Agilent Black Friday Oscilloscope Offer

[firewalker]

Many people could signed to FB just for the cause. Maybe he doesn't care to announce his win to FB.

Alexander.

[benemorius]

No ones come forward on facebook saying they have won the third one. Probably a script kiddie won it.

Well to be fair, I'm not social enough that I'd have said anything there if I had won one. Anyway though, one ought to expect nothing less from a group of engineers than scripting, right? This wasn't just some $100 gift card. There were 10,000 US dollars on the line if I'm not mistaken. Out of 900 or so likes on facebook, the pageviews on the ebay item pages numbered only in the dozens. It seems that either very few people were actually trying to win the scopes, or almost everyone was skipping the item pages and going straight for the Commit to Buy button.

For those of you who didn't win one, you never know when we might throw up another scope for USD $0.99, exclusively for our fans! :-)

Am I the only one who's having trouble calling it quits and going to bed now after reading that? Some part of me just can't help but wonder and hope...

[AgilentScopes]

Hi gents,

Thanks to all of you who participated.  I don't think I've ever had more fun doing something for work, during a holiday, that will have zero impact on my job ranking  .  I know that my tag-team partners today (one in Colorado Springs and one in Boeblingen) agree.

I learned a bunch, particularly from following this thread.  I especially liked Mr. 8066's philosophy on girlfriends and scopes.  I may get it tattooed. 

During this week, we came up with a bunch of ideas for future deals.  Different one will appeal to different folks.  If you have ideas, please share them.

We'll probably still use Facebook as an enabling tool for most.  While we see our and other forums like EEVBlog as our preferred center of communication, FB is helpful for communicating across groups.  If it will help your street-cred, feel free to use a partner or relative's account -- our first winner was logged into his wife's account.

Thanks again for a fun week.

[benemorius]

...  If you have ideas, please share them. ...

How about doing just one more scope before the 24 hour window is up? You know... just to help us stay awake for the rest of the day so as not to completely throw our sleep schedules off.   Perhaps everyone has already given up and shut down their scripts for now.

[AgilentScopes]

...  If you have ideas, please share them. ...

How about doing just one more scope before the 24 hour window is up? You know... just to help us stay awake for the rest of the day so as not to completely throw our sleep schedules off.   Perhaps everyone has already given up and shut down their scripts for now.

Great idea.  I'm game (I always like how woot.com runs a BoC when you least expect it), but our eBay operations guy has gone home for the weekend. 

I am curious to see the role of scripts.  While we recognize and like that our target audience is smarter than most, we tried to make it a bit of a challenge to use scripts.  We'll check in with the winners and take a look at the server info next week to see what we can learn.

 

[Alex]

Hi gents,

Thanks to all of you who participated.  I don't think I've ever had more fun doing something for work, during a holiday, that will have zero impact on my job ranking  .  I know that my tag-team partners today (one in Colorado Springs and one in Boeblingen) agree.

I learned a bunch, particularly from following this thread.  I especially liked Mr. 8066's philosophy on girlfriends and scopes.  I may get it tattooed. 

During this week, we came up with a bunch of ideas for future deals.  Different one will appeal to different folks.  If you have ideas, please share them.

We'll probably still use Facebook as an enabling tool for most.  While we see our and other forums like EEVBlog as our preferred center of communication, FB is helpful for communicating across groups.  If it will help your street-cred, feel free to use a partner or relative's account -- our first winner was logged into his wife's account.

Thanks again for a fun week.

Ah, scoring karma points should not be underestimated!

It was proper mad on Agilen't ebay store. The definition of geeky internet stampede!

I am curious though, why "nina"?

[benemorius]

I am curious though, why "nina"?

Log out of facebook and check the black friday page again:

The possibly true story [citation needed] of the first “Black Friday”

In American tradition, the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 at Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts by English colonists and the indigenous Wampanoag tribe. They held a feast and dance to celebrate a good harvest and peace.
What is less known is what happened the next day. That Friday, the colonists learned that all their instruments had been damaged during the Thanksgiving festivities. It was a Black Friday, indeed. Since the local economy was primarily beaver-based, they didn’t have the means to make or purchase replacements.

Fortunately, the Wampanoag were more than just agile entertainers (fondly called Agile’ent, in the local slang). They were unmatched at making instruments. They came to the Bay (e’Bay, locally) colony to bring a gift of three instruments -- one named after each of Christopher Columbus’ three ships. To help preserve the colonists’ dignity, they charged them the token amount of one piece of copper for each.

[Alex]

Well, there is your proof I have not had much sleep. 

[shadowless]

can't beat a script...

