Texting gets a tabloid flavor

From time to time, basically every day, I get emails from various PR groups promoting this party, that gadget, or a request to place ads for some insanely high interest loan company (which I will never allow as I disagree with the business model of such companies). But occasionally I get something that perks my interest and makes me take a second look.

So I checked out Predicto, owned by NextWeb Media. This purports to be an mobile text survey system. I don’t care what they charge or the free gifts they claim to provide to winners of contests they run. So don’t ask me if any of that is real or useful.

But what I did want to look at were a couple of the claims they made. It seems that their subscribers vote on various question posted each day. This is supposed to reflect the opinion of the nation. Whether it does or not I cannot say. But the questions intrigued me.

Top surveys as of this moment:

If Johnny Depp will get married to long-time girlfriend by April 25th – 61% yes

If Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez will announce a divorce by Feb 25th – 57% yes

Will President Obama add an indoor basketball court to the White House – 52% no

Will Eddie Murphy be the next Riddler in the Batman Begins series of films – 70% yes

Honestly, does anybody really do this? Is there anyone who is so without purpose that they spend their day just texting in responses to polls on their phone?

Look I am not against polls. Nor am I saying that mindless trivia is without merit (well maybe a little). But I really have to ask why anyone cares about the lovelife and/or marital problems of Depp, Lopez, and/or Anthony? Even if you are right, what does it change? This is just mostly interactive tabloid trash. As a friend once told me

“It’s the worst form of mental masturbation.”

Why am I speaking on it then? Because I discuss movies, and the question on Eddie Murphy looked like it could be relevant. But I was wrong. The poll had no facts, and would not even provide the number of people that voted. It could be 10 or 100 or 1 billion. The votes might even be by 1 person a dozen times. So it’s a useless poll.

But mostly, anything that engages in tabloid fodder – exhibiting paparazzi pictures that are clear violations of privacy, anything interfering with the children of entertainers and celebrities, attempts to invade the marriage or sex lives of anyone, ect – is something that I feel is unworthy of reading. In general I feel disgusted by it.

You may disagree. You may want to know what Joe Bob in Montana and Daisy Sue in Kansas think about some aspect of unimportant issues of a celebrity they have never seen. I really don’t care. You may want to invade the privacy of entertainers. I do not.

So for me Predicto is a unique gimmick meant to up-sell various products. Nothing more. I don’t recommend it to my readers. But you can make the choice for yourself.