The Case of the Mysterious iPod Touch

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

A few weeks ago, I got an amazing thing in the mail.

An iPod Touch.

This gorgeous piece of hardware arrived only a few weeks after I had purchased one at Best Buy.

How did I get so lucky to get one in the mail - literally out of the blue - and why didn't it arrive sooner so I could have saved a few bucks?

There was a letter enclosed but it didn't say anything specific to give me a clue about why I was sent an iPod Touch. The company that sent it was mDialog. I had never heard of them so looked more closely at the letter, looking for a clue as to why they sent me such an extravagant promotional gift.

    Did they want me to write about them for a magazine?

    Did they want me to blog about them for Web Worker Daily or somewhere else?

They must have known I was a writer and a blogger, but besides not being addressed to me personally, the letter made no mention of what the company wanted from me in return for the iPod Touch. It only directed me to a video on the iPod itself.

I fired up the iPod to view the video, figuring I'd finally understand what this gift was all about.

With my husband looking over my shoulder sharing the iPod ear buds with me, I played the video. Cue up the Mission Impossible music...

The founder of mDialog, Greg Philpott, appeared on the screen.

"Hello Aliza..." he began. Okay, he pronounced my name correctly. But how the heck does the CEO of mDialog know my name?!?

He proceeded to add a pretty personalized comment - something like "I don't know how you do it...as a mom and..." Whoa. He knows I'm a mom.

Okay, I thought, I do blog very publicly about being a mom.

But I have to say it was a bit...creepy/weird to get a personalized video from the CEO of a company that I've never heard about mentioning that I'm a mom.

He may have also mentioned that I'm a blogger and/or an entrepreneur but at that point, my husband was starting to ask "Who is this guy? And how does he know you?"

Errr...would you believe I have no idea, honey?

I'm sitting in bed with my husband and some high tech CEO is calling me by name on a personalized video on a shiny new iPod Touch. 

I went to the mDialog site looking for an answer. Still no clue.

Ultimately, I would not be able to blog about them on Web Worker Daily because we are not allowed to accept gifts - or must fully disclose if we get something for free - prior to writing about a service or product. Freebies are highly discouraged.

Finally, as I clicked around from app to app, I inadvertently solved the mystery of my new iPod Touch. As the the iTunes Store loaded, I saw that it was logging into CC Chapman's iTunes account.

Ah, the ubiquitous CC Chapman, social media marketer and networker extraordinaire.

"Oh, it's from CC!" I suddenly exclaimed in bed with my husband. "You remember CC. I recommended him for that travel conference in Baltimore, and he and I did a presentation together."

For some reason, talking about a man I met in a city on the other side of the country just didn't quite sound right while sitting in bed with my husband.

And it all started with an iPod Touch that arrived in the mail...