May 30, 2005

Adam Nelson Has a Sponsor

Things worked out well for Adam Nelson, the U.S. shot putter who was auctioning himself off on eBay (my post). The final bid was $12000 for one month of Nelson's services.

The winner, as reported on AuctionBytes.com, was MedivoxRx Technologies, which is a subsidiary of Wizzard Software. I'm not sure that it will will be as good a deal for them as it was for Nelson. Their main product, Rex – The Talking Pill Bottle, is a container that verbally identifies pill bottle contents and dispenses information that would otherwise appear on the prescription label. The target market, according to the news release announcing the deal, includes "the elderly, the visually impaired and cognitively impaired, or anyone who can't read or understand their medication label instructions."

I'm not sure that the target market overlaps much with the viewing audience for the shot put at the USA Track and Field Championships, but what do I know?

And of course the association with the pharmaceutical industry, no matter how benign, is bound to inspire some heckling. I'm expecting photos of Adam Nelson standing on top of the podium, with a dancing pill bottle on his shirt.

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