I’d been reading on “Cyber Monday” earlier today after seeing emails in my inbox; one from a coffee company with the subject “Cyber Monday Giveaway!”
I was curious, of course.
Monday, 29 November, Manila time, was a non-event despite it being a holiday. It was a hazy day for the most part, and humid that it did nothing much to alleviate body fever. It had also been mostly a slow day even out in the streets. Really, a ho-hum holiday day that, in the midst of struggling to finish one important chapter of a yearbook project that had been sitting in my computer for the longest time (and which I needed to send out pronto), I had forgotten why it was a non-working day in the Philippines and why I’d gotten “Cyber Monday” emails in my inbox, even one coming from an exotic coffee reseller that had sent it well ahead all others.
That “Cyber Monday” subject got me to doing some research after dinner not just to find out what the hoopla was about, but to reinforce a blog I’d originally wanted to write as a result of the emails: by trying to find its origins (it wasn’t that difficult) and sales and market effects. Anyhow, I thought, “What had civet coffee to do with cyber technology”?
I was actually piqued seeing all the “Cyber Monday” emails at the top of my inbox and thinking how, like Thanksgiving, this American consumerist and marketing event (rather, “first-world marketing event”, as it seems some other G10 countries have their own versions of it) would soon enough become yet another catch phrase by Philippine retailers in selling more goods than actually necessary, or tricking the public into running for the mall sale to clear out year-long inventory and make room for even more Christmas-giving stuff.
Anyhow, that blog is no more. Talk about marketing and commerce blah-blah.
30-something minutes ago, out comes this piece of news from Techcrunch: Verizon Buys #CyberMonday From Twitter. Neat. Almost laughable. Now the hashtag has real value.
So, I wonder if Verizon got a fat discount from Twitter today.
mind doodles 