Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/13/gamble_or_get_orgasm_tips/

Gamble or get orgasm tips on your mobile

Quartez jumps on text message bandwagon

By Kieren McCarthy

Posted in Legal, 13th June 2001 15:23 GMT

Mobile messaging company Quartez has come up with a way of making a bit of money from text messaging - competitions and orgasm tips. We know, it sounds horrendous but then it's gonna work because people are horrendous.

Who the hell would want to pay anything up to a £1 to text Quartez with the word "gamble" in the hopeless attempt to win a holiday to Las Vegas? Readers of Esquire that's who. The mag, run by National Magazines, will be offering precisely that next week.

Orgasm tips? Why, Cosmo readers of course (also owned by Nat Mags). [What the hell are orgasm tips anyway? And shouldn't Cosmo readers have worked that sort of thing out already?]

Anyway, Quartez basically acts as a middleman for this, provides numbers and word-trigger technology for competitions and the like, takes a cut on the traffic and away you go. Bloody good business model if you think about it.

The VC company Media Ventures obviously liked it because it's just pumped a seven-figure sum (between £1 million and £10 million) into the company. ®