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____/ Don Zeigler on Wednesday 04 March 2009 13:05 : \____
> DFS wrote:
>
>> They give it an overall 8 out of 10 for performance, and several say it's
>> quick. Not a single person out of 119 reviews mentions a 1.25 hour sign-on.
>> Wonder why?
>
> Because they don't know any better and think it's supposed to take forever?
> We are talking about Windows users here, after all...
These things aren't more reliable than the Microsoft-funded Net Applications.
Whisper campaigns exposed: pay per lie on YouTube
,----[ Quote ]
| One of Australia's most popular YouTube users has admitted being paid to
| spruik Ten's new show Lie To Me surreptitiously in the latest example of
| marketers invading the popular video sharing site.
`----
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/whisper-campaigns-exposed-pay-per-lie-on-youtube/2009/02/19/1234632880291.html
Is Yelp Manipulating User Reviews?
,----[ Quote ]
| Is Yelp.com manipulating user reviews to coerce small businesses to advertise
| with the site? That's what some business owners in the San Francisco area are
| claiming, and they've taken those complaints to both the East Bay Express
| and the student-run newspaper the Daily Californian. Yelp denies these
| allegations and says its sales staff does not have the power to either move
| or delete reviews.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/article/159839/yelp_accused.html?tk=rss_news
The Plot to Kill Google
,----[ Quote ]
| For PR support in that campaign, Microsoft turned to LMG, a secretive
| Washington DC public affairs firm that specializes in astroturf campaigns.
| Thompson and Vogelstein expect the anti-Google campaign to intensify in 2009,
| with a focus on painting the company as a threat to personal privacy.
`----
http://prwatch.org/node/8199
LawMedia Group
,----[ Quote ]
| LawMedia Group -- also referred to as LMG -- is a secretive Washington DC
| public affairs firm. The firm's website says it "unites the worlds of law,
| communications, strategic counseling and crisis management into seamless
| campaigns for Fortune 100 companies, trade associations, start-ups and
| non-profits." [1] Ads for LMG describe its services as including "government
| relations" (lobbying), "grassroots lobbying," "issue / initiative / petition
| management," "media production" and "opposition research." [2]
`----
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=LMG
Google’s Cutts Apologizes For Paid Post Snafu
,----[ Quote ]
| Google Japan hired a Japanese company called Cyberbuzz, who paid bloggers as
| much as $100 to write about a new search widget. This was a clear violation
| of Google’s rules, which Google has aggressively and publicly enforced over
| the past couple of years, much to many directory operators’ chagrins.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/02/16/google%E2%80%99s-cutts-apologizes-for-paid-post-snafu
Corn Farmers Against Google?
,----[ Quote ]
| Only if they're planting in AstroTurf
|
| [...]
|
| How do you know the organization, and the op-ed, weren't created by LawMedia
| Group at the behest of some well-funded clients? If they did their jobs
| right, you don't know.
|
| Some of them have left digital fingerprints here and there, though, says
| Declan McCullagh, in a blockbuster of a report exposing the intellectual
| whoredom offered for various important issues. Shortly after Microsoft hired
| LawMedia, for example, legislators, national agencies, and news outlets
| received pointed complaints from coalitions of farmers, rural voters, and
| geeky Latinos about how Google's advertising deal with Yahoo would wreck
| everything.
|
| [...]
|
| Don't call them a PR firm or a lobbying firm though, Law Media – which has a
| ton of lawyers working for them too—is a "public affairs firm" specializing
| in producing "remarkable coalitions" for anything one might need a coalition
| for.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/08/14/corn-farmers-against-google
China's Online Persuaders
,----[ Quote ]
| China's webspace is infamous for censorship, but increasingly, public
| relations firms there are helping their clients "manage" online
| conversations. China-based firms such as Daqi, Chinese Web Union and
| CIC "charge $500 - $25,000 monthly to monitor postings and squelch negative
| information or to create positive buzz," reports BusinessWeek.
