Here’s how it happened. About a week ago, I received the following email:

Hello,

one of my friend referred to your site that I find amazing.

I have just launched my project and would like to get help to publicize it.
Is this something you could help me? Any opportunity to write an article about it, or something like that?

Check out the site here: http://needcube.com

The idea is to have a unified central place for people’s needs.
No categories, no hassle, only keywords and proprietary search mechanisms.

The main idea is centered around the DEMAND side and not the supply. You may come and register your needs.
At a certain point the sellers will come and search for the stuff they have to offer and see if anyone needs it via the need search engine.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Gery

Okay. I’m guessing that the person from NeedCube isn’t a native English speaker, so I don’t have any issues with the grammatical content of the email. And I like the approach: Reach out to a blogger, compliment them on their blog, and ask them to write about the product. It’s simple, succinct, and actionable. Not bad.

But then I got another email the next day:

Hi there,

I already got a nice review of my startup:

http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/needcube-com-turning-the-search-process-around
Check it out!

Gery

When I first read this, I honestly thought Gery was saying “I already got a review, so don’t bother.” But on second glance, I liked the approach here as well: point to a proof-point that the startup is worth writing about. And since I’m not the kind of blogger that cares about breaking news or exclusivity (especially since I almost never write!!), this definitely wouldn’t dissuade me from covering it.

But, I was at work, and I just forgot about it. Until yesterday.

Yesterday I got the following note on facebook:

Dear Nathan,

could you please help me publicize our very new and pretty unique service launch? It is about a unified central place for people’s needs.

http://www.facebook.com/l/2dba8;needcube.com

Thanks,
Gery

Well, I had no more excuses. It was time to take a look at NeedCube. First step: the coverage they’ve already received from Killerstartups-

NeedCube is quite an interesting site. It can be defined as a sort of reverse matching mechanism for people’s needs. That is, instead of executing a search when you need to find anything, here you can set down what it is that you want and be notified the moment it becomes available.

All right. Easy enough concept to understand, but then I saw this nugget:

You are asked 5 simple questions when you are specifying what you need: “what”, “when”, “where”, “how many” and “for how much”. You are not actually required to categorize what you need, and you are saved the hassle of registering to several sites serving different categories. In that sense, NeedCube aims to stand as one unified place for all your requirements.

So wait. You don’t categorize anything? Doesn’t that make it difficult to, you know, find things? Either way, the killerstartups review had my attention, so I decided to check out the site.

My first thought: Whoa. For a site that bills itself as easy to use and intuitive, there’s an awful lot of text to explain what to do. From the site:

NeedCube is EASY to use!

There is only one step ahead of you, or maybe two.

1. If you have grasped the NeedCube concept then you are ready to create your online identity.

2. If you feel you need more information or help to get started with NeedCube go to FAQ.

If you have something to offer on the web, go right into Needs and check if someone has the same need. If your offer is needed there will be an instant match, go ahead and complete the transaction.

I love it. There is only one step….or maybe two. That’s kind of awesome. All right, let’s dive right in and see what’s up.

Pretty standard right? Well, you can’t see it, but the Terms and Conditions link goes to a PDF. Interesting choice, but hey, let’s plow forward.

Once your account is activated and you sign in, here’s the main screen:

So we’ve got car parts, iPhones, something in Chinese, and rental housing all together in the same screen with no way to categorize anything, or filter items. An example:

I need an apartman in Nassfeld ski area in January 2010 for 11 people, preferably close to the skirun for approx 30 Euro/person (After 1/4/2010 / Nassfeld - Austria)

If I were able to filter out only the things that I’m interested in buying or selling, I’d never see this. But without viewing options, I’m guaranteed to see things that are irrelevant to me. And as someone that wants something, I’m not sure how anyone would find me in the first place.

My Thoughts On NeedCube

The Concept: I like the idea of having one centralized repository for what you’re looking for, but only if that repository syndicates what I want to other social services. Otherwise, what’s the point of entering the details of what I need here if I’m going to need to do the same thing on craigslist too?

The Problem: It looks like NeedCube is trying to solve the “it takes too long to find what I need” problem, and I’m not sure that’s really a problem for me. Also, I’m not sure there’s any kind of time savings for posting a need on NeedCube, as their community is exceptionally small (hey, it’s early, I get it), and I’d just have to wait for someone to get back to me.

