While in Vegas I would say at least 25% of the cabs had ads for a “Free 1080P LCD Projector*” on their trunk-mounted mini-billboards. Now, I know that “*” represents a catch that makes it quite less than free. But given that we’re starting a new business on a small budget you never know how reasonable the catch may seem. I figured it was at least worth working at. The first thing did was read the small print on the ad itself which was where the asterisk led me. Unfortunately that contained only trademark information. Right under the invitation was a big url: benq.us. So back at the room I immediately went there where I could find no mention of any offer.

So here’s my question: why pay all that money to carpet Vegas with an ad for a promotion that doesn’t exist (or is already over – I saw some press release from November 7 that they’d given away some projectors.) It’s either: a) incredibly wasteful, b) cynical in that people are still going to their site even though the promotion has been over for weeks, c) a mistake? Needless to say no free* projector is on its way anytime soon. I may never know what task was required… give out my e-mail to spammers? endure hours of online ads? spend thousands of dollars on something else? In the meantime let me know if you know of any cheap decent projectors.