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Open Source Word-of-Mouth Advertising
An anonymous reader writes "Plenty of corporations are willing to hire shills to generate buzz for a new product. But what people don't need to be paid to promote?
Boston company BzzAgent found that their volunteers promote products simply because it makes them feel good. The NYT Magazine interviews several 'agents'. The volunteers cite the feeling of being 'on the inside', like sharing opinions with others, and enjoy feeling altruistic. Has Madison Avenue figured out what open source developers knew all along?"
i can certainly relate the advantage of word-of-mouth to a game site that i'm working for. there's a strong community forming and new players are coming from word-of-mouth (or text-of-email) because of existing players' experience in the game.
of course a bit of incentive wouldn't hurts, but it doesn't have to be in monetary term. it can be in the form of being credited or recognized.
the only catch is you need to stay good, because of the old marketing saying - a good mouth told 3, a bad one told 10.
the article mentioned "revealing her (the marketer) identity, she said, would undermine her effectiveness as an agent.".
it's similar to teenagers never listen to their parents about what is good for them, but peers always have a greater influence.
Play iCLOD
exposure may be the thing that hurts many people trying to spread their product. Although linux was held in high regard among many people for a long time, a good majority of the mainstream populace are still unaware of it simply because mainstream people are fed mainstream media.
+5, Truth
Just look at the evangelism of some of the gentoo users. They are completely dedicated to spreading the word. On some OS or Tech News sites, there are few distro related posts that doesn't have a gentoo disciple posting a follow up about the superiority of their distro. This would be massive free advertising if some commercial product would get that kind of devotion.
This is open-source how?
I didn't know that some company had developed a proprietary speech format that just happened to be good at spreading advertisements. I also didn't know that those of us that are in the OSS community developed our own speech format to be used freely by the masses.
I guess I learn something new everyday.
What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
I love slashdot.
Just look at the fan boys in the Open Source world. Look at what happens when I utter the words:
d ows????
vi
emacs
Gentoo
KDE
Gnome
Linux
*BSD
Win
Firefox has been a 100% grass-roots effort to date. SpreadFirefox.com, the site devoted to informing people about Firefox's benefits over IE, has 35,000 members, basically volunteers that provide free advertising.
1 76
Everything is not well though. They are being a little too secretive about the status of the NYT ad, which garnered $250,000 from the community. Threads have begun to pop up about what exactly happened to the ad, and some people are starting to whisper "refund":
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/4700
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=172
http://almostsmart.com
So, do we love the new volunteer advertizers, or hate them for being advertizers? Myself, I think I will go on the side of hating them -- I mean, it is still advertizing.
On the other hand, these people (I think) all belive in what they are saying, so I might actually listen to what they are saying.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Anonymity is crucial to any Bzz campaign. If the word gets out that one member of a community is covertly foisting products on the rest, a general sentiment of deceit smites the social atmosphere. I feel that, although this is a perfectly legal, dare I say brilliant, marketing system, I would make it a point to rout out and publicly humiliate any Bzzers I discover.
> Has Madison Avenue figured out what open source developers knew all along?
This is only going to work well if there's no company getting rich off their altruistic efforts.
I don't even bother to report bugs to Microsoft, because I know that my efforts, ultimately, would just make Bill Gates richer.
I think it's important for people to know that their volunteer efforts are going to enrich the community as a whole, not just a few guys. That's why people get upset when they find out that charities they contribute to take a large cut for the management.
Madison Avenue can dream about volunteer marketing, but I can't see it becoming a significant cultural force. People are just to jaded and cynical now.
then they'll advertise it for free depending on their means. Otherwise it's going to take a paycheck. If I don't like a product enough I'll negatively advertise it.
If there is a cost involved with advertising the product then of course someone is going to consider whether they will demand a fee or not depending on how much they like or dislike the product.
If a rich person really likes or dislikes product A then they may spend a million bucks advertising it because they want to. This happens in politics often. A local millionaire spent a lot of money campaigning against a recent proposition. Other rich people campaigned for it. If a modestly wealthy person likes product A then they may seek cheaper avenues to advertise such as basic word of mouth or print ads.
