Slashdot Mirror
'Best' Fake Blog of 2006 Awarded
schwaang writes "Advertising is an integral part of the Web, and its revenues make the likes of Google possible for all of us. But when PR firms promote products by pretending to be real bloggers, some think it crosses the line into unethical 'astroturf'. The Consumerist held a contest for best 'Flog' of 2006. And the winner is... Sony for it's fake all-I-want-for-Xmas PSP blog (which Slashdot readers will no doubt remember). Runners up included
Walmart and McDonald's. And the award itself? Well, it's something you might find on on a fake lawn."
ehem, what was the dominant opinion on Slashdot in the matter of a proposed legislation to force payed bloggers to register? eat your cake now... :( (not a flamebait)
Fake Steve is, by far, the best fake blog ever.
I'm like, You know what? It's PR. It's marketing. It's the battle for public opinion. Everybody else who gets in trouble like this, like Martha and Quattrone, first thing they do is clam up. And all it does is make things worse. It makes them look guilty. And I'm not guilty. So I'm not going to apologize. And I'm not gonna shut up. Honestly. I'm blogging, and they can eat my friggin shorts. They think they're gonna push me around? I'm friggin Steve Jobs!
... and then they built the supercollider.
My only reason for thinking that it's fake is because it's really, really hard to believe that someone with a lack of sense, intelligence, and decision making ability as catastrophic as Casey's could actually surive to age 24.
With every update, I find myself asking, "This can't be for real. Nobody is dumb enough to be $2.2M in debt, unemployed, penniless, and sign up for $52/year roadside assistance just because the offer showed up in the mail." Yet that's exactly what this genius claims to have done. It may be a long shot, but I cannot convince myself that Casey Serin is 100% nonfiction.
I don't really see why people try this (fake blogs to promote their products). How can the chance at getting a few thousand people to think "Hey, that looks like a decent product." when they also risk alienating countless more if their plans were to come to light?
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
How much business? From Wiki: While Denton does not go into detail over Gawker Media's finances, he has downplayed the profit potential of blogs[1], declaring "Blogs are likely to be better for readers than for capitalists. While I love the medium, I've always been skeptical about the value of blogs as businesses" on his personal site[2]. However, in the February 20, 2006 issue of New York Magazine, Jossip founder David Hauslaib estimated Gawker.com's annual advertising revenue to be at least $1 million two years ago, and possibly over $2 million a year[3]. Combined with low operating costs -- mostly web hosting fees and writer salaries -- Denton is believed to be turning a healthy profit.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Sony has been dominating this arena since the beginning. I remember that phony giantology blog promoting Shadow of the Collossus a while back making huge ripples. (google giantology). I'm half tempted to make a fake blog condemning fake blogs, but that'd be nearly as bad as giving out fake awards for making fake blogs, wouldn't it? I mean... get real.
...has to be the livejournal of the Illmatic, North Korean president Kim Jong-Il.
He paraphrases and regurgitates large quantities of articles onto his blog and tries to get them linked to slashdot to increase his advertising revenue.
He doesn't actually add anything to the stories, merely acts as a middle man to siphon off some of the ad revenue.
Thus, people are bothered because slashdot links to him when they could link directly to the primary source with no more effort.
After viewing the PSP blog, I would like to say this to every soul on the planet: If you are instant messaging/on a chat room/any other real time communication method that involves typing, by all means, do type crap like u instead of you. If you are not, than DO NOT use that AOL pseudo-leet garbage. While you're at it, use proper grammar, not that 'urban' slang crap dreamed up by some rich white guy (gasp!) to gain a death grip on a demographic by taking control of their lifestyle and thought patterns. I'm not sure how butchering the English language has helped to sell overpriced clothes, but it has. Also, the Shift key is there for reason. Use it! That being said, Sony really overplayed their part, and I now have an urge to run out and buy a DS.
Well, contrary to popular opinion on Slashdot, Windows fans do exist (you'll find throngs of them on popular sites like Neowin) and do believe Windows Vista is better than both OS X and Linux, so I think you'll need to provide something more than someone liking MS technologies to say it's about Microsoft themselves. It's like saying an Ubuntu hacker is automatically an Ubuntu developer.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Sorry, I should have written that on the original message. The simplest proof is (very surprisingly, to me) right there in the footer, in small letters: "©2007 BORINGBORING - A Microsoft project". Also, others have already investigated further, and the domain was registered by a guerilla marketing agency, not just some random person.
The parent company of the Consumerist is Gawker media, which controls some pretty anti-Sony gaming blogs, Kotaku.com and Gizmodo.com.
Perhaps Microsoft paid some money to Gawker to help them advertise/astroturf the XBox 360? And perhaps this "story" is actually part of that FUD campaign against Sony (and the PS3)?
It's not unreasonable to expect Microsoft to engage in such tactics.
Granted, Sony is as evil as Microsoft in many ways, it's just that Microsoft is much better at it (and Sony innovates more than Microsoft).
Um, hello ...
They say the mind is the first thing to