Posts Tagged ‘prayer’
dear God, 01101101* »
Friday, March 27th, 2009
holisticgeek via Flickr
These days you can practically do anything on the interweb. Be it grocery shopping, being an annoying friend or finding time between rounds of WOW to find someone to do your dishes, it’s all easier online.
Which brings me to this… (::shudder::)
IAP (no matter your beliefs or lack of) is hilariously horrifying. (Here’s a little more from LiveScience.) For those anti-linkers out there, these goons, for as low as $3.95/mo, feed your prayer into their system and it’s read aloud using “text-to-speech synthesizers.” By computers.
Let me simplify. You pay, they pray… barely. Bonus, no refunds! Facking brilliant! For a few reasons. Your target users:
- believe an Omnipresent cares in the slightest about his/her particular plight
- aren’t internet-savvy enough to be turned away by your horrendous site design
- are too lazy to fall onto his/her own knees, much less ask for a refund
- are guaranteed to have dim, like-minded friends (word of mouth growth)
- have at least $3.95 to pay for computer-read prayers instead of insurance/heating
- are probably teaching their kids in their kitchen (repeat customers)
- likely have a sphere of influence smaller than your dachshund (no angry tweets)
This is probably the best idea since the ambiguous, emotional branding that flooded us in the late 90s (Nikes won’t make you faster… they’ll make you happier!). How will people complain?
Complaining idiot customer: Sir! I gave your company $12 over the last two months. You claimed to pray for my chihuahua’s health. She only became worse, completely distraught and passed away three days ago! I demand my money back!
CSR: I can’t do that ma’am; the no-refund policy is clearly stated.
CC: But it didn’t WORK!
CSR: God works in mysterious ways, ma’am.
CC: G’damnit! ::click::
*Truncated. Full text: Dear God, 01101101 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110010 01100100 (or, “make me a bird”) (#nerd)
Cross-posted at SexDrugs&IntellectualFreedom