Beware of e-mail giveaway gimmicks

An e-mail arrived during the week with the kind of subject header that usually makes it an immediate candidate for the delete button. You know the kind of thing - a reference to a product or company of which you've never heard, lots of exclamation points, and the clincher, the indication that the message has been forwarded from someone you've never met or are likely to want to meet.

However, this one came from a friend, so despite the heart-sinking "Fwd: Monsterbook is going to make us RICH!!!!!" header, I opened it. This is what the message said:

"This company (Monsterbook.com) is giving away not only free Internet directories (listings of websites and online businesses), but is also giving away free shares, like Yahoo! did at its launch (the last company which tried this is now listed on the Nasdaq). 1. Go to:

http://www.monsterbook.com/SignUp2.asp which is a known and respected company.

2. Enter Referral No.696573 when you sign up for a free Internet directory (my referral number).

3. Once you sign up you get your own number and for every person you get to sign up you will

receive a share worth $10 (#10.08).

"Hurry they are only taking a certain number - it took me forever to get to the sign-up page and then another forever for the sign-up page to register but it may be VERY WORTH IT . . . . . so get in QUICK . . . . AGAIN MY referral No. 696573 . . . Note: CNBC says this company will go through the roof when it launches . . . . I received it from a friend in the Board of Trade . . . ."

By last week, a million registrants had signed up for their very own MonsterBook (an object I cannot imagine wanting - spam is bad enough without turning it into a coffee table item). They've now removed most of the details about the offer mentioned above from the site, but basically, the company promised to give the first million registrants $10 for each additional person they signed up. Alternatively, registrants could choose to put the money towards shares - if and when MonsterBook.com goes public.

It's a vague offer. How do they calculate the value of a share? When and how would you acquire them? Also, there's a $500 cap on the amount they'd give for the number of people you sign up. In my book, $500 may be a very nice roll of dough, but it does not come close to pushing the "rich" envelope.

Note all the tech touchstones mentioned in this appeal. Yahoo!. Nasdaq. CNBC (a major business website, part of US broadcaster NBC). That nonchalant Board of Trade reference. (The Yahoo! bit is true, by the way.) And MonsterBook, "a known and respected company"? According to the site, the San Francisco-based firm was only formed in January and the website put up in February.

Despite its self-hype, it hasn't attracted much attention. None of the big technology news or business sites had a single story on it. I searched CNBC to no avail as well. The search engine AltaVista turned up only 10 references, all for either the MonsterBook site itself or amateur Web pages of people who want others to sign up using their referral number. Most of those Web pages duplicated the e-mail I'd received or some variation of it.

This is not to say that the company isn't absolutely legitimate. Maybe CNBC at some point did indeed say they were the next Yahoo!. Perhaps we will all be wishing we'd got our shares when they "go through the roof". And who wouldn't enjoy a spare $500? The giveaway is a gimmick, of course, and it worked, clearly gaining the company the audience it wanted, and quickly. That audience of registrants may well attract companies to pay for a listing in the MonsterBook (listings start at $200).

But there's something tawdry about the whole package, which is designed to appeal to a certain base level of greed by leveraging - as the marketers would say - the overhype surrounding Internet stocks and IPOs and people's ignorance. There won't be any potential shares until at least the end of 1999, says the site. Put that in context: most Net companies die on the vine before an IPO, and most of those that launch will underperform. Better to take your own cash now and pick a Nasdaq company that looks viable. After all, it's the loony world of Internet stocks - a little luck and a bull market and you'll make - or lose - far more in the next 9 months than $500 MonsterBook cash.

Karlin Lillington is at klillington@irish-times.ie