NeedCube also seems to highlight their lack of categorization as a benefit, and I think that’s a mistake. Once the site gets more than 17 needs, how are people going to find items? Additionally, if I really needed a bumper pool table, I’m not going to be interested in one from someone in Sweden, as the shipping cost alone would be a show-stopper. So apart from categories, NeedCube would need geographic filtering for me to use it.

The Pitch: I really was impressed by the multi-touch, lead nurturing-like approach they’re taking to get coverage. I liked the way they engaged me in both email and facebook. Very, very good.

Overall: This is one of those chicken-and-egg deals. There’s not enough traffic and not enough members yet, so there are very few items on the site. Because there are very few items, people shy away from signing up. And when they do sign up, they see that there’s no way to find things relevant to what they have.

But again, it’s early. If the service was a centralized repository that took input from a user and syndicated that need across many services (both geographically and by category), then it could have some real benefit.

Main Dishes

Book of Odds - A site dedicated to probabilities. From their home page:

Three years ago we set out to create the missing dictionary, one of numbers, not words – the probabilities of everyday life.

Book of Odds will cover a wide range of topics including health, crime, politics, accidents, and relationships. Its consistent format will make it easy to understand. Any one odds statement may be used to better grasp another – the unfamiliar made more comprehensible by the familiar.

Epernicus - Appears to be a social network for research scientists. From their site:

Epernicus is a professional networking platform for research scientists. Our goal is to connect researchers with their real world scientific networks, enabling them to find the resources they need to advance their work. We believe that having a useful network isn’t necessarily about adding as many contacts as possible. In fact, most scientists already have a large network based on their current institution and their prior research advisors. The bigger challenge is tapping this network to find the right people with the right expertise at the right time. That’s why we created Epernicus.

BatchBlue Software (BatchBook) - A CRM system that integrates with the social web. From their site:

With BatchBook, your contacts belong to you. From turning business cards into BatchBook contacts, generating invoices, sending email newsletters or simply syncing your address book, we’re partnering with other services to let you do more with your contacts. They go where you need them to go!

Side Dishes

Clickframes- A Web Application development suite.

Clickframes was originally developed in 2008 by the Informatics Solutions Group at Children’s Hospital Boston. The first “Clickframes” came about when we decided to automate generation of HTML wireframes (now Clickframes Interactive Previews), and to reduce the time and effort required to manage requirements for a particularly demanding customer. At a certain point, we realized that we didn’t have wireframes anymore – we had a computable requirements model. Some refactoring and development later, the result was Clickframes – a suite focused on the complete lifecycle of a web application, from modeling and design to code generation and development to testing and release

BetterLesson -Helps teachers to share, organize and create their cirriculum:

BetterLesson was founded by a group of teachers from Atlanta and Boston public schools in the spring of 2008 to help educators organize and share their curricula.

We are committed to saving educators from “reinventing the wheel.” By using BetterLesson as an organizational and sharing platform, educators will be able to lesson plan more efficiently and effectively, allowing them to give warranted focus to creating innovative content, delivering innovative content, grading, tutoring, analyzing data, communicating with parents, and finishing paperwork. Oh, and sleeping.

Baydin - An outlook plugin that helps users find files:

Baydin is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook 2007 that shows you relevant files from SharePoint, shared network drives and your computer based on the content of your email.

TheIdeaStartup.com - A site helping entrepreneurs with business plans and startup formation:

TheIdeaStartup formed out of a class project at Northeastern University back in 2006. During the course, the founders were working with a group assigned to create and develop a concept from a mere idea to complete business plan with pro-forma financial projections.

What they found was there were only a few options when it came to tools that could help someone write a business plan. Palo Alto Software’s Business Plan Pro was at the top of that list, but there were some problems with this option: The software didn’t support team collaboration, was lacking in terms of developing financial models, and didn’t support the Mac OS (it was PC only)!

Beyond software alone, the founders realized there were overwhelming resources written for students and entrepreneurs alike (which was great!), but making the move from idea to business plan with only these resources as a rough guide was tough. What seemed to be missing was a framework or process - one that supported teams and really made the process of writing a business plan easier to tackle.

Happn.in - Shows what people are tweeting about in your city.

