layout: post title: Matchstick.ca is buzz marketing gone wrong created: 1151135144 categories:

• Fido
• Matchstick.ca
• Nokia
• Nokia 6682
• Canada
• Vancouver
• Wireless, Cellular, and Mobile

So, I wasn't going to write about this at all, but now Travis has, so I'm going to tell how it went down with me.

This is cool: Nokia’s going to be sending me a fancy free (not fancy-free) cell phone soon, because I have the POWER oF BLOGGING at my fingertips.

That said, me and 44 other people (or should I say 44 other people and I? The use of “other” depends on a predicate, doesn’t it?) will be getting a Nokia 6682 multimedia smart phone, fully equipped with 512 MB of memory, a stereo headset and a wireless Bluetooth Headset as well.

A company that does "buzz marketing", Matchstick.ca, had three separate people contact me via email. All of those emails were sent en-masse -- I consider it to be spam. And I happen to know at least two other people (David Crow, Roland Tanglao) that got the same email.

And, it turns out, Darren Barefoot was spammed by Matchstick.ca, too. So, rather than go into all the sordid details, I'll just point you at his post. Hey Matchstick.ca, consider me pissed off. Oh, and Nokia? Like I said to one email:

• I am a heavy mobile phone user and buy new models often
• I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan from Fido
• I blog loudly and often about mobile issues in Canada and help make buying decisions for my friends about their mobile phones
• I hate filling out Word forms when putting up a survey online is so much easier and takes me less time
• I already have a better phone (Nokia 6630) than the one they are offering for free
• My experience with Matchstick.ca has made me reconsider doing ANY business with Nokia in the future

Bottom line: screw buzz marketing companies, just start a blog with some real people and let us interact with you directly!

My top hint on what Nokia should do? Forget the free phones: continue to sell great phones, but pressure Fido and Rogers to offer a "citizen journalism" data package so people in Canada can use all the cool features. The HipTop plan from Fido is $25/month for unlimited data...I think there would be a ton of people that would pay that to be able to upload pictures to Flickr on the fly and use all of the other great features that Nokia phones can enable (*cough* ShoZu *cough*).