500 contest winners get mortgage relief, including me! Thanks to the power of the Internet, the Associated Press picked up my blog entry about ING’s mortgage contest. The actually did email me for additional comments, but I was out snowboarding and didn’t have a chance to respond. In any case, they found a compelling main story and quoted me later in the article:
Another winner, Matthew Botos, wrote on his blog that he was a winner of ING Direct’s “own little bailout contest.”
“I figured they’d get plenty of sob stories and I’m already paying $700 billion to bail out irresponsible borrowers and lenders, so my essay implored them to take a contrarian view and reward a responsible citizen,” he wrote.
He posted his winning contest entry, in which he states: “I personally have lived within my financial means, made savings a priority and accepted the necessary sacrifices. My mortgage is still small; my car is old but paid off, and I’ve eBayed old electronics to fund new toys without ever carrying a credit card balance.”
Here’s my full essay. Google shows the article is running in a number of papers; if anyone has a chance to grab a hard copy, I’d appreciate it.!
December 29th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
That’s a cool story, congratulations. I always find it fascinating how the traditional media, (AP doesn’t get any more traditional) embraces social media more and more as sources, yet struggles to figure out how to use the medium to transition their own business model for a changing world. I really like your site as well. Great photos.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Thanks, Tim. I did find it curious that the AP found my blog on the Internet, contacted me via email, and yet didn’t have a way to link to the post in an article that ran on a number of online news sites.