Surfing The Web So You Don't Have To
This hilarious audio of somebody trying to cancel AOL reminds me of all the folks who seem to think I could cancel their AOL accounts (214 comments and counting). At least he wasn’t calling an Indian call center or something — can you imagine this conversation if the guy was from another country?
Thanks Dan for the audio.
Apparently the video was directly linked via KFXO’s web site. I have no idea if it was mentioned on the air, but my site’s traffic has been up the last few days.
So welcome. My site is mostly just random crap with a few gems here and there, but if you’re here because of all the media coverage around this now infamous video (which has now been downloaded or viewed over 1000 times on this site), feel free to comment here and say “Hi”.
I only wish I had the talen to pull of impressive modifications like this guy who managed to modify his Xbox 360 to run more than 50-degrees cooler with the help of a fully internal water cooling setup. The paint job and the flashy LEDs are pretty slick, too. If you don’t want to read through the whole thread, the final product pictures are on this page
If you haven’t seen the video that was referred to on the news tonight, you can see it here. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Anyway…
Disclaimer: I work for companies who are participating members of the BVCB and COVA (Central Oregon Visitor’s Association). I’ve seen damn near every bit of marketing that has come out of this area, and have participated in the decision making that’s shaped some of that marketing. I wasn’t a part of the discussion that approved this video (if there was an approval process, I have no idea), so I can’t vouch for any of that.
There seems to be a lot of folks saying tax dollars shouldn’t be used for this sort of thing. Now, it’s my understanding (and somebody correct me if I’m wrong) that both COVA and BVCB get tax dollars not in the form of it getting pulled from locals, but from room tax revenue, and it’s required to be earmarked for tourism marketing for the area. It’s my understanding that nobody at the BVCB or COVA has to preapprove anything with the city, other than maybe their annual budget or planned use for the money they’re earmarked.
The BVCB, like COVA, also receives money from its member companies, and my guess is that the $35,000 that was spent on this video could’ve easily been covered by membership fees from all the companies that are part of BVCB (which run about $400+/year, if I remember correctly) and might not have ever touched those funds earmarked by the city or county. Nevermind…see below…
Am I wrong here? Somebody please speak up if I am. I’ve already stated my feelings about the video, so we don’t need to go into that again (but my boss hadn’t seen it, and as a board member for a couple of these local organizations, he was a bit shocked that somebody actually approved it). But feel free to comment below.
Update on 6/21 at 11:50: Had a brain fart here. The BVCB is not membership based, like I originally thought. I was getting them confused with the Bend Chamber who, if I remember correctly, used to share a building with them up on the north end of town.
My apologies, but the fact remains that it was room tax that was used to fund this, not local property taxes.
I wish this was real. As the “most efficient way to blackmail the world” , you upload a scandalous photo or video, set a price, email anonymous threat, and if they don’t pay up, the upload goes public.
Now if Flickr or YouTube just had this feature, the Web would be an interesting place indeed.
I have to say, I will probably never wear a sperm or uterus or enema bag pin, or pretty much any of the jewelry this guy makes (the “Colon of Joy” is probably the best looking thing there).
Link via Inventor Spot.
As of right now, the BVCB’s site is down, returning a 404 page, as are all sorts of other sites on the server (Smartz is their host). Lars Larson is also on the same machine, along with 300 other domains.
Did the publicity from this stunt kill them?
He thought he was going to strike it rich when his metal detector was beeping like crazy. Instead, he managed to dig a 60-foot hole in his yard, and only found a teeny little bit of gold dust. Thanks Dave for the link.
The Bend Visitor and Convention Bureau apparently spent $35,000 on this hilarious, if not totally politically incorrect sing-a-long. You’ll notice the domain is Where-The-Hell-Are-We.com — they also have a companion site (that comes up after the sing-a-long at here-the-hell-we-are.com.
As someone who has lived here for nearly 30 years, I was laughing pretty hard at this thing. Bravo to DVA Advertising for its creation and at least trying something new when it comes to marketing Central Oregon. It may be totally ineffective, it’s bound to piss some folks off, and I’m sure some people won’t find it funny at all, but I sure did.
Edit: Fixed broken link tags that hosed the first paragraph of this entry.
Edit on 6/20: Since it appears that the BVCB took down the video, here’s a copy of what played at where-the-hell-are-we.com and here’s a copy of the Flash map/video from here-the-hell-we-are.com. According to Jon (who hated it), there’s a Bulletin article about the video here.
Edit again on 6/20: Thanks Mrs. H for the tip: Here’s a Bulletin story on the video being pulled
Update on 6/20 at 5:15: It looks like the publicity may have killed them.
Update on 6/21: Read here for more discussion and my thoughts on the tax issues.
I knew I’d see the day, but not this soon. Bendstuff, who I mentioned before, has already shut down.
But if I were local media who rely on classified ad dollars, I’d be very afraid right now.
Oh, and apparently I’m not on the ball as some locals, as Shannon, Jon, Tim, and Dave have already pointed it out on their blogs. I sleep in one morning, and get totally scooped…jeez…