Toys For The Rich To Cultivate Product Popularity

ChipGuy writes "Newsweek is reporting on a new elitist club called the Silicon Valley 100, an exclusive group of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs like Marc Andressen, Esther Dyson, Chris Shipley, and Ross Mayfield. The Schwag Set will get a lot of free stuff which they will either recommend or not, to unsuspecting masses. Dan Gillmor thinks 'it is oddly creepy', and urges people on this list to 'bow out of this exercise entirely.' Om Malik says it ironic that 'the first product being offered is a shitter! What Crap!'"

Comments

Re:Elitists are bad?

[randallpowell]

It's OK. Republicians can't be in office forever.

Payola is payola...

[dpbsmith]

...Accepting free products is unethical, plain and simple.

If the companies that give out the freebies didn't think it would influence the recipients, they wouldn't do it.

one big difference.

[twitter]

The entertainment elite are constantly given free stuff in the hope that their wearing/using/talking about it will promote the product.

Sure but those people have made careers out of bathing in publicity. This list is composed of private people who may or may not enjoy someone claiming an endorsement from them. Don't put fake endorsements past the marketing department that gave you the Apple Switcher and is famous for name dropping whenever it can. The "creepy" reaction is right on target.