It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and what better time to have a write-up about a ridiculous website that has only one offering. When I first heard this on the radio, I couldn’t stop laughing. When James Yu first visited the site, he couldn’t start laughing. I guess it will only be funny to some.

Write someone’s name into “Da breakup song”, and give them a couple reasons why you’re breaking up with them. Maybe they’re cheap, fat, have bad breath, talk too much, have no car, forgot your birthday, blogged mean things about you? All are included in the customizable breakup song. The song is sung, or rapped, by Lady Raptastic, who I think is really a white guy trying to sound like an uneducated African American woman.

While waiting for the song to load there are some funny one-liners such as: “Hold on, I be doin’ my nails”, “OK, I be getting up”, and “Hold on fo’ one sec”. Warning: the beginning of the song, whether you like it or not, will be stuck in your head if you hear it more than twice. I have 3/4 of my family, not including myself, singing the beginning. “Dees song is especially fer you…Jo-el, Jo-el you about to be broke up, Jo-el, Jo-el you about to be broke up.” Catchy, ain’t it?

My interest was sparked when I saw a solitary ad from PayPerPost, the service that pays bloggers to write nice things about companies or products. Upon further research, I found the group behind Da Breakup song, MindComet, is also tightly connected with, if not the parent company of, PayPerPost. Ted Murphy, the Founder and CEO of PayPerPost, is also the Chariman of the Board at MindComet.

Interestingly, the people behind PayPerPost also created Disclosurepolicy.org, a disclosure service that helps bloggers generate a statement that will disclose any conflicts of interest they may have. Ironic. It reminds me of the tobacco companies who pay millions in advertising to tell kids that smoking is bad. I don’t believe the tobacco conglomerates are really opposed to kids trying cigarettes and subsequently becoming addicted to smoking; nor do I believe that PayPerPost wants bloggers disclosing that they are paid to write a favorable post about a certain company. Consumers are more likely to try a product a blogger recommends if they don’t think the blogger was paid to write about it– PayPerPost knows that.

MindComet is an interactive marketing company, and while they have some diverse offerings, I find a lot of what they have to be quite strange. For instance, they have a lot of blogs about different forms of online marketing such as emailmarketingvoodoo.com, cgmvoodoo.com (cgm is consumer generated marketing), and behavioralmarketingvoodoo.com. I’ve studied a lot about marketing, and I think associating voodoo with marketing lessons doesn’t leave a good taste in my mouth. In my mind, Voodoo provokes images of one devious person trying to manipulate or control another.

One good thing that can be said about MindComet is that they are highly productive.

I’m wondering if MindComet were the ones who sent the site to the radio station. And if so, was the station paid to do so or did the DJ just genuinely like the site and song?

Here’s a couple of my favorite lines from Da breakup song:

“I am suspect, when you give a gift to me, because everything you buy is buy one get one free
You so cheap the only time you use Grey Poupon, is when you have a free Grey Pou-pon cou-pon”

Also check out Monkey Mail which is on the Career Builder website. I enjoy the text to speech feature where I type in my Mom’s dog’s name several times and watch the dog look around very bewildered.

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