Marketing…Mortgages?!

Yesterday I got a call from my bank, HSBC. A young guy from my local branch called in to briefly talk to me. The conversation went a little like this:

HSBC: “Hi, I am just calling to follow up on the discussion you have had with one of my colleagues about the mortgage.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

HSBC: “The mortgage…?”

Me: “No”

HSBC: “So, you did not have a discussion about a mortgage?”

Me: “No”

HSBC: “Well,…are you interested in a mortgage?”

Me: “No”

HSBC: “Because, we have some very interesting offers…”

Me: “Listen, I don’t have a mortgage, I don’t want a mortgage and I will not be wanting one for some time. Do you think it is a good idea take up a mortgage right now?”

HSBC: “Aeh…”

Me: “Good bye, have a nice day.”

Excuse me? WTF? HSBC, the bank that lost over $10bn in the mortgage crisis in the US thinks it is a great idea for me to take up a mortgage in the UK, just as the market here is about to crash?

Yup, that is true, as I found out when I searched for this on Google News. They have a major push to sell people UK mortgages right now. See this Financial Times article here. Just to be clear, these guys know that I don’t have a mortgage and they tried to sell me one. They are not trying to help me get out of a tight spot.

Fantastic. These guys will never learn. I guess it doesn’t matter what is right or wrong, let’s just make a quick buck and to hell with everyone else.

Maybe my adaptation of the VCwear.com T-shirt says it all:

VC Wear

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Market Research with a Twist

Earlier today, I tried to read an article by the German online newspaper Der Spiegel. Funniest thing happened. As I opened the article, an invitation to a questionnaire poped up: “Your Opinion is wanted”

The only problem was: the acknowledge button is hidden behind an ad. See a screenshot here:

Spiegel

I have a hunch that this market research initiative might not be quite as successful as originally envisaged…

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Be careful when changing blog hosts

VentureBeat

This morning, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a post from VentureBeat for a longer period of time. The last post that I saw was that they were moving the host of the blog. That was April 9th.

VentureBeat is one of the larger technology news blogs out there, they have some 200k monthly users.

VentureBeat

Only this may no longer be true. It appears as if their move has somehow disrupted their RSS feed. Even when I go to the new site and copy the RSS feed and insert it into my RSS reader, it still doesn’t work. The last post that I can see in my reader is still the post from April 9th. What is even better is that this old post seem no longer accessible when I click on the story. This is very odd indeed.

I don’t know whether I am the only one with this problem. But let’s put it this way: when the RSS feed of your blog breaks and when your old stories are no longer accessible…well…that is not good. Particularly not when you make a living from that blog.

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