The "Georgia Rule" Fiasco
I just noticed something about the people I see complaining most vehemently about this non-stop ad blitz: they all appear to be Vox Beta Testers. In other words, the people most offended are the early adopters, the people who came to check Vox out, gave feedback, told their friends how awesome it was, sent out a bunch of invites and helped construct this vibrant community that is now being used to cynically pitch a movie that nobody wants to see (it still snuck into the top 5 on Friday, but, then, so did Delta Farce, which proves nothing but that Americans will pay to see anything as long as it isn't smart/long/complicated).
So, here we are on the third consecutive day that the QotD has been nothing more than a sales pitch. You know, I bitch about the QotD a lot, because it's frequently very silly, but at least it's a feature unique to Vox that genuinely gets people writing and is often generated by the community. Well, these last few QotDs haven't been generated by the community. They're not intended to make you think or write. They were generated by accountants and intended to push product at you.
I personally sent out a couple dozen invites urging friends to join Vox. I didn't invite them here to be sold to, to be used as a fucking focus group.
I hope, a year from now, those who are still plugging away here at Vox won't look back on this event as the beginning of something even worse. I hope Six Apart learns its lesson and tries to be a little less repugnant and obvious with its ad "partnerships" from here on out. Unfortunately, the bottom line is the bottom line, and I don't see things getting better before they get worse.
This is a tremendous disappointment. Maybe it helped a few people get paid, but the more immediate results of this experiment in cynicism are this:
1) Several Voxers are pissed off.
2) They are NEVER going to see Georgia Rule and are probably urging their friends to avoid it as well.
3) I'm not going to use Amazon links anymore when I post movies/books/albums.
4) I'm not going to preach Vox to my friends and family any longer.
So, congratulations, guys. I hope offending the folks who fell in love with this site early was worth the extra ad revenue.
Comments
There are five mentions of this fucking movie on the signed-in home page. The little "Answer the Georgia Rule QotD" at the top of the page, the QotD itself, which says it is "brought to you" by this fucking movie TWICE, the ad box on the right and a banner at the bottom.
THIS, Vox, is what you call overkill! And you wonder why we're getting upset.
You know, the Vox Hunt is sitting over there on the side feeling left out of this whole affair. Don't tell me you can't think of some way to tie that into the fucking campaign as well?
But having said that, none of the Vox Hunt answers I have seen have made me jump on Amazon and buy a book/music/movie from them, so I wonder how well this marketing really works.
I wouldn't see Georgia Rule in any case...so, the marketing is lost on me there too.
The recommendations box is exactly what irritates me about the Amazon partnership. It's advertising disguised as functionality, and that isn't cool.
I encourage everyone who is pissed off about this fiasco to do likewise. Immersive Marketing, meet Viral Marketing! Have fun, kids! ;-)
And a am a baby boomer with a long memory on some days. I don't want any advertising on my pages. Even if the pay me. I do not want any of that shit. One of the main reason I do not watch TV anymore. Fuckers. You are a cute little badass at that.
I share your disgust for the QotD-linking though, that reeks.