How To Get Free Advertising With A Trendy Wireless-Age Concept

Journalists (and I am one of them) are such a bunch of suckers for trendy concepts. Take a BlackBerry, mix it with a wireless-age addiction called "CrackBerry" -- that's how they call those who just can't stop exchanging emails from anywhere with their BlackBerries -- add a hotel manager with some imagination, stir and call the media and get a free advertising campaign for your hotel.

Rick Ueno, the manager of a Chicago Sheraton hotel, says he offers a cure for BlackBerry addiction. What is that cure? Checking you in and locking your BlackBerry during your stay, that's it! Yet, because it's so hip and trendy, word of his "cure" spread like a virus. From geek.com to theregister.com, various webzines and blogs picked it up until ABC and CBS sent cameras. But through all this coverage, no word of any customer who actually used that service. Perhaps journalists are the only customers...