Gigglebytes

by Lincoln Spector

November 9, 1999

Free Fall

Free Web sites still can’t brush your teeth

The Internet is so great! After you buy a computer, pay your ISP’s installation fee and monthly bill, and give your credit card number to dozens of online stores, it’s all free.

The variety of free services available over the Web is astonishing. Here are some of the most astonishing.

The Daily Question
Single people often complain about coming home to an empty house. They want someone to ask "Well, honey, how was your day?" On the other hand, people with families get tired of having to answer the same banal questions over and over. www.thedailyquestion.com offers a solution for everyone.

When you log onto this cheery site, you see two colorful buttons: "Do you live alone?" and "Do you wish you did?" Click the first, and you’re asked about your day. You then type an answer and pretend there is someone who cares.

Click the other option, "Do you wish you did?" and you’ll get a new, original answer written by some lonely soul who picked the first option. The answer is enhanced, of course, with advertising inserts.

Annoising.com
Thanks to streaming audio, the Internet gives us music and talk radio—conveniences we’ve never had before. But annoising.com has found yet another use for this technology: sound effects. Categories include Explosions, Car Crashes, Wild Beast Attacks, and Gastric Indigestion. If nothing else, annoising.com will keep co-workers out of your cubicle.

The Boss’s Life
Nothing can boost your career like knowing your boss’s private secrets. When the time comes to bargain for a promotion, a few quick comments about an illicit affair or money laundering can do wonders. Go to www.bossslife.com for all the dirt you’ll need.

Like most free sites, The Boss’s Life makes its money through targeted advertising, and therefore requires you to fill out an extensive questionnaire. Expect to be asked questions about your sexual preferences, extramarital relationships, and criminal record. You’ll also be expected to help The Boss’s Life increase its market by providing it with the names and e-mail addresses of employees working under you.

Parkwalk.com
If you’re like most mouse potatoes, you probably don’t get out much. Why go to the store when you can buy goods online? Why visit friends when there’s e-mail and Usenet? And why take a real walk in the park when you can take a virtual one without straining your muscles?

Using an extensive battery of Webcams, parkwalk.com takes you through a park in your very own home town. Just click the mouse on a distant spot, and a new picture will download in the time it would take you to walk there.

And thanks to computer-generated images, your virtual local park will be decorated with exciting billboards that aren ’t found in the real world.

The Quality Wellness Access Kiosk
Feeling sick? Head over to www.qwak.com for an instant diagnostic. Just enter in your age, height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, urinalysis results, and high-density cholesterol level. Within seconds you’ll get a complete and almost professional description of your physical ailments, with just a little bit of advertising. Think of how useful it is to read "You have inflamed muscles around your lower back and are in danger of herniating a disc. Get plenty of bed rest and VISIT GREAT INSANITY AMUSEMENT PARK AND RIDE THE BODY SMASHER! avoid physical activity."

kleankar.com
Don’t have time to wash your car yourself? Can’t afford to take it to a carwash? There’s a company online that will clean your car for you and not charge you a dime. Just head on over to www.kleankar.com, click the New Subscriber button, and enter your name, address, and car type, as well as the usual target marketing information on at least ten of your neighbors. Before you know it, your car will be clean, polished, and plastered with shiny new advertisements.

kleankar.com has an extensive privacy notice on its site, promising that all the personal information the company collects about you will be kept on a secure server that cannot possibly be broken into. kleankar.com also promises that this information will not be used in any manner that is not likely to bring kleankar.com extra revenue.

The Easy Vote
Hey, who has time to vote these days? You certainly don’t. And thanks to The Easy Vote, you don’t have to make that trip to the polls, or even decide who you’d vote for. Just go to the Virtual Poll Web site at www.bosstweed.com, enter the appropriate information, and The Easy Vote will send someone to the real polling station in your place. The Easy Vote guarantees that your vote will go to the candidate with the most advertising dollars, just as if you’d voted yourself.

© Copyright 1999 by Lincoln Spector

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