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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Worst Email Ever Received

Due to my ownership of CollegeSportsInfo.com, I am at some level, part of the "media", even if it is at it's lowest form as a small sports website.

But because of CollegeSportsInfo.com, I'm on a number of databases as a media contact. So every few weeks, my mailbox will fill up with various sports books by publishing houses, interview availability phone calls and emails from publicists trying to get some press for their sports or lower celebrity clients, etc. It's always great to get books and other sports related swag because if I approve of it, I'll often mention it on the site.

But because my media contact info is out there, it also means that plenty of rookie PR companies (polite way of saying BAD) will just include me on email blasts.

So from time to time, i'll get emails asking if I'd like to interview some Youtube sensation that is not related to college sports or any sports, authors of fiction books not remotely connected to sports, and hundreds of emails about various organizations and charity causes.

But yesterday, one of these PR companies included me on an email blast that completely shocked me for a recent conference press release.

Frankly, i could not believe that it was an organization or conference that would even do a cold email blast to ANYONE.

The group/conference the PR firm was representing? Ohhhh, nothing out of the ordinary...nothing controversial...just a...wait for it...organization trying to NORMALIZE a sick, criminal act (I just removed the word since I don't want it associated with my domain in search results).

I really hope it's a joke email. Really, really do. I dont' think it's the 2 coffees I've had that is causing me to type this so fast but instead the utter disgust.

I'm copying/pasting the actual email below. Actually, I think I'll just do a screenshot since I don't want any association to this.



Monday, August 1, 2011

Travel Tips: Google HotelFinder

As has been expected for some time, Google is making it's own play for a piece of the hotel booking industry. While it's still in "experiment" mode, Google Hotel Finder offers a service many are used to through services like Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Orbitz, etc. Users simply need to input the city and dates and they are given a list of results. Further fine-tuning of the results is available by price and hotel class/user rating.

It's a fairly basic tool. I personally don't see myself using this anytime soon though, Without an "amenities" filter, there's no easy means of filtering out, say, hotels without pools, hotels that don't permit pets, etc.