Tripleseat Software -From their site:

Tripleseat with SmartLead provides a web based Lead,Sales and Event management solution that automates restaurants group dining operations which results in increased revenue and improved customer service.

In addition to the presenting companies, there will also be a special breakout session I’m really excited about called “An Entrepreneur’s Guide To Bootstrapping PR”. The description:

Entrepreneur and marketing/media executive Mike Troiano will host a conversation with a panel of media reporters/columnists/editors including Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe, Wade Roush from Xconomy, Peter Kafka from AllThingsD, and Bob Brown of Network World. Despite the fact that media coverage is as an essential component of any web start-up’s marketing mix, full-blown PR support may not be in the cards. This on-stage discussion will provide the inside scoop on engaging with the media - everything from how entrepreneurs can generate awareness of their company through the media to what do you need to know before you connect with the press. In addition, panelists will cover questions like “What’s the best way to engage with reporters?” “What do reporters care / write about?” “What could entrepreneurs learn from PR people?” and “What really ticks reporters off (pet peeve)?”

This one should be a lot of fun. I’ll be taking notes while there and will add posts tomorrow reviewing each of the presenting startups as well as notes from the panel discussion. If you’re there, stop by and say hi. I should be the only one there rocking an orange MacBook.

Profiles of the presenting companies will be published here after the session.

Why not list them?

iTwin is up now. They’re a company from Singapore that allows plug and play remote file access. It’s a piece of hardware that splits in half and allows two computers to share the same folders. I guess this would be cool if you had insanely sensitive information that needs to be shared. Aside from CIA-grade security I don’t know why you’d need this. It’s going to cost $100.

I agree with their idea that the future is in remote access rather than in portable storage, but actually having  a physical pair doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

imo turns the iPhone into a video game controller. Their presentation started with Eye of the Tiger blaring, while a man in a racecar driver costume is on stage fumbling with his phone. Very uncomfortable to watch, as the app just isn’t working at all. Fail.

A minute in and not a word spoken. This is hard to watch. I feel bad for the guy. He’s just got to bag the demo and start talking, but he’s still trying to get it to work.

I love it. Calacanis just said “we’re going to let him try again unlike some other conferences that laugh at them.” They’re going to restart. I think there were network problems rather than product problems, so you can’t blame the presenter.

fluidhtml is a markup language that generates flash. This one is really interesting to me as 1) I hate flash but want to be able to do the things flash does without learning a new language 2) this company is also in Waltham, MA. Hey there, neighbor.

Man I want this to work as advertised. It’s a markup language for flash. It looks just like html but generates flash dynamically.

Looks like the network is down.

And back up……

Problem: Flash and SEO don’t get along.
Solution: fluidhtml can be crawled with no problem whatsoever with fhtml.

Problem: No deep linking with flash
Solution: Each element has a URL, so the back button works. I like that a LOT. HUGE.

Problem: It doesn’t work the way the rest of the internet works. Flash isn’t dynamically rendered.
Solution: This lets you use html and add flash content ontop.

I can’t wait to check this out, but I’m not sure I understand how it can make money. It’s a language, so how do you profit from that?

Ahhh….they charge a fee to publishers. I’ll have to really check this one out. If you guys from fluidhtml are around in Waltham, hit me up.

Toybots Woozees-Gaming platform called Toybots. You have a physical toy that “interacts” with a virtual world. What?

Wow dude, that’s creepy.

But still kind of cool. The platform can send content to the toy, and the toy can tell stories, play games, etc. I’m surprised that there isn’t already something like this.

This is going to be pretty big.

SpawnLabs- Play console games from any network connected computer. It’s an appliance that has to be put on a network and connected to the console. Then you download software to your laptop and you can access the console. Hmm. $200 and it is the size of a set-top box.

Interesting for hardcore gamers, but not to me. I just don’t really play games much.

Clicker-Their tag is “What’s On Online”, and they’re TV guide for the web. They’re right in that there’s no good guide to help you find internet video (especially when it comes to TV shows). It’s hard to find stuff. It’s a structured guide for internet TV.

Cool.

All right, that’s it for this session. For me, the winner here is fluidhtml.

Sealtale- Looks like a widget you can create to embed on your blog or social network profile. I do not understand this at all.

ToonsTunes- A music-based social network for kids.

