Concerts - TV shows
General questions
Q: If I subscribe to multiple categories, will I receive multiple e-mails per day?
A: No, all notifications are combined into a single e-mail.
Q: Will I still receive e-mails on days I have no new notifications?
A: No, the last thing we want to do is annoy you!
Q: I subscribed to something yesterday, and didn't receive any updates today when I should have. Why not?
A: New subscriptions generally take between 24 and 48 hours to register.
Q: I tried to subscribe to a notification, and it said I needed to confirm the subscription by clicking on a link in a confirmation e-mail, but I never received that e-mail. What do I do now?
A: First, check your spam folder (if you have one) to make sure it didn't land there instead. If it's not there either, go to your "My Subscriptions" page. You'll be asked to enter your e-mail address, where a link to access your subscriptions page will be sent. From that link, you can confirm or cancel any previously pending subscriptions.
If you don't receive the e-mail to access your subscriptions page either, then our e-mails are probably being caught by a spam filter on your end. In many e-mail programs, adding noreply@crapimissedit.com to your list of approved senders and/or to your address book will let the e-mails through.
Q: I signed up at least a few days ago, but I haven't been getting all the updates I should be. What's wrong?
A: First, check your notifications history to see if the updates are there. If they are, but you didn't receive any e-mails, then they're probably being caught by a spam filter. In many e-mail programs, adding noreply@crapimissedit.com to your list of approved senders and/or to your address book will let the e-mails through.
If you have a spam folder, they may have landed there. Highlighting those e-mails and clicking a button "Not spam" (if there is one) also helps e-mails get through.
However, if the updates did not appear in your notifications history, then we didn't send them out. If you're sure we missed something, then please let us know immediately.
Q: You don't require me to create an account or enter a password. Can anyone enter my e-mail address and see my subscriptions, change them or add to them?
A: No. Access to your e-mail account is required for all those actions.
While anyone can try to sign you up for a notification, you personally must confirm it through a link sent only to your e-mail address. Furthermore, you can only view your list of subscriptions by following a link from an e-mail you've already received (which contains a unique "password code" for your e-mail address) or by requesting that an access link be sent to your e-mail address.
Q: What is your privacy policy?
A: We keep your e-mail address and data completely private. (Full details)
Q: "X" information/categories/whatever is wrong! Why?
A: All our data comes from other websites and services — we don't produce any of it ourself. We do our absolute best to filter it and make sure everything is running smoothly on our end, but if anything is missing or wrong, please let us know so we can look into it immediately.
Q: Can I get updates via RSS instead?
A: Absolutely, please see our RSS page for instructions.
Q: Can I check my updates on a web page, instead of by e-mail?
A: Sure. You can always view all your past notifications on your history page, starting with the most recent. If you stay permanently logged in (by clicking the 'Remember me' button on top of your subscriptions page after logging in), then you can bookmark your history page to access it directly. You can also disable e-mail delivery of updates at the top of your subscriptions page.
Q: I'm trying to search for a TV show / artist / something else in the main search box, but I can't remember the exact spelling. Can you help?
If you know at least the first four letters of the word, you can put an asterisk (*) at the end of the word to search for all words starting with those letters. For example, searching for squid* would find Squidbillies. Asterisks only work at the end of words, not at the beginning or in the middle.
Q: Can you make updates available via SMS/IM/Facebook/Twitter/fax/braille/carrier pigeon?
A: Maybe. Let us know what you're looking for.
Q: Can you add "X" service for updates?
A: Maybe. Let us know what you're looking for.
Q: How can I contact you?
A: oh@crapimissedit.com.
Our company
Q: How do you make money?
A: Every time you click on a link to a product on Amazon on our site or in one of our e-mails (like a CD, book or DVD), and buy something, we receive a commission. This is what keeps our site going. We're trying to avoid plastering garish advertisements all over our site, so if you plan on buying something you find out about through us, you'll be supporting our service if you buy it through one of our links. Thanks!
Amazon bestsellers
Q: Can I subscribe to products from one of Amazon's non-US stores?
