Sell

Describe the structure of your website. [How does it work?]

Lee: The website is a big database. It keeps collecting information as it gets streamed in from all of our various correspondents. It's always clicking and learning and sorting information. So you have 500 correspondents out there at random moments saying, "Here's a great jeans story that I saw in my town." "Here's a great music story that I think is really important." And the website is a database, which is a mechanism that collects this and sorts this and then it also publishes it out. So that you get all this really complicated voluminous information and it's easy to fit understanding segments.

Publishes it for whom?

Gordon: Publishes it for anybody who's interested in this culture. It's marketers who want to market to them. It's media people. It's copywriters at advertising agencies. It's, you know, a news person from Associated Press. There's such a broad range of people that are interested in the culture for various reasons that, if you think about it, that's what we're provided is a resource for all that information.

What kinds of companies hire you?

Gordon: Manufacturers of apparel, health and beauty, cosmetics and fragrances; people who are manufacturing footwear; movie studios; sports associations; electronics companies; advertising agencies.

- Merchants Of Cool


Kewlaboration:

AMY GOODMAN: That is one person's experience getting this chip put into their hand. Liz McIntyre, how well known is this becoming? Are doctors actually doing this?

LIZ MCINTYRE: Yes, there are some doctors. In fact, at the Verichip website you can find them. They are in several states across the country. It is being sold to them to increase their revenue for their practices, of all things. It is being pushed a lot to doctors that deal with geriatric patients because they feel like there will be a big market there. So, yeah, we are seeing more on the Verichip front although only about 70 people so far have been implanted. Of course, what you were just talking about are people who we call ‘do-it-yourself implanters,’ people who are putting little chips between the webbing, in the webbing between their thumbs and their pointer fingers, and this is being done by people -- not very many, just kind of 20 and 30 tech types who want a cutting-edge way to, say, open their front doors, access their computer systems, that kind of thing. Many of these chips that they are using are hobbyist’s chips you can buy for under $3. They may not even be sterilized. Our concern here is they are setting an example for young people, sort of breaking down a mental barrier to getting uniquely numbered, and of course, the precursor to being monitored and tracked in society. And the other thing is that, you know, they are getting them to stick these devices in themselves like piercings almost, and I can see where some high school kids might think this is really cool and not consider they could do serious damage to their hands. There could be infection that could result from it. And just the fact that making a part of your body a key to any kind of a valuable asset could be asking for some serious trouble.