Cashing In On Blogging Infamy
We know it sucks to get fired or laid off. But now you have a chance to turn your misfortune into 15 minutes of fired fame, and maybe win a cool prize in The Simply Fired Contest. Tell us your funniest, saddest, most outrageous story about how you were fired or laid off and you could win a week-long trip to the Caribbean, an Apple iPod Shuffle, or a SimplyFired t-shirt (sure to be a collector’s item someday… we hope).
You want to know what makes it truly absurd? Good ole’ Mark Jen is the spokesperson.
You remember Mark, right? He was fired by Google for his blog, which ruffled feathers throughout the Googleplex for its harsh criticism of Google and revealed financial details. They’ve even reprinted most of Mark’s Google blog on the site, complete with commentary.
Mark Jen is also one of the judges in the contest, as are Phil Kaplan (CEO of Ad-Brite and founder of F***edCompany), Guy Kawasaki, PC Mag’s Jim Louderback, Om Malik, Chris Pirillo, Eric Rice, Steve Rubel and Blogger’s Biz Stone. Quite the crew they’ve got there.
The whole think is promoting jobs site Simply Hired. Its a completely ridiculous idea, and I’m sure it will be ridiculously popular.
(via Steve)
[…] � Cashing In On Blogging Infamy Mark Jen is using his Google (in)fame to promote SimplyHired.com. Terrible execution but check out the site he is advertising for a simple search engine style job hunt. […]
Pingback by Weblog Tools Collection » Cashing In On Blogging Infamy | August 2, 2005
Hi Nathan - I figured, all the info was public already anyways, why not have some fun with it? It’s a shameless PR stunt for SimplyHired.com, but what sweepstakes/contest isn’t nowadays?
Too bad I can’t win any of the prizes
Also, as you know, I didn’t reveal any financial details; I made positive statements that people could misconstrue as having inside financial information. Oops!
Comment by Mark Jen | August 2, 2005
Hey brotha Mark.
Faithful readers, let me explain why Mark is here. The reason can be found in the trackback above his comment. See, some blogs are misconstruing this as though Mark is “Cashing in”, that this is somehow a big Mark Jen publicity stunt. Of course it is not. Simply Hired is running a pretty funny PR stunt, and they asked Mark (with money or otherwise) to help put a face on it. Mark is not “using his Google (in)fame to promote” anything. He’s here as a polite way of saying “Oh god, I am not being the center of any more craziness”.
I think he’s had quite enough of that.
By the way, its a good thing Mark is one of the judges. If he could have entered the contest, he would have won for sure with his story. As is, that flight attendent lady will probably take the gold (to the Carribean).
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | August 3, 2005