The Folly of Faking Fan Sites

GFD writes "Salon has an article on what the media moguls call "internet marketing" where the film makers or the studio creates a bunch of fake amature fan sites, etc. to create buzz. " Wierd, huh? I'm equally annoyed by websites with fake personalities that run them. Like Hemos- he's really written by a team of marketroids ;) I'd like to state for the record that Rob is not Bill Gates. Honest.

Comments

Re:Slashdot

[dattaway]

The clues might be who's surfing your home web pages. Are they just employees of the company? I have seen many HTTP GETs for robots.txt from microsoft.com. I'm not sure if they watch me or have their own search site (I am a boring person and have nothing:)

tide76.microsoft.com - - [20/Jun/1999:05:26:59 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 317
tide73.microsoft.com - - [21/Jun/1999:20:56:10 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 317
tide77.microsoft.com - - [21/Jun/1999:23:59:47 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 304 -
tide72.microsoft.com - - [23/Jun/1999:14:56:47 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 317
tide76.microsoft.com - - [23/Jun/1999:20:50:39 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 304 -
tide77.microsoft.com - - [24/Jun/1999:04:00:11 -0500] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 317

Good Point, bad example.

[iago]

The Blair Witch Project was produced by a bunch of film students at the University of Central Florida on virtually no budget. The film has been showing around for a couple of months. For example, the film was shown at the Florida Film Festival a few months ago (Where I was fortunate enough to see it.) And it lives almost up to expectations. The official release of this film was today. What you people have to realize is that this film was an art movie and the kids who made it never really expected it go this far.

I know several people who have made websites about this movie. They are all UCF students who have also seen the movie. They are not iflm studios or the makers of the film. If you want an example of 'astroturfing' look at DIVX, Microsoft, or Disney.

I believe in this case, the author of the article at Salon was waiting to use this particular topic in context. Unfortunately, he picked a very, very poor example.

iago,

Hemos is a team of marketdroids?

[kijiki]

I always thought he was an AI, running on a old C64 in rob's basement, bent on world domination!

Is astroturf more effective than just marketing?

[hanway]

It seems to me that, with current Internet culture, if you took an astroturf campaign and simply acknowledged that you had a financial interest in whay you're hyping instead of trying to keep it a secret, you'd still generate positive buzz. (Assuming that there are any redeeming qualities in what you're hyping. In the end, all the commercials and astroturf in the world would never have helped something as poorly conceived as DIVX.)

Look at how people still get excited whenever whoever currently owns the ashes of the Amiga announces this year's flavor of vaporware. (Hmm. I think my opinion on that issue is showing.) Or the following that Babylon 5 got before it was ever in production because J. Michael Strwhatshisname (the producer) took the time to post to Usenet.

On the net, there's the illusion that everyone is on equal footing, and just the fact that an insider dealing with a movie or new computer is participating in the same forums as you generates positive buzz in itself. That is, as long as people don't feel like they're being talked down to, and that's exactly what fake hype does by being deceptive about its origins, so it's actually riskier than being honest.

Slashdot

[DzugZug]

I wonder how many /. postings had similar motivation. I wonder if any companies have people monitoring the coments and trying to shape the way conversation goes.

It's probably more likely on sites like deja but just a thought

Who planted the Salon story?

[Jim Winstead]

You have to wonder who it was from which studio that started this rumor about Blair Witch Project's marketing. (Well, okay, it was obviously Gordon Paddison at New Line Cinema, based on the quote in the second paragraph.)

But it wouldn't be at all surprising if it was sparked by Artisan Entertainment (distributors of Blair Witch Project).

It's hardly negative PR.

Hollywood people are silly.

I can relate -- sort of

[wub]

Back in March I started a website that hosts user reviews/linux info/general info, etc for Transmonde laptops. http://transmonde.geek.net/ A small company in CA, good product, known for supporting Linux, etc. I started it so that people like me could have more independant information about their laptops instead of reading reviews in big magazines and only relying on their website. You might call it a user-group.

Anyway, a few months ago, some people started getting suspicious of me. I would get e-mail asking if I owned stock in the company, if I worked for them, etc. Transmonde just seems too good to be true. :( There was a thread on usenet about me -- questioning my position in the whole thing. I have not received a single review from anyone ever since that happened. I don't honestly know if it's because of what was said in the thread on comp.sys.laptops or not, but have suspicions.

Later on (in May/June), I was called a marketing ploy! I don't know what possessed me, but I put up my webcam and gave posted the URL for it, I directed them to a URL that they could look me up as a student of a university in MN (how could a company fake that?), I wrote up an "about me" page as well explaining who I was and why I bought a laptop from Transmonde. I don't know what people think of me anymore, maybe I shouldn't even care; I almost think my credability is damaged forever to the comp.sys.laptops people.

Just sharing my not-so-similar experience.

The moral: Your word is meaningless, get over it.

- Jess