This isn't late breaking news or anything that has to do with Open Source. This has been public knowledge since forever. Word of mouth is the cheapest and best advertising and you can only get it from people who like your product enough to talk about it.
Every company seeks to get word of mouth. This is why they have occasionally steeply discounted or free samples of their product. A limited number of people buy it because of the price point and then advertise to friends and family who then may pay a higher price for it after the sale ends.
Work Safe Porn
This is not open source "advertising".
Its about a corporation using people's time and effort to further its bottom line.
(ooops. that does sound like open source)
Read the article. The main reason people are doing seems to be as quoted in the story, not that they ARE trendsetters....but they would LIKE to be trendsetters.
So people trying to be cool are being used by Corps to hock their STUFF in a most unseemly way to me (IMO).
Why unseemly? I'll give you a example. Let's say I am throwing a party, its a pot luck and everyone is supposed to bring over a casserole or other dish.
If a bzzz agent brought over "Lenner's Sausages" and starts to extol the virtues of said meat links... i WOULD THROW HER ASS out of my party.
I invited my guests over to relax and forget about the world NOT TO BE SOLD TO.
Isn't it enough with billboards on roads and product placement in TV shows?
Now they want guest and friends to sell me shit?*
*And no, i don't care if they really believe in the shit they are selling, there is a fine line between a friends reccomendation and a sales pitch. These people cross it.
Oh and can we stop apply the ever-so hip "Open source" to everything?
I was thinking just earlier today that my experience with Open Source has made me mistrustful of advertising.
I expect to hear about good products from other people. If I see an ad for something I haven't heard of my initial reaction is "Why haven't I herad of this, is it no good?" If a product is good, word gets around. I'm hesitant to buy any tech product without hearing other's experience with it on sites like Slashdot.
Spencer Ogden
But other people do these studies because it makes them feel "a part" of such a great software company, and I'm sure they tell all their friends.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've been trying to get my company to take advantage of Open Source solutions but it's not easy. Sometimes it seems that they think if it's free, there must be something wrong with it. I suppose they like the support of paid-for software. My strategy right now is to replace all the non-supported software with open-source ones. Once they feel they can trust open-source software, that when I can seriously push open-source software as an option for our bigger problems and needs.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Cheers,
Ian
The volunteers cite the feeling of being 'on the inside', like sharing opinions with others, and enjoy feeling altruistic.
I suspect #1 (think Jackie Harvey) and #2 are the real reasons. As for #3, if they really wanted to be altruistic, they'd volunteer their time and effort for something a little more important than helping a CEO buy one more ivory backscratcher, like volunteering for a charity or other non-profit organization.
The whole idea of word-of-mouth is that it has some honesty that's not been tarnished by commercial interests. This word-of-mouth marketting association is one more reason to dislike unashamed capitalism that seeks to milk out everything.
Lets call them buzzards. I think that's a better name. Tar and feathers for the lot of them, I say!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This ought to be the best nonsense article i've read on slashdot ever.
I'd say 'they should not do that' and 'who cares', but then i realized that it is just me - who is visiting the wrong site. Sorry about that.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
More like it confers a sense of belonging to a larger entity, which makes them feel wanted, and hence good.
Kind of like the OSS religion.
No one's paying me to post www.subservientchicken.com/ but I do.... it must be a good example of what we're talking about...
UK Laptops
to anybody who can either convince me that this BzzMarketing crap is not an MLM, or to actually tell me what the hell it is they do.
Because the latter is not clear, I am assuming that the former is false.
It's just time for Slashdot's daily ads. This is a non-starter. The very fact that I found the phrase:
"Reality Marketing"
on their site immediately disqualifies them from my list of companies to do business with, whatever the fuck it is they're selling.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
While I am a linux user, it took me a while to try it. Why? Many of the people who tried to convince me to switch did so in the most obnoxious, patronizing ways you could imagine. (Hint: telling somebody they're a retard if they don't switch to Linux might not leave them itching to try it.) Combine fanaticism with the standard package of geek social skills, and you sometimes end up with an awful ad campaign. But thats the problem when your advertisers aren't paid; they're not acountable to anyone, and they may or may not be productive.
Gabriella asked a manager why there was no Al Fresco sausage available.
