Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Pays Bloggers to Tout MS Slogan
Stony Stevenson writes "In an effort to inject Microsoft's latest slogan, 'People-ready business', into popular usage (and no doubt raise its Google page rank), Microsoft asked a passel of A List Bloggers to write blurbs on what this meaningless phrase means to them. Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Fred Wilson, Richard MacManus and a handful of others happily agreed to churn out some mush for Microsoft, which it later used in banner ads. What it really meant to these guys was income. Redmond paid the bloggers for every user who clicked through to the PRB microsite. That caused other bloggers, lead by Gawker chief Nick Denton, to rightfully question their ethics. A spitball war has been raging ever since."
Looks like it worked - allready mentioned on slashdot!
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
A whore will fake an orgasm for you, if you pay for it.
Oh, and astroturf isn't real grass.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There's a whole profession of people writing text for advertisement.
What IS moraly wrong is presenting it as a personal opinion; that's verbal prostitution. Publishing it on the web would be indecent exposure.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Could this have been a part of Microsoft's plan. Seems to me that this controversy will help them much more than the original paid-for blogs.
the difference, is this is a cash for comments style scandal. no harm in having banner ads, but your opinions should reflect the truth not you advertising. otherwise why would we bother listening?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft, but last I checked they weren't having a problem with their Google page rank, so I do doubt that that was part of their "People-ready business" blog campaign.
What would happen if all Slashdotters started linking People-ready bussiness to Linux' Wikipedia page?
In my case, at least, everything of that goes, and I never hear about. The same goes for the rest of mankind, except for the tiny percentage of the population that read these blogs, tiny even if only tech savvy people is considered. Who are those bloggers and why are they considered important to deserve front page on Slashdot?
Another poster put it better a couple of posts above, this is no different from a corn flakes company creating a contest in the lines of "write an essay with the word 'crunchy' and win such and such prize'", and getting 10 years old children to publish their essays. They will do for the prize, even if they hate that particular brand of flakes.
The joke is on whoever blindly believes in anything written by those bloggers, or by any other blogger, or anything written on the Internet, for all that matters. But bloggers, blah, a bunch of self-important people that touts their own (and each other) horns and manage to convince some gullible people that their opinion is any better than the guy next seat on the bus.
Next time some blogger makes a fuss about not being treated like "real" journalists just point them to the Cringley/McKraken articles.
They will be treated like journalists when they can demonstratte some ethical and professional resposibility.
Not that all journalists are perfect but they do lose thier jobs when they get caught red handed.
Anyway all the best blogs are deeply personal, opinionated, and, do not pretend to be journalism.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
This sort of campaign blurs the distinction between comment and advertising.
It diminishes the value of the opinions being blogged and potentially tars all tech bloggers with the same brush.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I'd be happy to clarify what "people-ready business" means to me.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Like you say, there are bills to pay. So there's no problem if Microsoft want to pay these people as writers to write pieces for them on a particular topic. The problem starts when those pieces end up as content in a place which is normally home to opinion. The value of opinion pieces all lies in their honesty. If you think you're reading opinion when you're really reading an advert, you're being misled. And that's bad.
Most of the time when celebrities do ads for money there's no conflict with their actual profession. In fact since they're often actors it's just another script to them.
Might I suggest that we all blog the term People Ready Business, and link it to www.ubuntu.com or our www.apple.com our our favourite decent provider of software, and someone who deserves the publicity. A bit like all the tags for VISTA on amazon marking it as DRM Filled, Buggy, Bad Vista etc..
Isn't this what's been happening in most magazines now for years?
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Surely you realize there's a difference between organizations who pass advertisements off as their own opinion, versus organizations who clearly indicate which content is advertising and which part is editorial. Maintaining a wall between editorial and advertising has long been recognized as a part of journalism ethics, and while that wall is breached from time to time, it's something that's important enough that there can sometimes be legal repercussions to breaching it.
Somebody who posted something uncomplimentary about blogs and bloggers on Slashdot, yet not only did they not get modded Off-topic, Troll or Flamebait, but actually made it to +4 Insightful!
Even more surprising considering the things they said were mostly true and factual, which is usually cause for bitter Slashdot bloggers with mod points to send such posts off into negative integer oblivion.
Oh and it's true: not even your Moms read your blogs. They just say they do. Sorry.
We're seeing too much of that on Slashdot these days, not just the astroturfers posting their messages, but endless bombardment of MS-oriented slashvertisements in place of real articles. Sometimes it's several content-free articles per day apparently posted just to keep MS in the headlines. How about easing up on that and getting back to technology?
None of the negative coverage is getting through, such as a 30% return rate for the Palladium testbed, so that suggests that Slashdot is a participant (willing or unwilling) in spreading that movement's marketing churn.
A moratorium on MS churn, whether slashvertisements or otherwise, even one day a week or one week a month would do wonders to improve Slashdot. Let's leave political parties like MS on the sideline and re-focus on technology.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"What's wrong with that?"
Well everything. They should have disclosed it for starters. If you see a banner, you know it is an ad, same with those noxious google and other links, there is no question that it comes from a paid source.
The bloggers are guilty of greed and ethical lapses to the point that they should be shut down. There is no excuse for doing this, period.
MS is even more guilty for paying them to do this, knowing that it was unethical to do, it is even more unethical to support. I would go on a rant about MS and unethical behavior, but that is old hat by now.
