Kentucky town to get $100k to change name?
When the online auction site Half.com convinced the tiny Oregon town of Halfway to rename itself Half.com in 1999 in return for six figures of cold hard cash, it ushered in a strange era of buzz marketing and greedy townsfolk.
The ploy worked, though, as the auction site got a huge amount of publicity, far more than it ever would have gotten for the paltry amount it paid the Oregon hamlet.
Well, now another online company is trying the same gimmick.
According to the Associated Press, PokerShare.com has offered the western Kentucky town of Sharer $100,000 to change its name to that of the poker site.
Naturally, being bribed to change its name to that of an online gambling site is a bit controversial, especially in the south.
"I can't speak for everybody, but certainly speaking for myself, this isn't going to happen," Butler County Judge-Executive Hugh Evans told the AP. "When you talk about poker and gambling, we're not for that in our county. It's very conservative."
Still, six figures is six figures, and you can imagine that someone in the town's bureaucracy can figure out a way to spend the money, especially since it's not like anyone there has to do anything except maybe change some letterhead.
No word yet on what the town will decide to do. The odds are 3-1 against on PokerShare.com. Just kidding.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
