$10 Groupon Gift Certificate for Interviews @ Diesel Cafe, Davis Sq

[cityskout.livejournal.com]

 We're conducting short, in-person interviews next week in Somerville and Cambridge with folks that love Groupon. In exchange for 20 minutes of your time, we're offering:

A $10 gift certificate to Groupon
Exclusive access to our super-awesome site (oh no, not just anybody can get in yet...)

Sound good? Cool... just fill out the form here http://bit.ly/love2gpon

PS- Only REAL Groupon and deal lovers please! Otherwise we'll send our crack team of secret agents to track you down.... ok, ok, not really, but that wouldn't be very nice.

Comments

[marphod.livejournal.com]

Uh.

No offense, but who the hell are you? How do we know you're not just harvesting email addresses? (Admittedly, there are better ways.)

Some form of contact information somewhere might be nice.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

um, yeah, there is the fact that there's No Freakin' Way I'm going to just click on some random, completely anonymized URL either!

[cityskout.livejournal.com]

Miss Chance,

here is the full URL https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEpUQzNENHl2cmlXWERPNVJRV01BYkE6MQ#gid=0

as you can see it's kind of ugly, so we used a shortener.

[ron_newman]

You can use HTML here, you know. LIke this:

<a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEpUQzNENHl2cmlXWERPNVJRV01BYkE6MQ#gid=0">the form</a>

which results in:

the form

No need for bit.ly URL shorteners on LJ.

Also, I suggest that you edit your form to explain who "we" are.

[ron_newman]

Looks like cityskout intends to be a locally-based competitor to Groupon, based on this previous post and their incipient website.

I agree with other folks that being more straightforward about who you are would achieve better results.

[cityskout.livejournal.com]

hey marphod,

we are a couple of entrepreneurs from Cambridge. you can find us at cityskout.com or

on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Skout-Boston/156770467692305
on twitter at twitter.com/cityskout

or you can email me directly at alex at the above domain.

thanks

[ron_newman]

Which is fine, but why not say that upfront, in both your LJ posts and your Google form?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Does it count as "Groupon lover" if I used to think Groupon was awesome but now I'm in a state of if I see another ad for a spa I'm going to puke, and so I'm about to drop my membership to save my keyboard?

[koloratur.livejournal.com]

+1

[cityskout.livejournal.com]

sure! we'd love to chat.

What happened to the $5 Groupon Gift Certificates for Phone Interviews?

[paul engelberg (from livejournal.com)]

Last time, you asked people to fill out a survey, and you said you would be conducting phone interviews. I filled out your survey, provided dates/times that would be good, and never heard back from you. I eventually assumed that you were spammers looking for addresses, but now, here you are again. Have you, or will you, be doing the first round of interviews? Or are the in-person interviews the only option now? And, why did you never get back to anyone who responded before?

Re: What happened to the $5 Groupon Gift Certificates for Phone Interviews?

[cityskout.livejournal.com]

hey Paul,

Sorry about that! we received an overwhelming number of responses, so we weren't able to reply to everyone... if you like, please resubmit for the $10 in-person interview and we'll do our best to follow up this time.

thanks!

Alex

Re: What happened to the $5 Groupon Gift Certificates for Phone Interviews?

[squirrelitude]

You weren't able to reply to everyone? Didn't you have their email addresses?

[squirrelitude]

This is pretty irritating. Just be upfront about who you are and what you want and you can avoid a lot of suspicion and ill will. (I've seen your other replies by now, btw.)

Also, there's already so much Groupon traffic here that the prospect of a *competitor*... ye gods.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

not to mention the fact that there are already half a dozen "major" groupon-like players out there, plus dozens and dozens of places like the weekly dig and restaurant.com that often have similar types of offers.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

if the OP hasn't posted in comms before (or has but, as many local comms go, hasn't gotten any response) they might not know what *exactly* to post.

honestly what's "pretty irritating" that i see all the time here is expecting people to know exactly what every member would like them to include in their posts and how. people made suggestions and asked questions and, as you even acknowledged, the OP answered. between you and ron asking "why not say that first" is kind of a moot point now. i mean really, do people really have "ill will" against people conducting a survey or whatever? that seems a bit over the top. if you don't want to participate, don't.

also, i'm sure what the OP meant was that since they got so many responses, they couldn't give everyone the free whatever. though i do think a simple form email of "thanks for signing up" would be a good idea. (that is something that happens constantly, for things like this but also others like applying for jobs that would take two seconds that most people don't do, that would avoid leaving a bad taste in people's mouths.)

[squirrelitude]

if the OP hasn't posted in comms before (or has but, as many local comms go, hasn't gotten any response) they might not know what *exactly* to post.

I think the idea of full disclosure when making a commercial post is a pretty basic element of communication.

as you even acknowledged, the OP answered. between you and ron asking "why not say that first" is kind of a moot point now.

The point was not to request more information but to convey emotions and norms.

also, i'm sure what the OP meant was that since they got so many responses, they couldn't give everyone the free whatever.

This is a response to my other comment, yes? I was surprised that they (apparently) had the email addresses of everyone who filled out their first survey but didn't feel it was necessary to communicate to those who were not given free stuff. That's pretty rude. It would only have taken a few minutes to have taken care of that.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

i'm just saying the OP probably didn't think they were coming off as suspicious or spammy - they posted what they were doing, what you get, and where to go if you're interested. it's not like they were intentionally trying to leave things out.

This is a response to my other comment, yes? I was surprised that they (apparently) had the email addresses of everyone who filled out their first survey but didn't feel it was necessary to communicate to those who were not given free stuff. That's pretty rude. It would only have taken a few minutes to have taken care of that.

yeah, that's exactly what i said in my initial response to you.

[ron_newman]

between you and ron asking "why not say that first" is kind of a moot point now

Not if they're going to continue posting more survey solicitations. I'm trying to suggest a better approach for future posts.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

maybe it's not your intention, but it just comes off as a little bit rude is all. if that was what you were trying to do, then why not just say "in the future, you should include this information in the original post."

[shaxxon.livejournal.com]

Huge Groupon/deal site lover here. I filled out the form. I actually also worked doing freelance for BuyWithMe for a couple of months, too - so I have experience writing for deal sites :D (Now I'm just a steady buyer of BuyWithMe deals)

:D