This is an open letter to Jetblue airlines and Morgan Johnston (aimed primarily off the Twitter accounts of @jetblue and @MHJohnston). For everyone else, you'll be able to get the gist of what's going on from what you see here. And for those who know me, this letter will surprise you none.
Folks,
You may not remember me, but I'm an All You Can Jetter from last year, who is doing it again this year. I met the keyboardist of @jetblue at last year's mid-AYCJ meet-up (http://wenderbender.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-you-can-jet-day-24-new-orleans-la.html).
Simply put, I'm writing to you because I'm trying to score a jacket for myself and my traveling accomplice.
From a raw propaganda point of view, the biggest difference between this year's AYCJ, and last, is your addition of Facebook (FB). Last year the public side of AYCJ was almost entirely Twitter, but it's become clear to me that much (if not most) of what you're doing this is based on Facebook.
I'm not a fan of FB and I don't use it -- there are several reasons, but these are the core.
* I run my technology, I don't let my technology run me. I refuse to keep adding things to my life under the auspices of making it "better" when it's simply making it more complicated.
* I don't trust FB. I don't like the way they handle data and information.
* I don't like exposing myself to the public in extremely easy to search ways. I'm an old skooler in that I hold a fundamental belief that there is such thing as privacy.
* You have to be a member of FB to see anything involved in FB.
* I know several of the top FB people personally and I do not like them, nor the way they view their subscriber base.
To be clear, I'm not some 20-something jetter who thinks he's got some sort of divine inside line on the world; nor some retiree that isn't sure what the relationship is between jpeg and html. I'm both more different and more scary than that. With a 25 year background in the Silicon Valley that includes many years at Apple, development of the T-Mobile Sidekick, and creating the bidding schema that eBay uses today; it's very possible I have a closer association to technology than anyone you've ever known.
So when I say I have my reasons for not using Facebook, for goddamn sure I have my self-righteous reasons.
When I saw you were going to use FB this year, I fired a tweet off right away saying I don't use it. I got a response back from @jetblue right away (thanks) that said there would be other forms of communication.
Which would have been great if it were true, but it's not. As near as I can tell, all the meet-ups of this year's AYCJ (including last night's party in Las Vegas -- ironically the city I now live in) have been directly promoted by FB.
This is problematic for me in two ways. One, I don't know what the hell's going on -- and I've pretty much made it a point in my life to not be the stupidest kid on my block. And two, it makes it damn hard to score swag.
Now it could be that your response is: Here's the deal, punk, you have to be on FB or you can fuck off -- which has been your de facto operation for the last three weeks. That's fine with me as long as you openly admit it.
I'm a huge supporter of Jetblue. Go back and look at my Twitter stream (redelvis) and dive deep. See how many tips and answers I've given. Look at the t-shirts I did for last year (and consider that I donated all the money from them to carbonfund.org). Promotion is in my blood -I was an evangelist at Apple, for chrissake- and I'm like a walking billboard for you guys. I've got not one, but three people -strangers mind you- that I'm notifying about if/when your passes go on sale next year. (Morgan, you partied with @isawyouonjetblue last night -- I arranged a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge with him last year http://wenderbender.blogspot.com/2009/09/all-you-can-jet-day-6-jfk.html.)
You should hear the way I talk about your airline -- every day. It's embarrassing. I'm like a walking, zombied, commercial.
All right, all right. Just forget everything I've said to this point. I see this whole deal falling one of two ways.
* You hold back two jackets for me, if for no other reason than to get me to shut the hell up. I feel like I've accomplished my big goal and everything's fine.
* You ignore me -- which is collectively what's been happening since about September 10. I'll escalate this letter campaign to people you don't want me to escalate it to, and to give you an idea of what I'm capable of, have a look here: http://continualcar.blogspot.com/2009/12/and-rain-came-down.html).
I can't believe I'm sitting here writing this, literally, in the shadow of Chichen Itza, while Morgan is 20 miles from my house ... but if there's anything the Maya can tell you it's that the world sometimes doles out unusual forms of justice. If they could have written self-serving 'blog postings, maybe things would look a little different down here today, eh?
Thanks for reading,
b1
PS I'm way behind on posting for this year's AYCJ. It'll all get finished a couple weeks after the trip itself is done.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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