Virtual Public Sleaze

This story came to my attention via one of my email lists: a Reston, Va.-based cloud computing company called FORTACloud tweeted a spectacular offer of a 50% discount to the first 150 customers who sign up for services on a Monday.

And here’s the tweet:

Because obviously nothing conveys a hosting company’s hardware reliability and “up time” like a chick sprawled spread-legged across a large bed wearing nothing but bra, panties and strappy high heels.

What’s rather interesting to me is that the vast preponderance of responses were from males and appalled at the ploy.

But even more interesting was FORTACloud’s defense:

In essence, it was of exactly the same puerile level as the ad, meaning, “It’s totally not sexist! Besides…everyone else does it, so why can’t I?” They even cited Wikipedia as the clinching arbiter.

However, the scores and scores of responses that followed were not buying that, as per this brief sample.

Notably, FORTACloud has made no further attempts via Twitter to ‘splain to us why their ad is actually cool in a James Bond kind of way and not sleazy and pathetic in a geek fantasy kind of way.