I got your Al Fresco sausage right here, Gabriella Bay-bee!
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
I don't think it's this way with all open source products' ads. I seem to recall watching the Super Bowl and seeing a "Linux- The Future is Open" ad... hmm...
- dshaw
This model is obviously not applicable everywhere, but it has a great deal of advantages over regular advertising really - the main thing being that the customers actually know what they're getting, by using the product themselves instead of listening to how some marketing guy somewhere decided to describe the product. This is a great advantage for open source projects in general IMHO.
ePinions has built a moderated community of many reviewers that is often very helpful. It's mostly open, and zero dollars.
--
make install -not war
Buzz Marketing has been around for a long time. Books like the Anatomy of Buzz have been out since 2000 and have be subsequently refined conceptually into defining who people listen to by books like The Influentials or more geographically with books like Hub Culture.
It's not really that big of a deal. Buzz marketing is just another way of saying a product web of trust, and Slashdot is perhaps one of the better examples of buzz marketing I can think of.
Let's see in the last few days, people on Slashdot have mentioned Firefox and Thunderbird, AbiWord. and other programs. There are even whole sections - Book Reviews - that are essentially a form of buzz marketing.
The problem that people have is when this is disingenious. Slashdot deals with this by giving you the negative buzz too - anyone here going to rush out and buy a Treo 650? I know I'm not - and I'm thankful to the guy who posted the comment so I am aware of the problems of the new Treo.
Bottom line: buzz marketing - so long as it is accurate, is offered by someone you trust (or forum or what have you) and is appropriate given the circumstances (posting about a bad product experience on Slashdot for example) is not necessarily a bad thing and is often quite useful and good.
Hearing about new restaurants in your area, new software products, or whatever from people that have actually used them and had a good (or bad) experience is often an excellent way to find out about new things. I think most of us would agree on this point. So, don't get all bent out of shape about a 50 cent word used by marketroids.
One phenomenon I'm frequently struck by when visiting a forum discussing upcoming computer hardware and software products is the number of people who are creating hype and whipping each other up into an excited frenzy. There's much more of it than can be explained by agents/shills (paid or otherwise). For some strange reason, people who have no association with the company making the product volunteer themselves as mindless "fanboys" helping to promote it.
The most remarkable example I've encountered was in the Auran forum back in 2001, prior to the original release of their game "Trainz". The atmosphere that existed there in the runup to the game's release was nothing short of a collective euphoria. It's difficult to convey, but one illustration is one of the supplied forum emoticons, the "drool mop", which each individual posted en masse whenever a new feature or screenshot was revealed. They appeared to be setting themselves up for a letdown when their overinflated expectations were unrealised, or a post-decisional dissonance that would blind them to the product's shortcomings.
Why do so many people join in so enthusiastically? And is there any harm in people spending so much of their time acting like consumers on steriods?
Providing some contrast, if not balance, are those places where the manufacturer or their product is scathingly and repeatedly criticised, with people complaining endlessly about the problems they're experiencing. Usenet groups, and forums whose primary purpose is tech support, such as those at Logitech and iRiver, are typically like this. Then again, many people in those forums seem to be obsessed with the issue(s) they're experiencing, posting about it at length and bringing it to the attention of newcomers over the course of several months while waiting for the company to produce a fix. So perhaps these forums simply play host to a different kind of "fanboy", albiet a disgruntled one.
Isn't this the philosophy behind gmail and wallop? The exclusivity makes people want to be in it -- even just for the sake of it.
The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!
The key with buzz is that a little investigation will turn u someone you know or wsomeone who will talk toyou about the OS A that might bet the ticket. The BS is just background noise.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
"They were invited guests, friends or relatives of whoever organized the get-togethers, but they were also -- unknown to most all the other attendees -- ''agents,'' and they filed reports."
WTF?! I would be completely insulted if I invited somebody to my house and they tried to advertise a product.
Marketing has infiltrated our lives enough already, yet these idiots volunteer to advertise and file reports about their friends and family to some market research people. I find that more than a little creepy!
It's amazing that people think that this is not only okay, but that they would volunteer to do it.
History of the Shopping Cart Nothing new, just good marketing by Sony, et al.
