The Spammy Rabbit Hole

The other day I had an idea to create an ad-supported, competitive trivia site that rewarded top players with prizes. Naturally, I googled the idea first.

To my dismay, there were plenty of results. Clearly not an original idea. Curious to see who beat me to it, I clicked on the first site.



Looks pretty phony, with cheapo Web 2.0 design and specious pull quotes at the bottom, right? So I clicked on the next site:



Pretty similar, no? This site lists "cpaquiz.com" in the footer as the owner. Navigating to cpaquiz.com, one finds this:



One of those weird domains with a stock photo and some links related to the URL. Odd. So I clicked on the third result in my original search, only to find a third nearly identical site.



This one lists "jv interactive" at the bottom as the copyright holder. JV Interactive's site is equally fishy, with silly stock photos and generic copy.



I couldn't help but feeling as if I'd been led into some sort of spammy rabbit hole. All of these dubious companies and websites, somehow conspiring together to accomplish...something. Keep reading...

Chase, You Win

In the four months I spent away from my Atlanta address, I received in the mail 10 credit card applications from Chase (and, incidentally, none from any other companies). The envelopes contained pre-approved apps for three different cards: Freedom, Sapphire, and Slate. Without even reading the terms of each, I was already partial to Slate and Sapphire due to their creative and evocative names (plus Sapphire is my birth stone).

And since Chase evidently REALLY wants me to sign up for a card, I finally caved in.

Please, Chase, stop wasting paper and trying to singlehandedly prop up the USPS. Learn to use email and social media to target people like me. Thanks.

Keep reading...