![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
One thing I did do today was read the paper. On page 2A of the San Jose Mercury News is a little story (by a New York Times writer) down at one corner about the ways in which people are fighting back against the annoyances that bother us here in the 21st century: the guy who sends back all his subscription cards that fall out of his magazine so that the company will have to pay the postage, the woman who always punches 0 on automated voice systems so she can talk to a real person, the guy who always goes into Starbucks and orders a "medium" rather than a "grande". It seems like a piece of pretty pointless fluff.
The last paragraph is interesting: "The Internet offers a booming trade to help with this kind of annoyance-fighting behavior. For example, shared passwords are available at www.bugmenot.com to help people avoid dealing with long registration forms."
That's it. Nothing more about bugmenot, not about its founders or people who use it or anything. It seems like the entire piece exists pretty much to tell people of bugmenot's existence.
Hee hee. Let's hear it for fifth columnists. : )
The last paragraph is interesting: "The Internet offers a booming trade to help with this kind of annoyance-fighting behavior. For example, shared passwords are available at www.bugmenot.com to help people avoid dealing with long registration forms."
That's it. Nothing more about bugmenot, not about its founders or people who use it or anything. It seems like the entire piece exists pretty much to tell people of bugmenot's existence.
Hee hee. Let's hear it for fifth columnists. : )
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
My opinion as an amateur but eager media critic
The way you describe the story, I would guess that the original had plenty to say about bugmenot. It's a Times-written story, in a small human-interest filler space about a small, human-interest story. They used a wee bit and chopped the rest. They worked to get that last bit in because now it is a techy story worthy of the Merc.
I bet if you go onto the NYT site, you could find the full story, complete with bugmenot info.
In sum: the purpose was not to pique folks' interest about a new web company. In fact, they figured most people wouldn't read it. The purpose was to fill a little space with something cutsey.
From:
Re: My opinion as an amateur but eager media critic
Heh.
From:
Re: My opinion as an amateur but eager media critic
Thanks!