Aug 24, 2007

Adios Caffeine

The Beaker was EmptyCaffeine™ has gone the way of SweepsXpress, it seems. The team was dissolved this week. Curious to know what the real reason for this was (not enough support/marketing?) versus the official spin.

Personally, I don't think that it was given enough of a chance. It's only been alive for a few months. Again, had they spun it out as a separate business arm and not associated it with ePrize at all but treated it like a different business (rather than cheapening the ePrize brand), it probably would have had legs. Here's hoping that everyone on the team (that deserved it) lands on their feet.


Aug 2, 2007

Couple Updates

Seems like since <ding dong> the wicked witch has passed that things may have actually gotten better over at "The Prize." At least, the grapevine has quieted down quite a bit over the last few months (heightened restrictions on outside communication?).

Half the people I talk to say that things have gotten better (the established employees) while the rest say that things suck (people hired in during the last month). And, the glow seems to have gone out of the MePrize blog.

So, like all good "internet journalists" (an oxymoron), I rely on rumor and conjecture. One thing that looks somewhat suspect is the latest promotion from NWA.com. Built with .NET and not bearing the "nwa.eprize.net" URL, it looks like ePrize isn't the AOR with Northwest any longer. Even sadder, the flow and presentation of this NWA Dream Trip promotion is terrible. They fall into the same traps that I used to rail against; a horrible losing experience and having to fill in my user information when NWA should already have that info on file.

Meanwhile, looks like Jackie Trepanier is looking good in this blog (with an overly large header image -- the blog, not Jackie).