Observe Business » Internet Marketing

Sex is so pervasive, it is used to sell fruit trees

vicparekh — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:19:03 +0000

Agriculture is definitely unsexy. You go to your local garden shop, and some wizened old guy tells you the best way to pot or mulch or whatever other verbs/adjectives are applicable to agriculture. But online, it’s a whole new game.

I was very surprised to see sex being used to sell fruit trees. Check this out:

You can see these types of examples all over TyTy Garden Nursey. http://www.tytyga.com/

What a great way to circumvent content filters!

Google AdWords targeting is weird

vicparekh — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:49:33 +0000

I saw these two very weird ads from AdSense. You gots to do better, Google!

Fake blogs start to pollute Internet

vicparekh — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:00:07 +0000

Peddlers of gimmicky diet products are now creating fake blogs. These very similar blogs, http://www.aubreysdietblog.com and http://www.tracysweightloss.com may sound authentic but are really a spamvertisement. They are both similar in design and likely to be run by the same person.

Whenever a new medium comes out that a low marginal cost, with no possibility of being punished, we see bad actors starting to take undue advantage. We started with email, Text Messaging, Instant Messenger, Forums, Twitter and now Blogs

Just say No to Epila body hair remover

vicparekh — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:01:08 +0000

Many dermatologists have made small fortunes by deploying little machines from Cutera that remove body hair. These doctors charge up to $3,000 for a procedure that costs less than a tenth of that amount.

The holy grail is to have a home based device that will let you zap off your own hair. There is now such a device, called the ‘Epila’. They have a lot of reviews on Amazon…but it is not available there. Their absence makes their product suspect. If you were a legitimate product, you would want it on Amazon.

The company distributing this product promises a money back guarantee…but you have to ship it back to Canada at your expense. You also have to pay a $50 administration fee plus for shipping, insurance and tax. The website is run from Australia, it seems.

I am already leery of putting this thing close to my body. This company is displaying questionable business tactics, how good could their products be?

Epila return policy

Of course, there is a logical reason for not having a presence in the USA: if you don’t have a presence in the USA, you can’t be sued in an American court.

FatLoss4Idiots pollutes the Internet

vicparekh — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:28:38 +0000

The Internet is getting increasingly polluted with sleazy marketing. Between sites that contain prepackaged articles, sites that claim to be independent review sites but are really just lead-gen (lead generation) sites, a consumer has to be wary of what is out there.

I heard a lot about another weight-loss gimmick called ‘FatLoss4Idiots’. So I went to Google ‘fatloss4idiots scam’ and found the following page:

'Fatloss4idiots scam' Google Results

EVERY SINGLE site listed above is an affiliate site that says good things about the product, and then tries to get you to buy it. I found out that this is a deliberate marketing tactic. The guys who run ‘FatLoss4Idiots’ tell prospective affiliates to use tag lines like ‘FatLoss4Idiots is a scam’ on their websites so that consumers who are doing research will click through from search engine results. In the top 5 search results pages that I viewed a few weeks ago, every single link was from a spammy affiliate site.

United E-Mail leaves out critical information

vicparekh — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:19:23 +0000

United Itinerary sent by email screenshot

I recently traveled via United from London to LAX, with a stopover in Washington DC. I checked my email in London airport and pulled up my itinerary. As you can see above, they only show the first piece of the leg. I needed to know what time the second leg, from DC to LAX, landed so I could arrange to be picked up.

But, the email only contains the first piece of the leg. To get the rest of the itinerary, I had to log into the website, which took its own sweet time and cost me another few pence (that pennies times 2).

Come on United! Do the right thing! Send the whole itinerary in your email!

Webpage follies-Ramada Inn London

vicparekh — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:50:41 +0000

Ramada Inn Encore London West website

I am traveling soon to London, so went through a harrowing night of trying to find accomodation. More on the problems of London accomodation later. But for now, here is a decent hotel that can’t its website right. The Ramada Inn Encore in West London has a nicely designed website. But, why don’t they add up the total amount? I have to use the calculator to add it all up. And, what is with the dates on the top left not matching up with the dates I entered?

Webpage design follies: Cheaptickets.com

vicparekh — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:05:17 +0000

So here we are at cheaptickets.com, where Virgin Atlantic has a special offer going on. Virgin flies from some major airports in the USA to London. So, since this webpage is a special Virgin offer, when you click on Airport Codes, you would expect to see the cities that Virgin flies from right?

But here is what we see:

Small things….this popup should only show airports Virgin flies from!

Webpage design follies: United Airlines Website

vicparekh — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:58:17 +0000

On this webpage we see a flight from Washington DC to the desert kingdom of Dubai. The flight a direct flight taking over 12 hours.

So why does United show a section towards the end of the page that says that “This flight may be operated by xxx airlines”? These airlines will not provide this service. Why display information that is not relevant?

It blows my mind how companies that can manage 500-airplane fleets and price every seat down to the penny leave gaping holes in design like this.

Example of bad bill management SoCal Gas

vicparekh — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:00:03 +0000

I signed up for automatic payment on SoCal gas company and I received this reminder.

Look at the area circled red.

Instead of making me think whether I have to sign in and pay or whether it will be automatically taken out of my checking account, why not just tell me whether I am signed up for automatic payments?