I just wanted to give a shout out to Outdoorzy and Origo for the sweet new watch. How did I win it? Well, Outdoorzy ran a contest on their snoop bloggy blog, and the blog pound rated the comments and chose the winner. What did I say?

“I run a lot of class V rivers and backcountry ski over difficult terrain that requires the use of a topographic map to judge location. It is always a bit of a guessing game, and it would be a lot of fun to see if the altimeter and compass matched up with the contour lines and my estimations of location. Plus, I really need a new watch.”

I’ll tell ya, I would’ve loved using the watch on this backcountry ski trip.

As far as the functionality of the watch is concerned, I would concur with this excellent review more than anything else I have seen. Even though some of the features of the watch are difficult to use and don’t work as well as I would like, the fact is there are a lot of features packed into this watch at a reasonable price.

Because I work in marketing, I can appreciate the power of word of mouth. If you are launching a new product, soliciting reviews and incoming links is a great way to build conversation and search relevance. Of course, you in turn run the risk of receiving a negative review, but even that can be beneficial. For example, I was not familiar with the Origo brand until now, and if you are reading this blog post you might not have either. Now their brand name is in your subconscious, and when they produce future watches with even better features the likelihood of capturing your attention for further consideration is that much higher.

Of course, there is always the tie back to Kevin Bacon.