Clasemovil.com is a network for elementary students. I missed their presentation, but I’ll look at it later.

Storysomething lets parents create customized stories for their children.

Penn and Teller just introduced a fun iPhone app that lets you do card tricks. Very cool.

All right, that’s the end of session one, and I’m excited about session two: New frontiers. Since I don’t have kids, this session was pretty much lost on me, but now I get to look at things I care about. Cool.

A couple of things to notice:

1. You can’t see it in this terrible photo, but the envelope says that this had been damaged at the post office. You’ll also notice a rip above the black mark on the bottom of the envelope.

2. They say “We hope you’ll enjoy this small token of our appreciation”. Are they talking about the note itself?

So I’m wondering: Was there something else in the envelope, or was the note itself the small token of their appreciation? I mean, if it was just the note, hey, that’s nice enough and I appreciate the sentiment. But it seems odd that the envelope was damaged and there was a hole in it just big enough for someone to take something out of it.

Did anyone else get one of these? If so, was anything else in there?

Thanks.

What They’re Giving

Grand Prize:

1. A 50 inch Viera Plasma HD TV;
2. Two Lumix Digital Cameras – one SLR and one point and shoot;
3. An HD Camcorder;
4. Toughbook Laptop Computer;
5. Blu-Ray Home Theater in a Box and assorted Blu-Ray Movies, and
6. assorted accessories.

In addition, they’re running a weekly theme photo giveaway. This week’s challenge: upload a photo of your favorite summer food, and the winner gets their choice of a DMC-GH1 Panasonic Digital SLR camera (a $1500 value) or a 50″ plasma TV.

My Initial Impressions

When I looked at the session list, I immediately turned into an angry old man. One of my biggest complaints about conferences like podcamp is that all of the discussion centers around the 35,000 foot view of social media. Talk about “joining the discussion” and “engagement” often dominate, and I think the majority of conference goers are already on board with the idea that social media can help them reach people. Once you see the value of using these tools to reach an audience you don’t need more convincing. You want to know how to do it.

So that was my knee-jerk reaction. Of course, I was wrong.

The Theme

This year’s theme was “What’s Next”, and I think a lot of us thought that meant “What are the next social media tools and strategies that are going to help us”. It wasn’t that. Instead, in this context, “what’s next” really meant “now that the world sees the need to use social media, and everyone is using it, what do we do now?”

See, in previous years the idea of using blogs, twitter, facebook, etc. inside a business was kind of risky. Kind of dangerous. Companies that decided to forget about being proper and conservative gave these tools a shot and looked like mavericks. They were pioneers just for trying. Simply having a YouTube channel for a company was enough for people to take notice.

Those days are gone.

Now every company large and small is trying to make “viral video”. The days of attendees airing their frustration about trying to sell the idea of social media up the ladder to their bosses….those are over too. Now having a social media strategy is the price of admission, but when every company is doing it no one pays attention. Hell, I saw an ad for a tire company on TV last night and they said “check out our YouTube video”. Dude, you’re on TV. Why don’t you show me your video ON TV…you know, where I’m watching right now! It’s so crowded on YouTube that companies are taking out TV ads to get people to go to YouTube. Talk about bizarro world. Whoa.

The Sessions

A good chunk of the sessions dealt with the ROI of social media, and that makes sense. Since a lot of the benefits of using these tools are intangible, having some objective measurement is definitely welcome. For me, the best session was the “Using Online Video for B2B Marketing” presentation by Mike Volpe and Karen Rubin of Hubspot. The reason? Well, I’m working at a B2B company and we’re using video to help us in our marketing. Makes a lot of sense, huh?

Another great session was with Amber Naslund, who did “What’s Wrong With The ‘A’ List?”, in which those that aren’t uber popular among the social media elite aired their grievances and criticized those that are. This included such numbskull remarks as:

“I like following these guys because they give such good information, but they tweet too much. I want them to slow down.”

So wait. You decided to follow this person. You’re getting value from what they say. But you’re criticizing the frequency at which they give you good content? Huh?

Technology Maturity

Thinking back to the last two podcamps, I couldn’t help but feel like this one wasn’t nearly as exciting. I tried to figure out the reason, and I think I’ve found it: the technology has slowed down.