What it comes down to in the end is that MS destroyed several bloggers in a cynical attempt to subvert the journalistic process, but I am not so sure any of the blogs could be considered journalism. Those involved knew full well what they were doing, and can't hide behind any weasel words or excuses. It is greed over ethics, pure and simple.
The people who took that money can never be trusted again, they should pack up and go home. MS isn't trusted at all, and while it is wishful thinking, I hope they will pack up and go home as well for inflicting MeII on us.
As a writer myself, I would hope my boss would fire me if I ever even brought this kind of bribery up, much less did it. I am pretty sure he would which is why I work where I do (The Inquirer FWIW).
-Charlie
It's always insightful to reverse a slogan and see what it means. Non-people ready business? People not ready business. People ready non-business?
So the slogan is just a restatement of the normal situation. It's spin.
Because we listen to them anyway ?
Microsoft's not digging Deliverance-style rednecks out of the backwoods to promote their stuff here...
If we've been listening to them for awhile, how do we know everything we've been listening to wasn't motivated by some no name companies' money ?
You don't have to tout brand names to get people thinking about a product or service, specially if you're only one of a handfull of companies providing the product or service.
Isn't it funny how bloggers always want to tell you about this new thing they found ?
It's fine if you want to believe you're not good enough to make your own decisions based on information, but don't assume everyone is like that.
Be thankfull that society allows us to use a system of credit to survive, if it wasn't for money the same people who get you to work for nothing would be crushing your skull & eating your brains to survive just like the animals do.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Many bloggers often comment on how cool an advertiser is. This is often a shallow attempt to get people to click on the ads. Nothing new here. And I never hear outrage of bloggers who do what I've mentioned.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
No, I'm New Here
Does that mean suddenly nothing should be true, honest, and forthright? That we should just end our expectations that people will act with honor and decency?
Of course it should get pointed out in public what these bloggers (and M$) are doing. No, they're not going to be killed for doing it, but we should definitely have the knowledge that these kinds of tactics are being used. We should have the right to publicly question their ethics.
--Jimmy
News Flash: Bloggers accept money to promote products and brands.
Another news flash: So do radio DJs, actors, video game companies, advice columnists and virtually everybody else who has a large number of readers/listeners. Hell, there's been some product placement in newspaper comics lately.
Comment of the year
One of the biggest issues with blogging is that there is no separation between the person who is writing, and the person who is trying to make money. Most other media outlets have separate departments for those things to create a division between content and advertising.
There is always friction between the two, but it is much harder to attempt to be objective when you can sit and rationalize it to yourself. This is not to say that no one has ethics stronger than their profit motive, but it's no surprise to find that the reverse often holds true.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
But I do not go to work for some bunch of scum sucking pigs just because I could earn more money than I currently do. Instead I work for a company that I find agreeable.
I know alot of people who try and pass on the responsiblity for what they do at work to management, and I tell them what a load of crap that is too. If you don't like what you do then find a better job, even if it does involve a pay cut. Otherwise you are complicit in whatever misdeeds you might be asked to perform at work. And don't tell me that if someone said 'here, have lots of money and all you have to do is write some blog entries', you'd say no. Not if the money were good. I wouldn't. Then you have no morals, but why do you find it so hard to believe that some of us do have a moral code which we value as such an important part of who we are that no amount of money would justify tearing it up and putting it in the bin.
And before you talk about how I have never been desperate enough, guess again. To get my current job involved me relocating a long way at considerable inconvenience to take a cut in salary.
I think I am probably in the minority in this otherwise the world would be a better place, but I am very unlikely to change in this regard. The only thing I can think of that might change my outlook would be watching my kids starve, but seeing as I have spent years in the past doing dead end jobs, I know I could return to this and still earn a not too dissimilar wage. Ethics are easy if your wealthy, but.. Actually, I think the opposite is true. Since I have never been wealthy, I have never been in situation where I got used to having alot of money to spend. Once you get used to having a large amount of money at you disposal (or your wife does) it is much harder to go back to being closer to the breadline.
This also makes it easier when looking for work as my salary demands are lower. This does not mean I am bad at my job or that I value my work less. It simply means that I get other satisfaction from my job apart from just getting a monthly wage. I think it actually means I take far more pride in the code I produce. This argument should not really come as any surprise to people who use Linux as this is built and maintained on similar, non-monetary values.
I dont read
...there is a lot of people out there who view the blog as some sacred confessional that shall not be besmirched with bought-and-sold thoughts. Yeah, and they're often called "bloggers". They're the ones that want all of the authority of legitimate journalists without any of the responsibility.Oh, i was really only commenting on the banner ads and such. I can't respect any author/blogger who knowingly presents advertising as their own genuine opinion... or worse, objective fact.
In this case, I think such dishonesty would be pretty obvious. I can't imagine reading a blog entry talking about how great Microsoft's new marketing nonsense is and taking it seriously. And at least blogs have comments so you could let the author know what a shill he/she is. So there is that.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Your missing the point entirely here. It's not about having an agenda.
Unless one is a robot, *everyone* has multiple agendas. This is about having a hidden agenda and deceiving people into thinking you don't have an agenda when in fact you do.
It's about plain old honesty and integrity (or actually a lack of it).
Your argument, (like a shocking amount of posts here), seems to amount to "everyone does it" but as your Mother might have told you "If everyone else jumps off the bridge does that make it a good thing to do?"