Don't Click Here For A Free iPod 594
fermion writes "Do you wonder what all those free iPods links are about? Do you wonder why apparently rational Slashdot users would use their .sig line to push an offer that seems little more than a thinly veiled pyramid scheme? Answers to these questions can be found in this NYT article (personal information, with no free iPod, is required). The plan itself seems simple. Rat out your friends to advertisers, and get a free gadget. The firm in question, Gratis, Inc, gets a bounty on each customer. The firm claims to have a revenue of $15 million in 2004. They claim to give away 500 iPods a week. If, as the article claims, each contact earns a bounty of around $50, we might presume that 1 in 12 contacts get a free iPod. This firm seem fairly upfront. Another firm mentioned in the article, Consumer Research Corporation, seems much less so. As always, read the fine print."
Read this carefully (Score:5, Insightful)
Christmas spirit (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people might not mind having their personal browsing or comsumer habits monitored at every turn or click, but I'd rather keep some anonymity. Especially from companies which are quite obviously associated with spamming, and pyramid scheming.
Read this carefully-For Sale. (Score:1, Insightful)
"(http://prometheus.me...b/pubx_pubx_bwj.html)"
Hmmm...
Re:Read this carefully (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the deal is similar here. In the end you're getting a free portable music player (I believe they offer TVs and such, too, right?), but you have to sign up for free trials and things like that. You also have to shamelessly whore yourself out to your friends and family, to rope them into the scheme. Then there's the whole personal information thing the parent mentioned. After months of your own ridiculous marketing, is it really worth it?
Re:Read this carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
You can spam me all you please, if you'll give me a free iPod first.
I wanted an iPod so I bought one (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Read this carefully (Score:5, Insightful)
This said on a web site that constantly talks about open source software. Don't get me wrong, nothing tangible is free, but but its a whole different situation with intellectual property.
And I'll metamoderate that as UNFAIR (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Read this carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
Hence, you can count me in as one of many people to decline this offer. Hope that helps.
Re:Read with no registration (Score:5, Insightful)
NYT doesn't require anything, just a unique email address, doesn't even have to be valid. Settle down.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:3, Insightful)
I care.
That's why I trade supermarket "coupon" cards whenever I get a chance. It is better than avoiding the cards because trading has the potential to poison the data collection. If I simply refuse, they have a valid data set on those who use the cards (most people). But poisoned data can be dangerous if used as the basis for financial decisions. I'd love it if people made card trading a regular process.
And don't give me any lip about "improving customer service by stocking the right items". Stores have been able to track their stock - what sells and what doesn't for ages. There really is no valid reason for the store to know exactly what I purchase individually. They can get the stock right by looking at things on a storewide level.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Read this carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not that it's not legit (Score:5, Insightful)
Well put. Whether it is "legit" or not is a secondary concern. I don't put much respect towards people who run around spending all their time spamming themselves and friends to get things for free.
I mean, Christ-o-Mighty, We're talking 250-300 bucks here people. Get a job and earn it the old fashioned way. If true wealth were created merely by sending emails to people or by participating in some other pyramid scheme, everybody would be rich and nobody would work again (unfortunately, it would also mean that money grows on trees.) Also, it is an iPod... we're not talking about going to these extremes to feed a family. People are doing it to get a gadget that they can clearly live without.
This is similar to the people who continually sign up for store credit cards to get discounts or "free" gifts. Apparently, they either don't understand or don't care how their credit score is derived. I know people who live their whole lives trying to get freebies. If they spent half that effort improving themselves, I'm sure they'd get a raise, better job, or something.
Re:Because it actually works... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:while we're at it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Truly, if this logic held, we would have been done with pyramid schemes in the early 20th century.
Re:Read with no registration (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Read this carefully-Failed reality. (Score:3, Insightful)
Physical Property=Time * Effort * Material.
Intellectual Property=Time * Effort.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case, I think we can say, "Free iPod is seldom cheap."
Andrew
Here's another offer (Score:2, Insightful)
$170 check from a free green xbox offer (now closed)
Xbox, from another free xbox offer. (Anyfreegift)
ipod, from freeipods.com
$700 check, from freelaptops4you.
I'll give you $50 to fuck your sister.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:1, Insightful)
The parent is correct. Nothing is free. We are just lucky enough to have people willing to give their time and coding expertise away for (usually) no monetary compensation.
Time is money. If these people had even worked a minimum wage job instead during those many hours, you are still talking millions of dollars.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of data mining today answers the mundane questions like "how much more ice cream do people buy when it's hot?" What they're going for is more esoteric links and trends. Things like: if anagama buys lingerie, then buys an EPT test a month later, perhaps they can forecast the demand for EPT tests based on lingerie sales. Or maybe they'll put anagama on a list so that in 9 months they send you coupons for diapers and formula. (BTW, diapers and formula are the holy grail of retail: if they can get new moms to regularly shop at their store for those two items, they believe they have a customer for life. New moms typically harbor good feelings about the places they trust to help provide for their children.)
Data mining is still a very immature process, despite current marketing hype. So far, it's being used experimentally. Walmart is certainly the king of data mining, but even their latest and greatest example was simply to see what people bought before and after hurricane Charley. (Turns out they sold 7 times the usual number of strawberry pop-tarts and beer, so they shipped trucks with extra poptarts and beer to the stores in the projected paths of the rest of the other hurricanes this season.) Again, nothing that couldn't have been done with raw statistics.
Retailers view this data as "gold ore", even though it's a lot more like the Emperor's New Clothes. It's got to be valuable, somehow, it's just that we haven't figured out how to process it yet. The people working on the "customer database" teams are quick to shout "yes, it's valuable" because if they didn't they'd be out of a job. Same with the Sun and Oracle salesmen -- buy this valuable database processing engine and mine for gold (or else I get no fat bonus check, boo-hoo.)
Yes, I am a deeply placed insider who works for a large retailer. I see this stuff all the time, and I know how worthless it's been so far. But it doesn't stop us from trying to mine more data. And it certainly doesn't stop us from collecting it. So go ahead and poison the database it if you want, but there are three reasons why I personally wouldn't bother: first, the number of poisoners is statistically insignificant (good luck changing that). Second, as I mentioned above, the databases are not yielding the gold you might imagine. Finally, I try not to participate in those card gimmicks -- I shop at stores that don't require them.
Re:i love my ipod (Score:3, Insightful)
that's like saying that a pyramid scheme isn't a scam because they paid the first 10% who got in.
Re:Bitch elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'd put in my hours elsewhere and buy one (if an ipod was something I wanted that much) before working for some advertising company as their shill.
It's not a pyramid scheme. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's also not a true pyramid scheme in the sense that you don't have to pay any money to get in. There's a fine line between a pyramid scheme and just paying people to do sales. My company has a bunch of people we pay JUST to sell stuff. And in fact, some of the people they sell stuff too then turn around and sell it to someone else. We call those people END USERS.
In this case, the people who sign up for offers but don't get iPods are just the end users. The people who manage to get other people to sign up and get iPods are just a cheap sales force.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:3, Insightful)
my spare time is free.
i don't pay myself for my spare time, my employer doesn't pay me for my spare time. and i definitely don't want to spend the whole day earning money because in that case the following question arizes:
what is all the money good for if i don't have any spare time to spend it?
Re:It works... so far. (Score:3, Insightful)