[Mechatrommer]

can't beat a script...

the best script with slow net connection still lose. the 2nd winner has 8ms latency (10Mbps fiber). not sure what is net latency, but 8ms figure respond is way too fast. my do {F5} loop script took 1-5 sec in each loop in my 200Kbps net. too bad, too bad!

[wkb]

Hi gents,

Thanks to all of you who participated.  I don't think I've ever had more fun doing something for work, during a holiday, that will have zero impact on my job ranking  .  I know that my tag-team partners today (one in Colorado Springs and one in Boeblingen) agree.

Smells like HP storage division around here 

[Kiriakos-GR]

our first winner was logged into his wife's account.

Thanks again for a fun week.

No shit !!  I  been called as racist and sexist because I predict that,  tell him to open his own account, my reputation got in danger  for few minutes !!    LOL 

[olsenn]

Sounds like you've got a pretty good job mr. AgilentScopes. Might I suggest next time you sell those scopes for around $1500 instead of giving them away for free, and maybe giving a couple of random purchasers a full refund afterwards (effectively making their scope free). This way, you know the people buying the scopes are really looking for a scope, you get some money out of it, and a few people win a free scope anyways.

Remember, thousands of people bought the 50MHz Rigol DS1052E scope because it is a damn fine scope and only costs ~$400... if you sell a 500MHz scope for $1000 - $2000, a lot of people will probably go for that instead, as an investment, plus the added bonus of it being a mixed-signal scope.  However, if you charge $10,000 for it, the average working stiff won't be able to afford it, and even if you only charge $5,000, the price per MHz is actually higher than the Rigol and there isn't really much incentive to pay that much.

The only reason businesses pay so much money for said devices, is because it isn't coming out of the pocket of the employee who orders it... what the hell right

[Kiriakos-GR]

Might I suggest next time you sell those scopes for around $1500 instead of giving them away for free

I do not think that this is the idea behind the Thanks Giving Day !!

There is thousands out there that could not even afford to buy the Rigol one.   
Your other option is to make a review for CEM China , and get a mini scope as review item.

[EEVblog]

During this week, we came up with a bunch of ideas for future deals.  Different one will appeal to different folks.  If you have ideas, please share them.

I don't particularly care for contests of this nature, as they generally aren't fair across the board.
The one with the best internet connection or script, the greatest attention span, maybe in the best time zone stands the best chance of winning.
I think that if you are going to give stuff away, then just do so, without catches, without trying to get people into some sales funnel, and make it as fair as possible across the board so everyone has a chance. But I can understand the desire to have narrow contests just for people in your Facebook community or forum or whatever.
The old name out of the hat still works a treat, but it's fun to do it in transparent way like I did:


Dave.

[Uncle Vernon]

Anybody taking bets on how many people will un-Like the Agilent page now? 

Yeah but tomorrow's figures wont be the ones that the marketing dept put forward ask a KPI of their promotions success. It's always amazed me how companies deducted that wasting the time of a substantial section of their user base could result in an enduring public image. Given the target market you'd have thought a contest of skill or creativity would have left a better image than a chook-lotto scramble for unattainable freebies. But hey, what would I know, I'm not in marketing. Hell I don't even have a ponytail, don't drink soy lattes, don't evenown a Prius.

Have to wonder if those who committed time to this have worked it out yet? I guess some never will.

[alm]

I thought it was a positive experience and I like how the Agilent marketing people communicated. Sure, they're trying to buy eyeballs, but it's better than shoving a banner ad in your face and all those other stupid things marketing departments come up with.

I didn't make an attempt to win it and didn't waste 24h. I guess some of those 'Facebook fans' might be frustrated by this, kind of like the Sparkfun freeday mess 'every' year.

[baljemmett]

our first winner was logged into his wife's account.

No shit !!  I  been called as racist and sexist because I predict that

Very useful selective memory you have there, Kiriakos -- you didn't predict it at all, you stated outright that the only way it made sense for a woman to have won one of the 'scopes was if a male in her household was interested and used her account.  That's not quite the same thing, now, is it?

But whatever, you carry on pissing and moaning about your reputation; after all, reputation means nothing when compared to words and actions, and yours very often speak for themselves.

[Kiriakos-GR]

The prediction needs some base to stand on,  if you dislike the base because of your own believes, its your problem not my.

[Wartex]

can't beat a script...

the best script with slow net connection still lose. the 2nd winner has 8ms latency (10Mbps fiber). not sure what is net latency, but 8ms figure respond is way too fast. my do {F5} loop script took 1-5 sec in each loop in my 200Kbps net. too bad, too bad!

Ehh, I'm too lazy but I could write a script that uses CURL and host it in the datacenter off the immediate peer to facebook and get sub-millisecond response (plus FB server delays of course). These contests are pretty dumb, most of the time winners can afford these scopes easily anyway. I'd rather see them donate scopes to schools in poor countries, winner gets to choose which one.