The Bzzers don't even need to like the items they market . . . and more often than not, they don't. For example, on the Bzz site they have a testimonial from a Bzzer who was trying to promote 20Q (a great website, but a lowly toy) to other mothers at a bus stop. She mentioned that the toy was making a lot of noise because it was getting "Torah" wrong, repeatedly. Others asked where to buy it, though. So, even though it is clearly an inferior toy, she tricked them into finding it appealing. She even described her methods online.
Obviously, it was not $10 well spent for those mothers. I can't imagine that the peer pressure on the mothers, with all of their kids flocking to the little blipping, flashing, toy helped.
I don't work with BzzAgents, although I am involved in similar areas to them. It's interesting to think of why we "buzz" (to steal their terminology) certain products and services and not others.
For example, I'll often recommend MySQL, Apple, Linux, Perl, or even companies like EV1Servers with total enthusiasm. It doesn't affect me if someone uses MySQL, an Apple computer, or gets a server with EV1, so why the enthusiasm? Most people don't do the analysis, and I guess I haven't till now either. The answer you get will probably be one of the many answers that apply to the BzzAgents.
In my case, do I recommend all of the above systems/brands/companies because I want to improve the lives/businesses of the people I talk to? Partly, but perhaps it's because I want to be associated as the one who helped them with this improvement. A selfish helpfulness, I guess, where the reward isn't helping people, but being recognized as the one who did the helping.
People shilling products for free is nothing! Look at how many people pay money for the privilege of shilling products on their clothes.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
People tend to post soon after their purchase with lots of glowing reviews. This makes it pretty much useless for new products.
Then, when the product proves to be a piece of junk, you'll find post after post from many of those same people complaining about their piece of junk. While this might be comforting in a group therapy kind of way, it is also pretty much useless as a "product review" unless you happen to be considering purchase of two year old merchandise.
(--- This post may be a paid, or volunteer, advertisement, and may not truly represent the views of the poster.)
Not the OpenSource stuff. That is just fine with me because it is a worthy cause (--- that's an advertisement right there!).
But the fact that people would go around promoting a product just to be "in-the-know" about it is just so perversely consumeristic and representative of what is wrong with the factory-farmed citizen (--- something like that would be a key giveaway that a person is using preformulated vocabulary. I just made that up now, on the spot, though, so it isn't.)
I could see it if it were, say, some sort of environmentally friendly product (--- plug for tree hugging here, which I do fully endorse, but a plug nonetheless) which if made more popular would be a boon.
Personally, if you are going to use the power of the Internet (--- hey, making the Internet sound good is in the best economic interests of my job-seeking ass) for something and you want to be involved in something, there are more worthy recipients.
Plus then you have this content pollution (--- callback to environmentalist meme) problem where quality suffers. Is anything you say really not an advertisement, when you think about it?
(Oh,oh -- here it comes, the inevitable signature link. Luckily the only thing I'm selling is Democracy.)
Someone had to do it.
I rarely if ever "advertise" products that I like. I respect other people too much to do that. Only when I see that a person clearly has a need that can be met with a particular product, would I recommend it. Though when a product is free, I can suggest it even when the need is not so obvious.
:) I would have suggested a dating service, but that would be an exercise in futility, though eHarmony is good.
For example, here on Slashdot I won't promote CS Desktop Notes, even though it's really great software, because I don't think most slashdotters need it. On the other hand, I feel no remorse about suggesting you check out Nici, an efficient, user-friendly program to mass-download free porn, categorize and view it, because people here look like a target audience.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Someone out there has a sig about moderating incoherent. Finally I begin to understand why that might be necessary.
Sai Babu, if English is not your first language try to post some more information and I (or someone) might try to help you. If English is your first language I hope, for you sake, that you are drunk.
Why not get the real ultimate power?
So Slashdot is a now marketing trends website? Give me a break.
Probably some sort of hardwired social animal/pack animal/tribal instincts to tell the other members of the tribe about some new food source or other resource: "hey, guys, you won't believe this great patch of berries I found upon on the mountain this morning!"
