I've been used
Let me begin by saying I'm a pretty normal bloke living here in middle class innocuousness in the rather non-descript (read boring) suburb of Waipahu, Oahu. Actually, we like to say that we reside in Royal Kunia - the developers given moniker for our development.. It sounds so much more statesmanlike and upscale but in the end we're really not fooling anyone. But I digress.
This isn't about where I live. It's about being suckered. Being the chump; the rube. It's about being the play; the mark; a presumable member of the uneducated, unaware and highly gullible masses.
Yes this is about automobile insurance. Now, before you go skittering off into the virtual void, what I have to relate is nothing short of pure, unequivocal marketing genius. It's a story of the advertising acme coup de gras. And it annoys me almost as much as getting spam mail on my military email account.
Rarely has any Hawaiian based company had an original thought. We're pretty much in perpetual "catch-up" mode here in paradise. So I can only assume you have all been witness to this, the greatest of all grand pooh-bah, advertising campaigns. The scam works thusly:
The grabber invades the air waves and says," Here at JDoe insurance we'll give you our rates and the rates of our competitors (even hint hint) if our competitor's rates are lower than ours."
Well how perfect is that? What an out and out noble thing to do. You want to fall in love with these guys. I mean, how self-effacing is that?
But of course, there's a price. Before the rates for JDoe and the "competitor’s" rates are revealed they have to know a little something about you (me!). Like your social security number, the kind of car you drive, the distance to and from work that you drive it, your age, your driving history, have your ever had any accidents?, your educational background, etc. etc. etc." All of which, of course, is fed into the accuarial computer box.
Caught on yet? Of course you have! I and my, uhm, "friend" the venerable Jay Morton Freebish both filled out profiles. Now I haven't had a traffic citation (save for that roll cage in the car thing - but that's another story) as long as I can remember. Chalk one up for being middle aged and being aclimated to say sir alot. But you all know what's coming. Jay Freebish with his less than desirable driving record was not quoted the same rates as I. Apparently they weren't very interested in his business. Would actually prefer that he patronize the competitor. Arrrrrgh!
cut Cut CUT!!!
This from Information Week a popular IT geek magazine.
"I'm a little busy right now, retooling for a different life. So I've taken the blog offline to clear my head."
That's Evan Williams, who sold his company, Pyra Labs, to Google for an undisclosed sum. Pyra's Blogger software is one of the most popular tools for publishing online journals. Google won't reveal its plans, but blogs are becoming big business. Terra Lycos now sells blogging tools, and AOL plans a service this year.
Williams is going corporate, too. His old blog (evhead.com) says he bought a car to drive to the Google offices. And it gets worse: "I now have a boss (or two)--something I've rarely had in my life."
Guess I missed this trend, this blogging thing, too. Oh well. I feel old.
12:32:51 PM 
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