[Bored@Work]

I thought it was a positive experience

Interesting. I am not after this kind of experiences. For me it is just pointless noise. I don't want to have to befriend a company and I don't want to listen to self-adulation about "social this and social that is great because it is great".

When I pick up the phone at work or send an email I am after the kind of experience known as getting a reliable, useful and complete answer. I don't want to have to go through the experience of having to tweet something like "Yo, this one goes out to my homies at Agilent, your stuff is the shit! Yo! Wana a quote for your shit, peace out!"

[Bored@Work]

most of the time winners can afford these scopes easily anyway.

Maybe. I have often seen that winners of such contests had no real interest in the stuff and were just reselling it at the first opportunity.

[Uncle Vernon]

I thought it was a positive experience and I like how the Agilent marketing people communicated.

The fact they are attempting to communicate has to be commended. I'll disagree on the effectiveness of the communication.

Sure, they're trying to buy eyeballs

Nothing wrong with that...

but it's better than shoving a banner ad in your face and all those other stupid things marketing departments come up with.

True! Although some marketing guru will declare that any recognition is good recognition.  Hell saturation TV advertising works, right up to the precipice at which a good proportion of the population cannot be bothered to even switch the box on anymore.

I didn't make an attempt to win it and didn't waste 24h.

You had a statistical chance of winning, but then statistically your still a chance of an all expenses paid holiday on the orbiting space station.

I guess some of those 'Facebook fans' might be frustrated by this, kind of like the Sparkfun freeday mess 'every' year.

Their fault! I don't have too much sympathy for those who act before thinking things through.

[Alex]

Risking sounding cocky, I think you are on the right track here Agilent. And because of that, since you have asked for input I will type up my irrelevant perspective.

The topic of fairness is coming up frequently. I dont like the word fair, it is too subjective. A renowned negotiator said that anyone after the age of 7 using this word is living in another world. I can't see how any competition can be made truly 'fair', there will always be some discrimination. Picking on an example mentioned previously, a contest can have requirements like entrants must sign on a forum and have a certain number of posts to be considered. Isn't 1000 posts better than 10? How do you define 'fair'? Is that 'fair'? Would you feel it was 'fair' if you won the prize? What is 'fair' really is defined by the organiser in their terms and conditions; everything that meets that is 'fair'. Tough.

It's not perfect, but what is important is to maintain the momentum. We need more companies getting to explore such practices. Tweak the offering if you have to convince someone internally that this is a good idea (e.g. promotion and end-user feedback from 'RoadTests'), but keep the ball rolling! It promotes competition and you, the buyer, are the real winner in the long-term. But dont enter expecting to win! Remember this was not designed to make you win; chances are you won't win! I personally think the process can be made to be great fun and if you win, what a pleasant surprise!

That's my take on it. Congratulations to the winners!

[EEVblog]

The topic of fairness is coming up frequently. I dont like the word fair, it is too subjective. A renowned negotiator said that anyone after the age of 7 using this word is living in another world. I can't see how any competition can be made truly 'fair', there will always be some discrimination. Picking on an example mentioned previously, a contest can have requirements like entrants must sign on a forum and have a certain number of posts to be considered. Isn't 1000 posts better than 10? How do you define 'fair'? Is that 'fair'? Would you feel it was 'fair' if you won the prize? What is 'fair' really is defined by the organiser in their terms and conditions; everything that meets that is 'fair'. Tough.

Of course, fair is always subjective.
In my case I wanted the contest to be only open to the current forum users. It wasn't ploy to get more users into the forum, just a small prize and bit of fun for those already involved. Hence the 5 post minimum to ensure that you were at least a semi regular contributor, and to try and weed out those just joining for the contest. (the forum also happened to make it technically easy to run the contest and pick a random winner)
I also personally like to see prizes going to those less fortunate. Like if someone already has a 20 multimeter collection, I'd prefer a multimeter prize goes to someone who only has one, or none. Maybe the person with 20 meters thinks they are entitled to a fair shot at it to?, and you can say that's fair enough too. But the "worthiness" aspect if very difficult to judge, so most time you should even bother. A random winner takes care of that question.

Ultimately, any company giving away valuable test gear stuff like scopes is a good thing.
Although I'm not a fan of games of skill or timing, or ones that can be cheated by scripting etc or ones that involve the most votes (even though I have won several of those contests myself).
If it's just a straight prize draw, then I prefer to see a flat out random draw to one where you have to put time and effort into something, and be made to jump through hoops.
I also like the design contests, as they usually produce good content. But they are different ball game entirely I think.

Dave.