David over at Perception Analyzer was kind enough to send me a link to a local Oregon site so I could check out what bands are playing while I'm there. How cool is that?
So, he sends me this link with these instructions:
IE only, doesn't work properly with Firefox
Interesting. Even more interesting was the landing page I came to:
What zip code do they want? My home zip code? What does my PA zip have to do with serving me better? Oh, they must want the Portland Zip, so that they can customize my experience (nope, that wasn't it). What about year of birth? What does that have to do with anything? Oh, they might want to know what type of content to present based on my age... (not that I could tell). Gender? What on earth?
This was annoying. As you can tell by the graphic, I didn't enter the info and just clicked the "go to" button. Nope, it wouldn't let me through.
Does this make sense to anyone? I did make it through to the site - and thank you again to David for sending it, truly (this isn't his site, he just sent me the link).
But why do companies put up this kind of barrier between you and your potential customers. If I find something useful, I'm a lot more than willing to enter a little bit of personal information.
What they should have done was allow me to create a list of my favorite clubs, or set reminders on upcoming events - I might even be willing to provide my email address for that.