A: All product rankings are currently based on American sales data only. Expansion to other Amazon stores (UK, Germany, etc.) is under consideration.
New albums/books
Q: What does "include extended matches" mean when searching by artist or author?
A: By default, we search for new albums or books whose artist or author matches exactly what you type. This helps cut down on false matches, making sure that a search for "Seal" won't also return CD's from the band "Steel Seal."
(However, capitalization, punctuation, exact spacing, and the word "the" at the beginning (for bands) are ignored, so "beatles" still matches "The Beatles".)
But occasionally that's too restrictive. For example, the author Iain Banks uses "Iain Banks" for his general novels, but uses "Iain M. Banks" for his science fiction works.
By checking "include extended matches," the results will include items with all of the search terms, in any order, and with anything else added. So if you search for "Iain Banks" but also check the box "include extended matches," then books by "Iain M. Banks" would be included too. The downside is that if a pair of people named "Iain Doe and John Banks" write a book, you'll receive a notification for that too.
Q: I searched in the main search box for a popular author, but he or she didn't show up in search results.
A: Our main search box retrieves search results for all categories except authors. To search for new books by author, you'll need to search directly within the new books category.
Q: Why do I occasionally receive "new album" or "new book" notification for an artist/author that has nothing to do with who I searched for?
A: This can happen when you check "include extended matches" in your search (this functionality was enabled by default before May 7, 2009). We use Amazon's search function to return items per artist/author, and Amazon returns all items whose artists/authors match all words in the search string. This means that a search for "George Michael" will also return all albums by "Michael George", or by "Michael Carr" together with "Georges Auric". This is generally only a problem, however, for artists with very "common" first and last names, or authors with very similar names.
To fix the problem, delete your alert, then re-subscribe without the "include extended matches" box checked.
Q: I know that a new CD came out for an artist I subscribed to, but I didn't receive a notification! What gives?
A: Spelling mismatches are almost always the case, and Amazon occasionally includes different releases by the same artist under different spellings — for example under "UNKLE" and "U.N.K.L.E.", or "Bossacucanova" and "Bossa Cuca Nova".
To minimize this problem, check the list of best-selling albums listed at the side of the page after you enter the name of the artist. If the list doesn't seem to contain the relevant albums, or enough of them, see if an alternate spelling might work better.
Concerts
Q: Can I subscribe to concerts outside the US?
A: Unfortunately, not yet. Concert information comes from JamBase, which covers mostly American groups. While it has limited international coverage, we don't consider it reliable enough yet to base notifications on it.
TV shows
Q: What do the number of stars mean next to a program, on the list of TV programs other people tend to subscribe to (at the bottom of each program page)?
A: The number of stars indicates how likely a viewer of the program for the page you're on is to subscribe to the specific program in the list, compared to the average TV viewer in general. One star means just as likely, two stars means twice as likely, and so on. No stars means less likely, and stars are capped at five.
Q: Can you add a TV program that hasn't aired yet to your list?
A: We add brand-new TV series to our database approximately a week before their first airing. Although we'd love to be able to let you sign up for specific shows whose premieres have been announced months in advance, unfortunately we don't have the exact necessary identifying information for the show to reliably track it until approximately a week before its premiere.
Q: Why isn't a particular TV program in your list?
A: There are several possible reasons.
First, shows are only included approximately a week before their series premiere — so if a show has never been aired and it's more than a week before it's premiere, it won't be on the list.
Second, we include shows from a very large selection of network and cable channels (including pay channels like HBO and Showtime), but not all the many hundreds of channels that exist.
Finally, due to our recent launch, there are a very small number of programs which have not yet had their season premiere this year and for which we're missing identifying data. These programs will be incorporated into our list as soon as they begin airing this year.
Q. Can you combine separate seasons of reality TV programs like Survivor, so I don't have to sign up for new episodes again at the start of every season?
A: For technical reasons it's difficult for us to do right now, but we're investigating ways of implementing this in the future.