In the past, the rate at which new tools were launched was astounding. Every day there was something new to try, and it was really, really exciting. It was so much fun. There was a buzz in the air that just made everything electric. You knew that something new was going to break out during the weekend, and we’d be the first to try it. There would be some idea brought up in a session that would go beyond a session room, permeate the consciousness of the conference, and spread to the outside world.

But that couldn’t last forever.

Rather than chasing the next tool, we’re all trying to figure out how to get the most out of the ones we’ve got. Everyone’s on facebook, so let’s figure out how to use facebook to hit our targets. People are using twitter, so let’s play there.

This approach makes much more sense from a practical and business perspective. It does. It’s just not as fun and exciting.

Well, that’s it for now. I want to thank everyone that worked to put podcamp Boston 4 together.

On the Mashable post entitled "Facebook Down. Twitter Down. Social Media Meltdown,"a comment from someone named Tim:

press release about twitter and facebook going down http://bit.ly/14GNm4

Which leads to a press release:

Twitter & Facebook are Down….Knoyce.com is thriving!

Twitter and Facebook down….people joining Knoyce.com, the newest social media network that works!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 06, 2009 – With the recent issues of Twitter and Facebook, many people worldwide have been acquiring about the new social media network Knoyce. Knoyce recently launched on Tuesday August 4, 2009 and has already reached many people everywhere. From the United States to Canada, South America, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Berlin, London, Serbia, the United Kingdom and many more, people are loving what Knoyce has to offer.

For those who are tired of the continual problems that Twitter and Facebook have every other month, go to http://www.knoyce.com and become a part of something "better than just nice…" but KNOYCE!!!

Read more about what Knoyce has to offer @ http://bit.ly/uwHHA

They’re spamming other posts as well, like on the updated Mashable post:

apparently the new network Knoyce.com is the only site thats working right now http://bit.ly/14GNm4

Which again links to the same garbage press release listed above.

Why is this getting me so worked up? Because Knoyce isn’t real. It isn’t a "new social media network". It’s just a NING NETWORK. Anyone can create a network on NING for free, and there are some really good ones out there. I really enjoy SocialCigar.com and Sysadmin-Network, both NING sites. But they’re not claiming to be new social networks.

If you check out the link from the press release that tells you "more about what Knoyce has to offer", it brings you to a wordpress.com blog that says:

After much anticipation, Knoyce has released it’s new social network site to the public for all to join. There have been many registered users that have taken well to the site and are already running with it. Some of the new members on Knoyce have already began tweeting about Knoyce and one member in particular, has already invited over 300 of his friends and family.

Right. Much anticipation, and someone invited his friends. Whoa.

I honestly believe that this is a massive prank by someone saying "I bet I can get a bunch of fools to join my fake social network, and I can do it without spending a penny. I’ll build a free NING network, and I’ll put up a wordpress.com blog, then I’ll put out free press releases. I’ll get publicity by spamming a bunch of blogs. It’ll be hilarious."

To that, my friend, I tip my hat to you. I think the Knoyce concept is pretty funny. Very nice.

I think that- in the past year- I’ve turned into a grumpy old man. That’s not to say that I wasn’t like that last year, but the severity of my grumpiness has increased dramatically. What makes me say that? Well, I just looked at the podcamp Boston 4 schedule, and it made me angry.

Social Media.

Say it with me. “Social Media”. It’s a term cloaked in mystery, reserved only for the self-described “social media experts” that are seemingly everywhere today. Ask what “social media” means, and you’ll get a description that’s roughly equivalent to a definition of “love”.

Back to the schedule.

There are 45 slots on the speaking roster, and 13 of them include the term “social media”. Here they are:

1. How do we measure the impact of social media?
2. How do you sell social media services?
3. What is the future of writing in social media?
4. Why bother with social media?
5. Can you measure social media interactions in a meaningful way?
6. How do we prove that all this social media effort is worth it?
7. How do you use social media for a job search?
8. What can social media do for education?
9. How can people use social media to build community through photography?
10. What isn’t social media?
11. Where does telephony fit into social media?
12. What’s the value of social media for b-to-b companies?
13. How do you get your company to see the value of social media?

So I get it. Social Media is the buzzword of the day, and because of it people have a lot of questions. I’m absolutely NOT taking a shot at anyone who is putting on a presentation around social media. It’s what everyone is talking about, so it makes all the sense in the world to use the term to answer those questions.

