Is the new7wonders a scam ?
Flooded with offliners and emails to vote for the Taj Mahal as one of the New 7 wonders, I finally decided to check the n7w out.
Here are some interesting points to ponder …
Why would an organization like New Seven Wonders of the World have affiliate sales on their website ? Any blogger who has done affiliate sales would know the % of commission earned per sale. Imagine the commission for a Tour package half way around the globe.
Also, there is a Merchandise Section where we can buy overpriced Tees , Pins etc [well they are LIMITED EDITION and OFFICIAL /:)]
Now, here is what Wikipedia says about n7w (I bet they made this page themselves)
“The New Seven Wonders of the World is a proposed revision of the Seven Wonders of the World, organized by a Swiss-based, for-profit corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC). The selection is being made by free and paid votes, through telephone or online. The first vote is free to registered members and additional votes may be purchased through a payment to NOWC. In addition to the sale of votes, NOWC relies on private donations, the sale of merchandise such as shirts and cups, and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.”
That’s right ! You can BUY votes.. Who cares of the monuments in developing countries ? Just buy votes for your favorite monument! (and make us richer)
Oh for crying out loud ! I mean, seriously.. Is this how we ought to select the New Seven Wonders of the world ?
So, what is this whole thing anyway ?
The ‘History‘ section says “Swiss businessman Bernard Weber launched the project in September 1999. By November 24, 2005, 177 monuments were up for consideration.”
If you ask me, this man is great at his game..He did a world tour, made a huge hype, got media attention and now, The New 7 Wonders is one of the most talked about subject on the blogosphere.
He succeeded in making his little trip so famous that The New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 – 07.07.07.
The international show, which will include award-presentation appearances by Hilary Swank, Ben Kingsley, Bipasha Basu, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neil Armstrong and Bertrand Piccard, and also will feature performances by Chaka Khan, Jennifer Lopez, Jose Carreras, Alessandro Safina, JoaquÃn Cortés, and Dulce Pontes, among others.
And there we have it.. The Seven wonders of the WORLD is to be decided by him. [ I say ‘him’ since I have a feeling the voting isnt fair. Come on ! I’ve been getting messages to vote for the Taj for over a month now. I dont think any Indian would just ignore that ! And inspite of all that AND considering the population of India, Taj isnt in the top seven ! Ironic, isnt it ? ]
Finally, lets say that The Statue of Liberty and the Taj Mahal did not make it to the n7w. Does it change anything ? How long would the ‘new’ 7 wonders stay as the Seven wonders of the world ? Maybe till another news takes up frontpage.. Does this mean Textbooks would be rewritten with the n7w instead of the Seven wonders of the world and would our children be studying the names of the n7w in place of the Seven wonders ?
Think …
Killer find ! It is indeed a point worth pondering about.
The whole thing is a scam run by a some Swedish corporation that has confederated with several telecom operators internationally to make money. what gives new7wonders the authority of adjudicating on what the seven wonders of the world should be!! I might have thought on voting had it been an un sponsored vote, but this is a sheer SCAM.
Kudos for bringing it up !
“I dont think any Indian would just ignore that !”
M sorry to burst any bubbles…but i did ignore those messages and emails. Not that i don’t have enough of a patriotic vibe in me…its just that i don’t care enough too. Voting TAJ will not make a lick of difference to me. I could perhaps lie shamefaced and cloak my words as “voting TAJ wouldn’t solve poverty and hunger”. And thats tru too..
Bottom line – i din’t vote…nor did any of my buds. That monument doesnt need my stupid vote..its great in itself
and i know i missed the point of the post…
It might be a scam… but u cant judge it just cos TAJ isnt on the first 7
Heyy Sid …
I didnt say so just coz the Taj aint on the top 7.. I mainly said so based on the first para of the post ..
And as i have said towards the end, it really doesnt matter…This voting is NOT gonna change anything.. My point was only to highlight that I FELT it was a scam..
cheers !
GREAT POST !
definitely an eye opener..
These points corroborate the fact that it is a scam.. I never thought so.. Now, i googled for the n7w scam and have almost concluded that it is a SCAM
nice article, I also read a very informative article which proves beyond doubt that is is a scam
http://itchofwriting.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-7-wonders-emotional-scam-or-master.html
@ Kapil ..
Great link .. thanks
Mission TAJ: A Story
Surprised by reading such title in a war terminology for a symbol of love!! But yes, but it is true. As you will read this article you will come across several interesting things which may surprise you.
Since a company called new 7 wonders (N7W) declared that they are going to launch voting contest to nominate new age 7 great monuments, people all around the found it very interesting. The company people were successfully able to manage several initial rounds to minimize the list of possible wonders of new age. Initial total 77 candidate list is then sort listed to 21 finalists. Now the actual story starts.
This was not only a contest but essentially a marketing trick so N7W company people stated thinking that how it can be more famous. So they associated contest with individual country to promote the marketing vote for the contest for the country monuments with great patriotism. They were very innocent for the result that they might have not even predicted. N7W company people visited every participating country to invoke patriotism of their citizens to go for vote. They visited china, USA, Italy, France & India also. Then what happened, suddenly company people become very happy to see the initial results of the campaign. There was huge response started to inflow from rich countries like USA, Italy & France. The response was constant in nature and was quite huge in size. Thus the voting race started with full fledge in last gear speed of racing car. Monuments for Italy, France & other European countries started reaching top most positions while there was very slow response yet coming into the system for other monuments of country like India for TAJ. So realizing the situation in country like India – local company added their support to promote TAJ – the only representative from India. They requested to join famous personality to add support to promote TAJ. Celebrities in the other countries are also doing same thing and they are also promoting the monuments belongs to respective countries. But this is not just enough.
