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| Sunday, February 22, 2004 |
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Blur 
| | Still a moving picture here. Got held up yesterday while workers stripped the tile in the new plce. So I'm still writing at the old place, one last time, before rolling up my sleeves and slogging furniture through the rain. |
And I'm not even dead
All the news that's fit to fool
| | Businesses turn to Net for making new contacts
Chicago Tribune (subscription), IL - Feb 21, 2004
... Amazon.com will join the fray when it rolls out PriceKut, a social network where customers can meet each other to discuss bargains, but only after first ... |
| | You can go there and read the story (warning — ccs* registration required), or you can go to the source: Denouce.com. Here's how the story opens and closes: |
| | AMAZON LAUNCHES NEW SOCIAL NETWORK CALLED "PRICEKUT" |
| | Customers Can Now See and Comment on the Contents of Other Customers' Shopping Carts |
| | Seattle, WA /DenounceNewswire/ -- 27 January 2004 -- Amazon.com announced today the launch its own "social network", called Pricekut, allowing its customers to meet old friends and make new ones while shopping for products on the site. The catch? A customer can only enter the social network by first making a purchase on the site, or by having a friend buy an item on his or her wish list. Like its name suggests, Pricekut members may buy items for less than non-members: typically they'll save 10 to 25 percent on top of any existing discounts.... |
| | Bezos said the best is yet to come with Pricekut, which, by the way, is protected by sixty-two patents pending, including the ability to reach out with one's hand and hold a mouse to click on it. Later this year, Pricekut 2.0 will be released, offering the ability for members to not only see, comment on, and buy items that appear in their friends' shopping carts, but also to take the items out of others' carts and put them in their own. "This should drive people crazy!" said an excited Bezos. |
| | Next question: Who gets fired at the Tribune? |
| | Wow, I duped the Chicago Tribune. |
| | They ran a story in today's paper (21 Feb 2003) about social networks, and it mentions that Amazon is getting into the business, with its new "Pricekut" network. |
| | I made Pricekut up as a joke, in a story I wrote in Denounce.com: |
| | What's more, the Tribune even gets this guy "Tom Anderson", president of something called Myspace, to comment on Amazon's new Pricekut. Here's a clip from the Tribune story: |
| | Amazon.com will join the fray when it rolls out PriceKut, a social network where customers can meet each other to discuss bargains, but only after first purchasing something at the site. |
| | Tom Anderson, president of MySpace, thinks this branching out will only confuse consumers. |
| | "People are always going to associate certain names with certain ideas and utilities," he said. "Their branding is too strong; they've done their job too well." |
| | Mr. Anderson, according to this link is "a graduate of University of California, Berkeley with two Bachelors Degrees¹ in English and Rhetoric. Anderson later received his Masters Degree in Film Theory at the University of California, Los Angeles." I wonder if he took a class on satire and parody? I've emailed him for more comments about Pricekut. This should be interesting. |
| | Speaking of cluelessness, the Tribune not only requires registration to read its stories (for free!), but offers this nice little bonus: |
| | From time to time, we will send you e-mail announcements on new features, products and services from the Chicago Tribune and selected advertisers and affiliates. |
| | The quality news and information in chicagotribune.com is supported by advertising revenue, and a controlled program of e-mail marketing is an important element of our online publishing business. We limit the amount of advertising you receive. |
| | [ ] Some advertisers may prefer to contact you directly. Please check this box if you do not wish to be contacted directly by a non-affiliated advertiser. If you have checked this box, we will not share personally identifiable information provided on this form with non-affiliated advertisers for such purposes. However, we will continue to include you in our e-mail announcements, as explained above. Information is used as described in our Privacy Policy. |
| | *ccs is the initialism for "chocolate covered spider" -— a nasty offering made superficially appealing. |
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