So let me back up. Let’s get a definition of the term social media:

Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content; it supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Wow. That really clears it up. So basically social media is the term that covers any content that someone can create online. Well, that makes sense.

Maybe it’s just the term that turns me off. Maybe it’s the fact that people toss the term around so much that it has completely lost its meaning to me. Maybe it’s the idea that, given enough tweets, blog posts and facebook pages, companies are being told they’ll be able to succeed regardless of their shitty product or service.

See, I told you. I am far grumpier. Far grumpier.

Over at the new gig, I came up with an idea for a giveaway. The last day of July is Systems Administrators Appreciation Day, and since a good portion of our eventual target market consists of sysadmins, we came up with a giveaway to coincide with the holiday. The idea: the first 100 sysadmins tht sign up on our site would receive a free $10 iTunes gift card on 7/31 to celebrate.

When I first got the okay to do the contest, I immediately went to the apple site and saw this:

Purchase and Redeem an iTunes Gift Card

iTunes Gift Cards are plastic cards (the size of a credit card) that work just like gift certificates in that they can be redeemed for iTunes Store purchases. You can buy an iTunes Gift Card from the iTunes Store, or you will find them in plenty of retail stores across the United States in denominations of $10, $15, $25, $30, and $50 (USD).

and

Purchase an iTunes Gift Certificate

1. In iTunes, click iTunes Store in the Source list to go to the iTunes Store homepage (if you’re not there already).
2. Click Buy iTunes Gifts under QUICK LINKS in the right column.
3. Select your delivery method by clicking the “Buy now” button in the appropriate section: Email Gift Certificates or Printable Gift Certificates.
4. In the resulting screen, enter details such as your recipient’s name, your name, a personal message, and the amount you wish to give (choose a dollar amount—from $10 USD to $50 USD—from the Amount pop-up menu). Depending on which delivery method you have chosen, you may also need to enter your recipient’s email address or mailing address. Then click Continue.

Both are valid options, but I thought I’d contact apple to find out if there was an easier way. I wanted to buy 120 of the $10 iTunes cards, and was looking for the best way to send them out. In an ideal world, I’d give Apple our credit card #, and they’d give me a spreadsheet with 120 valid $10 codes.

First I started a chat on the apple site. I explained what I was doing, and was given the following link. I clicked the link, which brings you to the online Apple store page listing iTunes gift cards. Only problem: they start at $15.

The conversation went like this:

Apple Rep: Just go here (link) and you can buy as many gift cards as you need.

Me: I don’t see any $10 cards there….only $15 and up.

Apple Rep: Yes, you have to buy $15 cards. That’s the minimum.

Me: But I need 120 $10 cards.

Apple Rep: You can’t do that there. You’ll have to buy them from within the iTunes store.

Me: So I have to make individual purchases 120 times?

Apple Rep: Yes.

Wonderful, I thought. But it was a solution, right? Sure, cutting and pasting each email address into iTunes is kind of a pain, but hey, no problem.

Wrong.

After sending out 5 codes, our credit card was declined. We called the bank, and they let us know that they hadn’t done anything to our account, and it must be something on Apple’s end. Back to the help chat.

Apple Rep: Hi, can I help you?

Me: Sure. I’m trying to buy 120 $10 iTunes gift cards and was told the only way I can do that is to buy them individually through iTunes. But after buying only 5 of them, our credit card was declined by you. Why is that?

Apple Rep: To buy that many, you’ll have to go to an Apple store and buy the cards. The iTunes store does not support bulk purchases.

Me: So let me get this straight. I want to buy 120 iTunes codes so I can send them out via email. You’re telling me that I have to go to the Apple store, buy the actual cards, scratch each of them off, read the codes, transcribe them into a spreadsheet and then send them out that way?

Apple Rep: Yes.

Me: Wow. Okay, thank you.

We call the nearest Apple store, only to find out that they don’t carry $10 cards.

I call Best Buy and find that they have 3-packs of $10 cards, and they had a LOT of them. Phew. We got them, and here’s what it looked like:

So, we avoided disaster and we were able to send out all the codes. But I just wonder: why does Apple make it so hard? I understand the idea of fraud prevention, but this is a little ridiculous.