Still the voting was too huge from other country compare to it is from India. The reason was people were thinking that people in India are not taking much interest for voting. But the fact was then assumed different. There are wise people who have developed automatic scripting engines to submit the vote for their monument on the web site. Oh!! This is unfair!! …This is like cold world war!! Now what? Will India loose?? The answers was NO. India is no more just poor now. If people from other country like USA, Italy, France, China can play war game plan with IT skills, then also they can not beat Indian programming skills as not only Indian people are good at programming but the total population of India is also very huge. Now this is real challenging project for software developer people for India with aim to make the dream true, to stay in unity and to make India’s win over other country. Some people argued that it is not good to vote in such way but then after all "Every thing is fair in LOVE and WAR" …and this was not only a kind of WAR but it is also for symbol of LOVE….so how India can loose.
All software engineer who came across this facts by various group messages like
yahoo group, goggle groups etc….they started thinking and built own scripting engine to vote for TAJ online to the N7W web site by automatic form filling and submit script. Technically the web site was very week for security features. The effort was in parallel at several places not only from India but also from out side of India. Thus now TAJ is started gearing up in the position listing. There were only last 20 days to go and still TAJ was at 12th rank!! This is because the scripting engines for other monuments are already running since long time. ..So what to do next …now people developed parallel and multithreaded applications using skills for which India is known for.
Last 7 days to go. All over the world ,people are not only started using scripting engines but they have also developed sendSMS script to send free SMS to vote as many as possible. People used randomizing logic to randomly generate valid cell numbers to submit the vote by SMS. There are only few web site which support limited number of Free SMS as trial so it is also required that the number used to send the SMS vote should to be changed. So such scripts were additionally developed.
AND now then it was day of grand finale…777. That is date 07-07-2007…the day of good fortune.
The celebration started in Lisbon, Portugal to declare the result…people all around the world was eager to see the results. Innocent people were expecting innocent result and IT technical people were waiting to see what is outcome of their whole technical projects. Can India beat all other country by programming skills?
Then the dream realized. TAJ set to rank #1. INDIA won the world war.
People from USA, France, China, and Italy become stuck and they found that if this was the case just for one of IT skilled people in India and then it is not simple to under estimate India in future. If all Indian people on earth unite for one cause then it is impossible to beat India.
So it is not only win of TAJ as top of new 7 wonders of world but it is also symbolic win of India as top of new 7 most powerful country in the world.
Thanks to all the people who voted and made this whole contest a mission possible.
The truth is TAJ is “SURTAJ” of new 7 wonders of the world!! VAAH TAJ
“Suno gaur se duniya walo,
Buri nazar na hamper dalo,
Chaye jitna joor lagalo,
Sab se aage honge Hindustani…”
Fraud of New 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD
Respected Sir,
Let me bring to your notice the fraud involved in the campaign of NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD , kindly note down the following facts to decide for yourself:
1) The web site http://www.new7wonders.com is not any official site of historians or people of tourist trade but owned by a private person WEBER, BERNARD official address at P.O.Box 1212, Zurich, Zu 8034 Switzerland.
2) The web site is hosted at for unknown reason at Germany at Lilienstrasse 3 – 5 D-81669 Munich Germany .
3) The site is generating a revenue source for its owner as is evident from the site it self where he writes " Do telephone calls and SMS generate revenues for New 7 Wonders?
Yes. We have, in partnership with our technical telephone partners, established the world's first global premium voting platform. A very small portion of the revenue from each call or SMS is goes to New Wonders and will help to fund the entire project.Login to know the truth :http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php?id=604&L=0
4)The Logo on the site Official Declaration Of the NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD 7.07.07 takes you to on the site page itself http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php?id=476 , not to any Govt or non profit organization page which approves this competition but to WEBER, BERNARD own site page , a clear cut private generated competition fraud.
5)Each voting certificate is sold for $2.00 as it says on the site"You get a certificate for your favorite single candidate by clicking onto the Vote Online section and then going to the “vote and buy a certificate” button. Once you have filled out the registration AND paid $2 you will receive an email with their certificate copy. YOU MUST PRINT OUT YOUR OWN CERTIFICATE."The Mr Weber is making quite a great money this way by fooling the people.
6) The President of National Chamber Agra, Tourist Organizations, DM, MLA,MP and individuals plus various Newspapers have got into this fraud of Weber Bernard and foolishly supporting the New wonders private web site fraud of an individual.
7) This site was originally started on 15-Oct-1999, how does it started the competition on in 2007.
7) Secondly http://www.indiainfo.com site is presently down, it is also established on 28-Dec-95 , owned by a privately held company Indiainfo.com Ltd
III floor, Money Terrace, No 100, K H Road, Bangalore, Karnataka 560027 meeting its own revenue generating ends , it in no way can be any official organizations whose word is final for declaring new 7 wonders of the world.
Apply Your Mind check the facts then do this foolish voting of new 7 wonders.
WoW Taj .. whoever you are,
great info ..
interesting…! i know it's rather late, but i have posted some of my thoughts on the entire 'vote for taj' deal. do read 🙂
new 7 wonders suck bad!
I'm so glad I didn't believe to these hair pullers, I'm sure there are millions of idiots voting for their country wonders.
Lol
quiero botar
Yes Jorge, the biggest idiot is you. Mr. sour grapes. Any ways the idiots in your country voted and still lost. What a bunch of morons.
I must say, that I could not agree with you in 100%, but that's just my opinion, which could be very wrong.
p.s. You have a very good template . Where have you got it from?
taj is the 7 wonders also comodo island in indonesia (i support it)
Comodo island in Indonesia is the 7 wonders