THis is a very old and highly developed survival skill, and corporations are tapping into it with this sort of technique.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Blowfly beer used this very type of marketing to screw the big 2 monopilised breweies in Australia . .They will offer a propectus when they got big enough . .They deliver in the metropolitan areas of Sydney and Melbourne and you can buy online, a very inovative maketing idea in the world of brewing that I was involved with in its initaial stages before I moved to the US.
They offer a share for when you sign up to the website and refer friends and and have in the past given members a decision in marketing of the beer also and gave a share if you answered thier polls on these decisons that they then exceuted.They have offered FREE BEER events for members also of course.
Every carton of beer you buy gets you another share in the company
This makes the consumer feel a part of the company and it is one the few small beer comapaines in that have survived quite well and sit themselves within the local Australian premium beer market price pange
Blowfly Beer (or get yourself a Blowie ha ha)
http://blowfly.com.au/
. . . and you can find them at just about any internet forum for specific products.
...their volunteers promote products simply because it makes them feel good....
Slashdot runs on volunteer writers who [except maybe Roland Clique-appeal] don't make a cent and just submit items because it makes them feel good.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
It might just be me, but personally, I've never met anyone involved with computers that's worth respecting (ie, not a blathering idiot) that's altruistic. Not in the least. They're almost invarialy condescending and self-important.
Note, don't confuse that with with being conceited. The fact is, they really are better, and thus can condescend to these people's levels.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
play free games:
http://www.lilgames.com
tee hee
...would actually be kind of fun. You could take off your jacket and stuff it in your backpack, then try it again. If you came up with many disguises, then it would be challenging to try it as much as possible. You could play a game with your friends to see who could be sold to the most by the same person. Another idea, is to say, "Sure, I'd love to take your picture. Oh, by the way, would you be willing to hold on to my cell phone and mp3 player? In fact, why don't you listen to it while I take your picture?".
testing out my trending skills
I'm going to sound like a dork when I say this, but in many cases, the volunteers really ARE on the inside. In my case, I'm the leader of the Open Graphics project, and while there are certain aspects of the interaction between company and community will being hammered out, I know perfectly well that the project will go nowhere without the involvement of the community, because it's a project to meet THEIR needs. This means that they MUST have control. None of this "company knows best" crap (only I'm the one allowed to make that mistake *grin*).
Just as a side note, it's an interesting feeling being on both the inside and the outside of the project. To the community, I'm the insider who represents a company that is somewhat of a mystery because it's a newcomer to the community who hasn't proven its intentions. To the company, I'm the outsider who represents a community with an unusual, fickle, and conflicting set of requirements (because it's made of an incredible diversity of people).
dead serious about going to Itchy & Scratchy Land!
I had the same thought. But this has to be done cooperatively to be effective. Why not infiltrate, find out which products are being buzzed, list them online, and let volunteers stamp out the astroturf they see? In other words, we need a site that plays the same role that Snopes does for urban legends.
I've just registered counterbuzz.com and created an overview page and logo. I'll also send a brief letter to the NY Times Magazine suggesting this strategy and giving the URL.
Who wants to take over development of the site? If the letter is selected for publication, it will appear in 2 weeks and send a lot of visitors to the site. We need at least a forum so volunteers can get organized.
The page says:
See the site for more discussion.
is not open source marketting...it is an lothesome technique. I once read an interview with a leading viral marketer (surf control prevents me from linking at this time) who was quoted saying something along the lines of "our customer realise it's not cost effective to have a product or service that is good enough to produce word of mouth, however we can hire people to create that word of mouth for a fraction of the price".
I appreciate your concern for grammar, but I said what I intended to say. "Their kids" refers to the kids of the various mothers, not each individual mother's children. When one mother is a celebrity, her friends' children become less enthralled by their own respective mothers. In response, these mothers might launch an "I treat my kids just as well or better" counter-assault. This is a very common dynamic between parents of the same child and, in a tightly knight school community like the one mentioned, the parents of different children.
It's comparable to the clichéd old-women/apartment-building/lawn-chair effect.
I forgot to include: "Because the mothers are the ones who do the ultimate pressuring (with their egos, through their wallets) it is peer pressure."
Not that I have anything against mothers. Frankly, I don't know where I'd be without one.
