Wednesday, March 24, 2004

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Otis: Synonymous with "Elevator" I used to work for Otis Elevator. It was always amazing how many people thought Otis had a near-monopoly. Though there is actually plenty of competition, Otis does seem to have a monopoloy (in the U.S., anyway) on name-recognition. In fact, I have repeatedly read things that vaguely refer to elevators that make a point of invoking the Otis name, simply because it is so closely connected with elevators. For instance, this article in the NYT is about a nano-scale molecular elevator. It has nothing to do with Otis, or any real elevator company, but it is headlined "Mr. Otis, Call Your Office: A Nano-Elevator Is Built". 8:24:01 AM    comment []

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I'm amazed at how bad many otherwise sophisticated people are when it comes to composing a Subject line of an email or discussion board posting. You still see a lot of subjects ilke "Question", "Problem", "Frustrated", etc. 8:07:41 AM    comment []

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More rebate trickery. In connection with a $30 rebate for PNY memory (purchased at this screen, which did deliver the happy news that my rebate was approved, but also offered me a "click choice". The click choice was explained thus: "You can choose any one of the following items as your rebate reward. There is no extra cost to you.". The word "FREE" appeared prominently next to each of the various choices. So at first blush, it looked to me like I was being offered the chance to select a freebie, along with my rebate. Of course, I smelled a rat. If you carefully analyze their explanation, it is a substitution of a ClickChoice item instead of a $30 rebate check. So they really are lying, because there is an extremely clear-cut $30 opportunity cost to selecting the click choice./ 7:54:51 AM    comment []