Small Experiment

Just heard Facebook will start a new service and charge $1.  What is that service?  This $1 will guarantee that messages you send to people who are not connected will receive your messages in their inbox and not in the “other” folder.  This is $1 per message.  Facebook says this is “only a small experiment”.

 

First of all, why should I want to pay $1 and send a message to an unknown stranger?  Or, why should I want to read a message send to me by an unknown stranger?  I think this is a stupid idea.

 

I think Facebook thinks it can re-write years of email use and behavior.  May be it will be successful.  There are lot of suckers in this world.

 

What happened to their slogan “it is free and always will be”?

 

There is a reason for this experiment.  If someone unfriended you, you can write to them directly and ask why.  You can pay $1 and continue to bug your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend.

 

Finally, how does the sender know that I actually read his message.  As always, I have a brilliant idea.  If an unknown stranger pays $1 to send a message to me, and if I open that message I should get 50 cents.  If I don’t open that message, Facebook can keep the $1.  They can keep $1 because they DID deliver this message to me.  Facebook can show in their report how many messages were sent and how many were opened.  This will encourage more people to send more messages and more people to open and read them.

 

What do you think?

Is This Real?

A customer ordered an iPad from one of the biggest consumer electronics store in the world.  That store is Best Buy.  When the parcel was delivered, she was shocked to find she received 5 iPads.

 

She called Best Buy and she was told to keep all 5 of them.  This is Best Buy’s response to her:

 

" We, here at Best Buy, acknowledge that we obviously made a mistake, but in the spirit of the holidays, we encourage you to keep the additional iPads and give them to people in need – friends, family, a local school or charity.”

 

This news was reported by many news organizations. Lot of thoughts come to my mind.

 

Are they really this nice to their customers?

 

Is this a marketing ploy?

 

Cheap advertising?

 

Feel good story to perk up the holiday shopping season?

 

How can she register the extra 4 iPads without a sales receipt?

 

If they really made a mistake, what happened to the clerk who made the mistake?

 

Did the other 4 customers get empty boxes?

 

And finally, why this is not happening to me?  I could give the extra 4 iPads to the 4 blogging friends I adore.  Who are those 4?  You will know when I receive 4 iPads (for free) and ship them to you.

Price Difference

I was looking at the website for the Indian luxury train, The Golden Chariot.  I was surprised that there are different prices for Indian citizens and foreigners.  Here are the rates for a 7 night travel:
 

Double occupancy per person - Indian National – Rs.1,15,500/-

Double occupancy per person – Foreigners - $3,835 (Rs.2,07,022/-)
 

Even entrance fees to Taj Mahal is Rs.20/- for Indian citizens and Rs.250 for foreigners.
 

I have seen some brand name star hotels in India have different (higher) rates for foreigners.
 

Foreigners mean all foreigners whether they are from USA or from Liberia (the second poorest country in the world). Number one is Congo.
 

I am not complaining about India only.  This is prevalent in a few other countries.  I have first hand experience in Turkey and Egypt. Recently, a person complained that in Cairo, they charged a foreigner to pray in the mosque.
 

Foreigners are considered rich. If they can travel all the way from their country they must be rich.  But not all foreigners are rich.  There are lots of countries that are more poorer than India.
 

I think (I may be wrong) a lot of tourists to India are NRIs and Indian origin people.  Many of them can sneak in as Indian citizens because they can speak their mother tongue fluently.  I can speak a better Madras Bashai than any auto rickshaw driver in Chennai.
 

It is only the white people and people with African hairdo are the unlucky ones.
 

May be all countries should follow this practice.  For example, Disneyland charges $87 per person for one day admission.  They should charge $156 for foreigners.  I have used the same ratio as the Golden Chariot rate.  Not the outrageous ratio for Taj Mahal entrance fee.  This ratio would cost a foreigner $1,088 to enter Disneyland.  That is bad.
 

Bob Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, is looking for ways to increase his company’s revenue.  Next time I have lunch with Bob I will mention this to him. HaHaHa.