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Nationwide Domain Name/Yard Sign Conspiracy
robertjmoore writes "Everywhere I go lately, I see these lawn signs that say "Single?" and then give a URL with my town's name in it. Being a huge business intelligence geek with too much time on my hands, I decided to track down who was behind them and wound up uncovering ten thousand domain names, a massively coordinated and well-funded guerilla marketing machine, and the $45 Million revenue business hiding behind it all. Hot off the presses, these are my findings."
Do the yard signs read your thoughts and beam them to a satellite? Are they emitting high levels of gamma radiation? Are the dating sites linked to Al Qaeda?
This is extremely fascinating. I'm not quite sure how it becomes news for nerds. But fascinating none the less.
Star Pirates
Now that we know who is behind putting up all these signs, apparently without permission, won't there be some huge fines coming up?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I know I'm slightly off-topic here, but I really have to wonder about timothy's choice of department for this article. It is:
from the tragically-yes-I'm-single dept.
Now, I am not trashing people who are in relationships or who are married or anything else. Please do not take my response that way. But my question is - why is it so "tragic" these days if someone is single? It seems as if everybody spends much of their waking time thinking about whether or not they have a date Friday night and the never do something with their lives. I personally have a number of a friends (girls tend to be the worst offenders) that gain their self-esteem from whether or not they are in a relationship. That seems horrible to me (and a really crummy way to live).
I don't know...mini-rant I suppose. I guess I just don't see what the big deal is about being single. Yeah, it *can* be lonely at times. But even people in relationships can be lonely. (On the flip side, I do know singles who can be alone, but their not lonely.) Being single offers so many advantages - your time is yours, your money is yours, you aren't tied down, and single people (especially ones who are content with that) tend to adventure a lot more.
Why being single = a bad thing, I don't think I'll totally understand.
Any response back from anybody here on Slashdot?
In the roads of NC we are starting to see more and more of these signs. Seems like you just can't get away from the Net
http://mc.jamonek.com - Minecraft Signature Generator
DallasSingles.org, LasColinasSingles.org. Isn't it illegal to plop these signs on public land? I hate this crap.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Well, since the author kindly provides a plug for his company's services, the translation is:
If you can understand what these terms are, I can communicate with you professionally, and maybe you could use my services.
If you don't understand these terms, I hope you enjoy this story.
If you don't understand these terms, or only somewhat understand them, but feel like you want to use these terms to impress your bosses, you need my help. Contact me and we'll work something out.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I enjoyed the read particularly because I've done similar witch hunts myself in the past and I think it would be beneficial for others to follow their nose similarly. I'm less interested in the entertainment from tracking a legitimate business however and more so in exposure of crime rings related to fraud, ID/CC theft, domain hijacking, etc. Those ones can be pretty vast in scale and very difficult to track down. Some of them put up impressive fronts too such as legitimate "ICANN Accredited" domain registrar services, etc. - but make no mistake, they're rotten to the core. If more people actively pursued and exposed these types of organizations perhaps we'd all be a little better off...
I can see two or three minor arguments for using a top-level .com address:
One is a result of your argument--among anyone who has a vague idea that domain names have to be purchased, they may have an understanding that it might be kind of expensive, and therefore it seems more "selective" than something which is obviously just a hierarchy. That is, the internal logic goes like this: "houston.dating.com" is just part of "dating.com", it's not special for houston, but "houstondating.com" is only for houston so there'll be a lot of locals in it.
The second is that people actually just screw up subdomains to a surprising degree. People seeing a sign will remember the words "houston dating dot com"--they never remember dots or hyphens or anything like that. So they go home and type "houston dating.com" or "houstondating.com" in their web browsers and get your site. (In actuality, they often type "www.houstondating.com" as well, regardless if that's correct or not).
demi
To give the illusion that this is actually some sort of local organization?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
How do they discriminate? By assuming that a guy is looking for a girl and vice versa? I don't really see that as qualifying. That's like complaining because the boxes only let you choose "Male" or "Female" or because the age starts at 21 - what if I want an 18 year old!? nooes! And where's the "some high school" option? High school drop outs need love too!
It's not like they're refusing to serve you anyway. They will help you find a girl, you just don't want a girl, so you don't need their service. It's like being pissed because Coldstone won't sell you soy ice cream. They'll still sell you regular ice cream, you just don't want it.
I guess they went bankrupt because you scored on the first try.
These places make money by keeping you coming back... "hitting it off" is bad for business.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I think she's worth the full $3600, plus the wasted dates with the 4 other women I met.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
$200 a night for going out!!! Where are you going the Russian Tea Room?! Especially considering the towns that this service is focusing on, $200 would make you the town high-roller and you should end up with some girl that is hot but dumb as a rock and will leave you the moment the money is gone or she finds someone richer!
"Being ripoffreport, "disgruntled employee" has a rather broad definition that could also often mean "customer who should have known better.""
True. but either way it still means they took an insane amount of $$ (IMHO) from SOMEBODY, and that reinforces the suspected business model.
So whether the report came from a disgruntled lackey that took the money, or the disgruntled customer that paid the money is irrelevant (for this discussion). Either way they are douchebags that are contributing to the litter problem in our country.
Guinea pigs are cute little mammals, but I am scared of the furry death.