Did I Just Click That? – April 30, 2008

Sometimes you browse the web, and most of the time you never notice the advertisements. However, sometimes there are some ads you have to click on because they are soooo ridiculous. Here are several examples of those types of ads:

So like an idiot I had to click on one of them, I mean wouldn’t you have? It ends up taking me to a site for Toyota, "The Other You", of all places, where it immediately asks me if I want to prank a friend.

Naturally, I say yes, just so I can see where it takes me. I end up filling out a decent amount of info to prank one of my colleagues, but the site freezes up on me. I try several more times to complete the process, but to no avail. The site freezes every time. Now I’m actually kind of pissed I wasted my time.

However, if it had worked I would have “pranked” my friend for a series of 5 days according to this schedule provided by Toyota:

- 3/13/08: The Mystery Caller
- 3/14/08: We Know Where You Live
- 3/15/08: The Coronett Motel
- 3/16/08: The Sign
- 3/17/08: The Grand Finale

Good thing the site kept freezing up on me!!! (serious sarcasm)

Moral of the story: Dear Toyota, learn how to build a website, or at least hire someone who can. Oh and by the way, Toyota, you’re still an annoying car company. In all honesty here's what Toyota could have done to make the site experience that much better:

1. Lose all the weird crap that is meaningless in the micro-site. It's too distracting, and doesn't add to the experience

2. Better explain the stages of the prank up front

3. If you're not using our information for wrong doing, then why the need for agreeing to terms and conditions? Explain why I have to read through 6 pages of stuff just to play around with the site

4. Make sure the site doesn't suck, and make sure it works in a timely fashion (it doesn't take 20 minutes to do)