`----
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7451
Now Hiring - Astroturfer, apply at Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Evidently, a "Senior Marketing Manager" has the responsibility of:
|
| * "assisting in defining and driving core marketing initiatives – most
| specifically online & offline community-building"
| * "further the dialogue on the value of the Microsoft platform to open
| source audiences"
| * "be a cornerstone for a global thought leadership website and will be
| regularly featured in industry press around the world"
| * "act as a visible external evangelist for Microsoft"
|
| Wow! That's all direct quotes from the job description. It is so blatant, I'm
| beginning to wonder if it's some kind of joke. Particularly the 'evangelist'
| line.
|
| Kind of like the famous Halloween documents, this posting really tips
| Microsoft's hand and shows us exactly what they're thinking. After all the
| smoke and mirrors over the deals with Linux distros Suse, Linspire, Xandross,
| and Turbo Linux, this shows that those distros were in fact acquired in order
| to be killed. It's not Linux that Microsoft wants, it's the customers.
`----
http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=now_hiring_astroturfer_apply_at_microsof&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Microsoft Pays $200 for Mentioning Its Tools
,----[ Quote ]
| If you're a professor and you mention Microsoft programming tools in a
| scholarly presentation -- in fact, even if you just use the tools --
| Microsoft will send you a check for $200.
`----
http://chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue-33.dir/33a03001.htm
The Best Enthusiasm Money Can Buy
,----[ Quote ]
| We might think that spending several hundreds of millions of dollars every
| year on commercial speech would be just about enough to allow any company
| to "tell its story" to the public. But we would not be Microsoft, who the Los
| Angeles Times revealed was gearing up a multi-million dollar public relations
| campaign which included planting ersatz letters to the editor in major
| national newspapers. The goal: to create the appearance, if not the reality,
| of "grassroots" support for the company.
|
| "Spontaneous" testimonials penned by hired guns may not be an entirely novel
| idea in the surreal world of public relations, but Microsoft's response to
| having been caught in the act of committing such a crass act was certainly
| uncommon. At first, the company denied their intentions to actually implement
| such a plan. Then, a few days later, company spokespersons announced a new
| spin: Microsoft has a perfect right to engage in public opinion manipulation
| campaigns, if that's what it takes to "tell its story."
|
| Now, what exactly was that story, again?
`----
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/dirtytricks.shtml
Microsoft pays star writers to recite slogan
,----[ Quote ]
| The stodgy old media industry has a rule that newspaper reporters, and TV
| news hosts, shouldn't trade on their public trust to endorse products.
`----
http://valleywag.com/tech/federated-media/microsoft-pays-star-writers-to-recite-slogan-271485.php
EU cracks down on fake blogger astroturfing
,----[ Quote ]
| But back to the web, and with sneaky marketing campaigns likely to be more
| effective than upfront marketing campaigns, what is stopping companies from
| simply risking it and continuing existing practices?
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/03/eu_flogging_ban/
Outdated Whois Information Might Lead to False Light Tort--Meyerkord v.
Zipatoni
,----[ Quote ]
| Unfortunately for Sony--and Meyerkord--the campaign did not go well. Bloggers
| and others got suspicious of the overly colloquial site, unmasked the
| astroturfing and decided to "out" the people involved. They pulled up the
| Whois records, saw the outdated information that Meyerkord was the
| registrant, and mistakenly assumed he was involved in the campaign.
`----
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/01/outdated_whois.htm
Man Sues Former Employer For Not Updating Whois... And Then Acting Stupid
,----[ Quote ]
| in 2006 Zipatoni was the company behind the disastrously stupid "fake" viral
| marketing campaign known as All I Want For Xmas is a PSP. After that was
| exposed, blogs went to town making fun of Sony... and Zipatoni. As part of
| that, people went to the whois and "outed" Meyerkord, including calling him
| a "douchebag."
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090121/0558113474.shtml
Belkin boss 'extremely sorry' for cash-for-good-reviews plan
,----[ Quote ]
| According to an open letter from Belkin big cheese Mark Reynoso,
| the "unethical practice" was conducted by "one of our employees", who offered
| cash in exchange for good reviews.
`----
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/20/belkin_prez_apologises/
Caught AstroTurfing: Bad Belkin Bayard Business..
,----[ Quote ]
| It seems a Belkin employee was caught red-handed looking for people to write
| positive reviews of one of their products. Our own Paul Ferris discusses his
| observations and some of the bigger social issues that 'AstroTurfing'
| exposes.
`----
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/114965/
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Code built upon another's is less prone to bugs
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
13:20:01 up 25 days, 8:38, 2 users, load average: 0.67, 0.93, 0.97
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
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