Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Rewards for Demographics continued






Yesterday, we noted that Microsoft was giving away gasoline to 'find out who you are'  in the small business space.  An initiative in direct demographics.



It appears AOL (which is still very much being talked about as a takeover target), wants to know who you are as well.



Enter OpinionPlace.com, sponsored by AOL, where you can earn points towards American Airlines tickets, AOL credits, and even PayPal.



Gone are the days when you have to fill out forms to use AOL.



With more and more privacy safeguards being deployed on the Internet and society in general becoming more mobile, it seems more companies now want to determine their demographics directly, as opposed to relying on ISP's, credit agencies, and / or other sources.



If you participate in any of these websites, it may be a good idea to read the fine print to see if you're going to get bombarded with e-mails and/or direct mail, and if it's not obvious, make sure you're dealing with a real website.