What's with trying to assosciate this hardwired behaviour/human animal crap with everything people do? This behaviour is actually the *opposite* of animal behaviour - dogs (another pack animal) don't go telling all the other dogs about that cool bone - they go bury it so the other dogs don't find it. I remember hearing somewhere (probably the zoo) that the Chimp is the only other mammal apart from humans that willingly share food. The only other animals I know of that share knowledge about where to find food are bees - hive animals. Which I think is probably just as likely an evolutionary path for some people I know of ;p
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
...I would make it a point to rout out and publicly humiliate any Bzzers I discover.
Word of mouth advertising brings advertising back to its original purpose: to inform you of the existance of a product you might want. Not to tell you it's needed to get laid, or that you NEED it, etc etc etc.
If the folks are simply doing this because they like what they bought, why do you need to humiliate them? I've convinced several of my friends to buy PowerBooks. I did so because I thought they'd enjoy it as much as I have mine, and it seems they are doing just that.
Believe me, I hate it just as much when someone I know pushes some crap on me and I find out there's some incentive for them. No, I don't want a free iPod. However, when someone simply says "Hey you should get an iPod. I got one and I use it every day." -- where's the distrust?
Yet another company has discovered fanboys and astroturfing. Yeah, that's sooo new.
Can't even say it has anything to do with OSS. Anyone who's played a game and ever posted on a gaming board, has already met the unpaid fanboy acting like he's Holy Defender Of The Publisher, Minister Of The Truth, Silencer of All Heresy. "You dare complain about bugs and crashes? Nooo! The game is perfect! It's your system! It's your drivers! You're too stupid to use a computer!"
Cretins.
And yet another set of corporate fucks are willing to plunder and rape public comms channels to line their pockets. Much like spammers do.
There's a reason why people would rather trust each other than trust the marketters and professional reviewers. I know _I've_ had enough of marketting lies and bought reviewers dutifully transcribing the hype that the vendor wants printed. And I don't even mean creative exaggeration, but outright bullshit, lies and snake oil.
But it used to be that at least there were public communication channels, in the form of bulletin boards and newsgroups and the like, where we could talk to each other about it. And about other stuff. And now a bunch of corporate fucks have basically discovered that "hey! We could make a profit by polluting these channels to carry our corporate message."
So what's the difference between that and what spammers did to a different public resource? Nothing. The exact same "hey, we can make a buck by polluting and poisoning a comms channel" mentality.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This kind of confusion between "honest personal opinion/review/dogma" and "corporate marketting to make a buck" is just what those unethical corporate shills are exploiting, and what they'd like you to believe. "Sure, there's no difference between Joe talking about his new car from experience, and Jack who's regurgitating corporate hype for, say, Ford." Wrong.
You even almost see the difference on your own when you say "Slashdot deals with this by giving you the negative buzz too." Well, bingo. That _is_ the whole difference between a real review or opinion, and corporate marketting.
The whole "trust" part in that web of trust, refers to trusting someone to give you their honest opinion. I.e., if you think a product sucks, by Jove, do tell me in which ways. I want to hear _all_ the info: the good _and_ the bad.
You also trust that they have nothing to gain out of deceiving you. E.g., if I'm talking about my Psion 5 and how I find it to be the greatest palmtop ever made, in the end I have nothing to gain whether you believe me or not. I don't own any shares in Psion or Symbian, I don't sell Psion 5's, I don't sell software for them. I.e., the assumption of trust is that you can trust that I have no reason to lie to you.
I may of course still be uninformed, pissed off, a fanboy, or simply my uses for a PDA may not match yours. E.g., I love that keyboard for typing, but if you don't do a lot of typing on a PDA, a Palm may serve you better. What I love about it, may be completely irrelevant to you, or may even be what you'd hate about it. (E.g., partially because of the keyboard it _is_ also bulkier than a Palm.)
But you trust that I won't deliberately lie to you.
