ETOUR.COM: ONE STEP BACK FOR SURFERS,
ONE GIANT AD FOR WEB MD
By M. R. La Mondain
Redherring.com, August 11, 2000

To get this column sent to your inbox, subscribe to the email newsletter.

Fascinating how this all works. E-Tour.com, the self-purported tour guide of the web is actually a tour of mediocre advertisements. Here’s how it works, you tell ETours what you like and don’t like: yes I want to see stuff about antiques, no thank you on health.

 One would think after clicking through their enormously tedious registration page, that etours would then be able to lift a few gems from their vast repertoire of ecommerce sites, and find you something unusual and enjoyable. Think again.

 In the twenty or so wasteful minutes I spent sifting through the garbage this site delivers, I couldn’t stop my screen from popping up with another offer or unnecessary round of advice from WebMD.

 So, I decided to put on my investigative hat and called the CEO of WebMD, Jeff Arnold, to find out exactly why his site was so prominently featured in such an unpleasant medium. I, for one, enjoyed WebMD’s Mohammed Ali advertisement during the Super Bowl and wanted Jeff to know not to waste his money advertising with places such as etour.

 Jeff was taken aback, “Look,” he said, “It was a personal investment I made a few years ago. I don’t know what’s happening with that site. Can’t we talk about something else?” Interesting admission on Jeff’s part, but back to my least favorite site e-Tour.com…

 If you dare make the mistake of signing up, do not, under any circumstances, get fooled into receiving emails from this company. It is just more spam. And actually, as far as I can tell, the only reason to surf with e-Tour is because they pay you.

 Yes, this is a site that will give you gifts for withstanding the pain of their site deliveries in the form of  “TourPoints.” The only question to ask yourself is, “Do I really want that book at Amazon.com enough to suffer through another 10 sites with this company?” My advice: Hire a parrot to click on the “Next Site” button all day while you reap the rewards.

 I do have to add that my interview would not be complete without phoning eTour first for a quote on my reaction to their less than entertaining way to “Surf Without Searching!”.

 After speaking with the company co-founders, the only sense I could make of this mess was the fact that Friday, August 11^th is Roger Barnette’s 30^th birthday and if you think this article is for real Roger, well, the hazing has just begun…. 

THE READER INDEX LIVES: I have finally made the selections for the FOCB Reader Index. Fifty stocks made the cut (Priceline isn't one of them -- as a matter of fact, readers did not recommend any B2C stocks). I will unveil the index once we have it up and running on the site (hopefully in the near future). Thanks again to all who sent in their picks.

Discuss today's column in the Fish or Cut Bait column discussion, or check out forums, video, and events at the Discussions home page.