Asking YOU to Out-Give Flip Video

Ever since local designer and young adults pastor Adam Walker-Cleaveland managed to get a free Flip Mino HD for review on his blog, I was filled with an unusual optimism that I could do the same.


Review of Flip minoHD from Adam Walker Cleaveland on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, I was dead wrong: it took less than 24 hours for the request to come back, eviscerated. Here's their response, in its entirety:

Thanks for your interest in Flip Video. We get dozens of requests each day from media outlets, organizations and other users for review units and unfortunately do not have the resources to fulfill your request at this time.



Warm regards,

[Name Withheld]

So now I turn to the public, the Hoi Poloi, and ask you: can you out-give Flip Video? I've added the model we're looking to acquire to my amazon.com wish list on the sidebar -- and to the person or group that finds it in their hearts to be so generous, I will offer with gratitude your choice of:

- free advertising (contingent on our willingness to be associated with the brand/product/group, of course) on every produced video for the year 2009

- a personalized Haiku

- any combination of the above items

So who's up for some philanthropy? I anxiously await your reply.

Not Sacrificing My Friends for a Free Whopper

Did you hear about this?

Burger King is running a viral marketing campaign that challenges facebook users to sacrifice 10 "friends" from their facebook profile in exchange for a free hamburger. When I first saw the pitch, I laughed. Then I thought a little further and considered taking the plunge. Then I thought even further still and it occurred to me that, while a harmless little tactic to get consumers to purchase more Whoppers, set against the backdrop of the entire mess of humanity, the notion that people would elect to ditch their friends on the way to a free burger makes perfect tragic sense. It's what we do, America: we were created to cherish people and use things in service to that end, but instead we do the opposite: we cherish things and use people.

That's not even taking into consideration the fact that BK could have launched a humanitarian initiative with this schtick. I might even have participated in something like that. Instead, people will drop a thread, albeit virtual and superficial, in their human network, and for what? An unhealthy snack that they probably could do without, keeping our stomachs and spirits bloated and distracted from the desperation of our neighbors who are impoverished of food, water, security, justice, or love.

When we choose stuff over people, everybody loses.

It's the human condition, I guess; and Burger King provided Exhibit "A" for the moment.