I was pitched another website to review again today – this happens regularly – some I review, some I ignore depending on how useful or interesting I think they are.
The site I was pitched today was Ugenie.com by someone calling themselves Archana - the fact that this person chose not to use their real name should have alerted me to the fact that this was going to be bad!
Archana said in his/her email:
I really enjoyed reading through your blog, I thought perhaps, you might be interested in checking out the beta website of the place were i work -www.ugenie.com
You enjoyed reading through my blog, did you? Then why did you waste your time and mine pitching me a site which couldn’t possibly be of any use to me?
Ugenie.com is a price comparison site which is US only.
Hello? It is the World Wide Web – not the US Wide Web. We have running water, electricity and yes, even Internet access in countries outside of the US these days.
If you are pitching sites to bloggers, at least have the courtesy to only ask them to look over sites which may be of use/interest to them. And don’t lie about having looked over their site, even a cursory glance over my site would tell you that I am based in Ireland, not the US.
UPDATE:
Oops – Archana came back in the comments (below) and informed me that Archana is, in fact, his name – apologies for that Archana.
With the ie at the end of Ugenie you’d think it’d be US & Irish
Tom,
I think giving giving them a mention here has given them some extra hits/exposure for free.
John
In stark contrast, I received a very friendly email from David Rusenko of Weebly. The mail was personal, to the point and appreciative. Having read an article on Techcrunch, I thought I’d give it a try.
P.S. best of luck in the Net Visionaries
Cyberscribe –
John, you will notice that I didn’t link to them!
Lar, thanks for that – looking at the competition, I’ll need it!
I had some of the a similar experience while browsing a companies website and was interested in buying so I look in their purchase section and open the drop-down menu, get to I and see a gap between Iraq and Israel.
Unbelievable!!
Sorry, I thought you were open to writing things about websites in the US. My mistake. My real name is Archana!(I’m indian). Once again, I apologize if i offended you, when we do launch an Irish site, I will be sure to get in touch with you.
Archana,
I have updated the post to reflect the fact that Archana is, in fact, your name, sorry about that.
I am completely open to writing about US sites/services. I do it all the time.
The point is, the sites/services I write about are globally useful, not restricted to the US.
In my review of Yahoo! Maps, when it launched, I chewed them out for being US only. They have since added Europe.
The world doesn’t begin and end at the US borders and a product which does, in a global environment, is no use to me.
Now you see, I’m confused!
Why shouldn’t you review this site? Why does it have to be of interest to YOU? Why can’t it just be an interesting site that might be useful or interesting to even some of your readers?. Why would you presume that the only people who read this blog are Irish or European? I’m sure you’ve a load of US visitors who might very well like to read about this Ugenie site, and might find it interesting for them?
After all, it is the WORLD Wide Web, as you pointed out yourself. You seem to get unnecessarily angry and perceive things as a personal slight if someone says or does something even a tiny bit outside of what you believe in or what you think is right.
The poor guy even apologised for possibly offending you! Someone asks you to review a site and instead of politely emailing back and saying ‘look actually, I’d prefer to wait until there was an Irish option’ or simply ignoring it, you blow your top? And name (and incidentally insult) him in public?
Way to be rational Tom!
“cos it is my blog Karen! I write, on my blog, about things which interest me – it even says so in the title
What can I say, I am a cranky guy
Seriously, I was actually more annoyed by Archana’s pitching the site to me and asserting that he reads my blog, when patently he doesn’t, than that the site only caters to the US.
As I said, I get pitched a lot of sites – some are really relevant to me and I thoroughly enjoy them. Others are a complete waste of time and if the person pitching had taken the trouble to do any investigating, they could have saved us both time and effort by not emailing me.
Kaz, leave the IT guys alone, you know you’re only itchin for a bitchin…
Well, since you’re talking about sites to review and non-relevant sites, I figured I might as well direct you all to my silly (work appropriate) humor site, Say No to Crack.
How is this relevant? Well, only in so much that I am a tech junkie, so I share something with you readers. And also that it’s really just meant to make you laugh. Come tell us what you had for dinner today, then stay around for a little while.