And, sorry, I fail to see how can I apply that trust to someone actively marketting for a corporation. They're not feeding me a honest opinion, they're not telling me their own experience in using the product (which generally they don't even own), they're just regurgitating a marketting text. Sorry, _what_ can I trust there?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well that's no news. This phenomenon happens almost everywhere. So it's strange that the title mentions open source. I guess it's even more common in hardware. Take for example 3D videocards. When they were new, fanboys promoted their new Voodoo cards. Then nVidia came along with their TNT card, and 3Dlabs was a big company so the fanboys started praising nVidia for being a small company that challenged the big company with a superior product. Nowadays the fanboys blast nVidia for being big even though they became big just by making decent products, and ATI is their new hero, even though it's also a big company. The pathetic thing is really that people waste time on this, usually anonymously, to praise one product and badmouth the competitor. I guess it's because when you're young any feeling you have becomes an intense emotion. 20 years ago those people would have been on the barricades with a political belief, nowadays they only care about commercial products. Even when it's open source, that's out of anticommercial feelings. They just want Linux to win because it's against a capitalist company. Those fanboys cannot even write a 3-line shell script to save their lives, all they do is click around in KDE, and then they reboot back to windows after an hour for the rest of the day.
From the article:
If you start questioning everyone's motives, then you'll be in a home with tinfoil on your head.
So that is why I feel creeped out about this. It doesn't work on slashdotters.
Open source is already doing this, of course. But it works in open source.
In contrast, unpaid advertising of commercial products won't work. That's because our society is founded on selling people things they don't need, in order to keep workers in jobs making products and paying for products. Put simply, the only reason people buy half of the junk made is because a mind-numbing wave of advertising is directed at them with the launch of any new product that people don't see real use for. After the advertising, it's becomes cool, and people want to talk about it or wear it on their t-shirts.
Maybe if the brand name is already well known, they'll wear a new t-shirt for the brand. But an entirely new product by a new supplier, for the "altruistic" benefit of convincing people to buy things they don't need? Can't imagine it, unless the world gets a whole lot scarier.
No-one read William Gibson's 'Pattern Recognition' then?
In the long term I don't think this type of marketing will work for companies. The obvious reason why most of us trust other people is (a) they are honest because they do not have financial interests (b) we appreciate their opinion because we want to be like them.
If this type of marketing becomes wide-spread then simply everyone will start being much more cautious about what he is being told. As for the coolness factor, well, we already have that for a long time: hot actors tell us what to eat/drink/wear, sexy models show the newest products. Most of us have a certain immunity to this. I would consider buying ZZZ if it seemed to me that cool guy AAA is indeed cool *because* of ZZZ. But would I buy ZZZ (so many variables.... must stop programming) simply because cool guy AAA said so?
People are not idiots. They know whose opinion is important for a reason. If I tell my friends to use firefox, they will, because they know I can back my choice with technical arguments they don't want to hear. This knowledge renders my opinion valid. (admittedly, my opinion does not have the same weight in matters of appearance or style, maybe a hot model would be more convincing for that...)
P.
Installing linux to my friends' computers since 1995!
William Gibson hits on this same thing in his book called Pattern Recognition. It surprised me a little how far he took the idea. It was even plausible. Must read if you are interested in this sort of stuff. He is heavy on how our perceptions of things effect our every day lives.
While I agree totally that xx.mozilla.org should forward to the right pages, you say you have not found it. I believe there's a link to Mozilla-Europe somewhere, but here's the url for the lazy:
http://www.mozilla-europe.org/nl/
Hope that helps.
For context, click Parent.
receiving free goods in exchange for promoting them. If you do a bad job promoting, you're considered less of an "insider", so you don't get the free merchandize or prize points. Due to this, there is a huge incentive to promote the product even if it is terrible (see my 20Q story in response to another poster).
It's not as if buy an iPod, happen to like it, and decide to spread the word. It's more along the lines of Apple saying "Psst, here's a free iPod. You're cool now, but you can't tell anybody about this little secret of ours. Make Apple known and you'll be really 1337, yeah. You screw this up, then no more free stuff, and we make you a buffoon in a tutu." While you are still the one promoting it, your friends cannot trust trust your word, knowing that Bzzing remains at large. It's really despicable. One woman in the article mentioned convincing her father to buy a quantity of suasages. She also convinced somebody to change a recipe to suit them. I'd say that's downright manipulative. Still trust her?