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Microsoft Taps Bloggers to Promote Longhorn
Tim writes "With Beta 1 of Longhorn less than two months away, Microsoft is looking at a new marketing tool to help promote its new Windows: bloggers. According to BetaNews, Microsoft's "Team 99" evangelism effort will be composed of bloggers that will become Microsoft's voice to the masses. Robert Scoble said Team 99 was once secret, but has been revived and Microsoft is now accepting nominations. It's nice to see Microsoft recognizing the power of blogs, but the move is likely going to draw accusations that Redmond is trying to buy off bloggers to hype Longhorn."
...Longhorn...Team 99....how do they come up with these unusual names?
My favorite quote FTA (and I'm not making this up):
"Longhorn got its name from the bar that's between Whistler and Blackcomb up in British Columbia. 99 is the road you drive from my house to get up to the Longhorn bar. So, Team 99 is the team that'll take us to Longhorn's launch," he said.
And people make fun of Linux names!
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Whoever is part of this "Team 99" will be consider shills and rightly so. There's one thing using the Internet to express your point of view. It's quite another to extol a companies product for their backing.
If this group was treated as an unbiased reviewers, I'd have more sympathy but as it is, it seems just another corrupted media.
-Teiresias
... It's nice to see Microsoft recognizing the power of blogs, but the move is likely going to draw accusations that Redmond is trying to buy off bloggers to hype Longhorn."
;)
That's a safe bet - MS could release a patch for XP that cured cancer and they'd still be accused of doing something underhanded.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
I've often wondered how many Slashdot accounts are operated by paid shills and their ilk.
It's paid-for advertising maskerading as opinion. It's misleading and unethical, and incredibly stupid of them to admit they're going to do it.
I, for one, after reading this, wouldn't trust the opinion of anyone who says in their blog that they like Longhorn; who's to say whether they actually used it and thought it was good, or if Microsoft paid them to lie about it?
All this does is create an environment where you can assume that bad reviews are probably objective, and that good reviews are quite possibly just advertising.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
that just the other day was reported as threatening people who posted screenshots of Longhorn?
Which is it to be? Do they want it publicised or not?
No, let me guess; only favourable publicity.
It also follows the long Microsoft tradition of providing an innovative product that people not only want to use, but actually look forward to using.
Longhorn truly completes me. And I say this as a former Linux power user for the last twenty years. Really. Now I know that Linux blows and it has nothing to do with that bimonthly check from Redmond. Nothing. Really.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
"It's nice to see Microsoft recognizing the power of blogs, but the move is likely going to draw accusations that Redmond is trying to buy off bloggers to hype Longhorn."
Blogging was nice while it lasted. Corporations are quickly going to flood the channel with paid content. If you think the PR machine is powerful in major media, which has lots of people looking for bias, has some regulation, and which does not see $10,000 as any more than pocket change, think what's going to happen to blogs over the next five years.
Suppose Coca-Cola offered to pay Joe Blogpack $2,500 to do a column talking about a dead rat found in a storage container at a Pepsi bottling facility, how quickly do you think he would jump? Do you think he would care if the story is true? And if he did, would he have access to the resources to find out if it's true? Suppose news.google.com is running 200 links to other bloggers who didn't take the time to fact check - our honorable Joe Blogpack checks his facts against the tainted stories and even thinks he's doing the right thing.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Slashdot has been doing the same for Linux
Microsoft Office
Microsoft XP
Microsoft Flight Simualtor
and any other Microsoft products out there!
Microsoft marketing, if you're reading this, these marketing ploys just make you look pathetic. Stick to what you're good at and play up the heartless corporation aspect of your corporate image. Honestly...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Such as "people hack IE only because it is popular",
I'll ad another:
The "XP is only crashes becuase of all the different hardware it supports" astroturfer.
the completly miss the fact that FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux support most of the x86 hardware that XP does --- AND PowerPC AND Sparc AND Aplha AND Mips etc....
*BSD and Linux manage to be stable, why can XP??? Hmmmmm...
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.