You were angry, and honestly I don’t blame you. We all know what it’s like to feel manipulated. And while I would have preferred you sending us a note, or even posting it somewhere less trafficked than your popular blog, the fact is that Get Satisfaction is a huge proponent of public airing of grievances. You were right to bring it to our attention any way you saw fit. I only wish that you hadn’t implied inethical motives with words like “extortion,” “mafia shakedown,” etc. The fact is, many people hear those words and nothing else, and it compromises years of work by our small but committed team.
Setting up a car manufacturer is not that impossible in the market. Over the past years there were 10s of new car manufacturers that started (and some failed). A good example is some Chinese companies such as GWM, Cherry. There is also no reason why existing car manufacturers can not grow to fill the gaps that GM leaves (as they have done for a long time – e.g. Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, etc...).
Historically, downturns have been the best times to invest (obviously!)
it’s pretty simple. we’re tired of people forgetting our name, so we’ve chosen a new one: thesixtynine. it’s catchy, screams “7 deadly sins” (hello max levchin), and, face it, it’s way more memorable than the lowly, often-overlooked “61.” more importantly, the switch has put us at the top of the heap as far as search engines are concerned. chief technical officer sam hsiung says “since rebranding to thesixtynine, we’ve seen a 234% jump in referral traffic. i’ve poured months into SEO (search engine optimization) tweaks with minimal results. i guess marketing trumps engineering.” so remember, we’re not just a number anymore.