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Microsoft Pays Bloggers to Tout MS Slogan

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-love-our-sponsor-and-their-product dept.

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."

6 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing unusual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any blogger that supports their site through ads is making money through a marketing campaign. You can even pay Google to put other peoples' ads on your site for you. What's wrong with that?

    1. Re:Nothing unusual by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Isn't this what's been happening in most magazines now for years?

      Yes, that's why bloggers were initially percieved as a breath of fresh air in an arena dominated by shills.

      The honeymoon didn't last long, and now many of the journos who used to tout in the magazines have transferred their skills (and bad habits) to blogs.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    2. Re:Nothing unusual by pasamio · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But most magazines have the legal requirement to either mark that its an advertisement (ever seen those full page magazine articles with 'advertisement' placed somewhere on the page) or that they derived some benefit from it (e.g. an article a while back from Angus Kidman with the text "Angus Kidman travelled to Orlando as a guest of Hyperion" (http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/ 04/27/1224215)).

      This doesn't have that sort of marking, there in lies the issue. Its not clearly linked with a company (e.g. blogs.microsoft.com) and it is them being paid off by companies. Cash for comment. Actually illegal in Australia (see John Laws on the same subject).

      Thats the issue.

      --
      I always wondered where this setting was...
    3. Re:Nothing unusual by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, that's not what happened. If you click through TFA, you'll find they actually lathered up Microsoft's ass pretty good. "People Ready is a way of life, not a practice." was one of the blurbs they wrote.

      But they weren't really "A-List" bloggers. "Michael Gaizutis" for example, who wrote the blurb above. I've never heard of him. In fact, I had to read his name closely to make sure it wasn't some gag name like "Michael Hunt" or "Dick Gazinya".

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. Makes you think... by oskay · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how much of this thing goes on that we *don't* hear about.

  3. People-ready business by bky1701 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To me, 'People-ready business' represents a new low in catch-phrase marketing. We all know 'can you hear me now', a stoned man saying 'dude we're getting a Dell', 'works out of the box' and the Vegemite song sucked. But new levels are being reached, requiring of extending the "int catchphrase_rating" to "long int catchphrase_rating". These levels are being reached by the one and only, Microsoft.

    For a while now, Microsoft has been looking for a way to make money. Their business has been dying down not due to competition, but due to sheer lack of anything to sell. So comes Vista. With it's color-coded file explorer, OSX ripoff interface and Vista-only-for-no-real-reason DX10, they were sure they were saved.

    This was not the case.

    The hotcake Vista was predicted to be turned out more to be a segway, and (while ducking from flying chairs) the marketing department had to come up with a way to sell this new steaming turd. Enter 'people-ready business'.

    I am not personally sure what this is intended to mean. Are they attempting to sell a business that is ready for people to use? Doesn't Mcdonalds fall into this category? Or is it an attempt to make people ready for a business? If so, what business? Microsoft?

    Has Microsoft finally admitted to being the Borg? Is the next tag line, "lower your shields and prepare to be boarded"?

    Who knows. This blogger is unsure.

    /Waits patently for check

    --
    Great Intellect...