Nvidia Pro-posters

Did Nvidia hire an army of message-board sock-puppets?
Nvidia stands accused of hiring online actors to create dozens of personae in online forums, where they won gamers' trust by talking about subjects unrelated to Nvidia's products, and then splurged in an orgy of sock-puppet boosterism of Nvidia's stuff.

Consumerist has notes on its ongoing investigation into the "Manchurian Fans" scandal. A former employee of AEG, a firm that specializes in tricking people into thinking that its employees are regular users who talk up products because they plain like them, has been hired by Nvidia, but he won't answer Consumerist's questions. Nvidia's PR person won't return their calls either.

It looks pretty grim for Nvidia: I hope that if they have something to say in their defense that they say it soon, because it really looks like they're just waiting for this to blow over.

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

Link

Update: Ryan sez, "The Penny Arcade post linked to in that article was a follow-up to their earlier post where they were basically accusing Electronic Arts of doing the exact same thing to promote some of their crappier games."

Update 2: Mike sez, "Back when I was desperate to get out of retail, I once interviewed for a 'web content' job. During the interview, I learned it wasn't so much web content as going into internet chat rooms and guerilla marketing this guy's audio speaker company. As a journalist (and, of course, a gamer), I thought that was pretty crazy, and told him so. 'Don't you think people will rebel against you invading their, albeit virtual, space just to sell your product?' I asked. His defense was something I will never forget. With a straight face, he pointed out that it wasn't that hard a sell: 'Hell, I heard about guys picking up little twelve year old girls on chat rooms. If they can get little girls to meet them in real life just from a chat room, you better believe we'll be able to sell speakers.' It was the first time that, by the end of the job interview, I no longer wanted the job."

Well, I've yet to see this happen on any of the Gamespy forums I moderate, of course I can see the user's IP addresses and spot out any discrepancies. (Besides, there's only a handful of long-term users on my forums and some of them have met each other in real-life).

...but if I ever saw this happening on the boards I administer then someone's got a date with the ban-hammer

They do this stuff in bars too, where they pay hot chicks to just sit and drink certain brands of beverages or ask you to buy them certain types of drinks in an attempt to influence people...

z33driver wrote:

They do this stuff in bars too, where they pay hot chicks to just sit and drink certain brands of beverages or ask you to buy them certain types of drinks in an attempt to influence people...

In Korea they're called "Drinky Drink Girls", they'll come over barely dressed and rub up on you asking you to buy them a drink, suggest a hard drink for you, and they get a soda. After about $30.00+ of drinks for the night they move onto the next guy...never spending a penny.

Pleanty of guys get married to these girls.

Welcome to the internet.

W3bbo wrote:

Well, I've yet to see this happen on any of the Gamespy forums I moderate, of course I can see the user's IP addresses and spot out any discrepancies.

Would a more professional viral-marketing outfit spoof the ip address? The B-band provider would be just another part of their identity. Verizon, Bulldog, Tiscali etc.. Along with browser & OS etc.

And another thought...

Any viral marketers in the Coffeehouse?


Won't reply till later, gotta clean my Kitchen with that new Cif power spray. You get amazing results.

eagle wrote:

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

This simply proves that there are way too many stupid people in the world.

I don't care how long someone has been posting in a particular forum, I'm not going to rush out to buy something just becasue they say it's great.

Heywood_J wrote:

I don't care how long someone has been posting in a particular forum, I'm not going to rush out to buy something just becasue they say it's great.

Then why else would you buy something?

"Reviews" websites? They might have been receiving payments for favorable reviews
"Real-life people"? They might have been paid to say that
"Adverts"? Often deceptive

And so on.

Has anybody watched BloodRayne? It's such an amazing movie!!!!


This message was bought to you by the crunchy corp association.

Itineraries: Hotel Reviews Online: In Bed With Hope, Half-Truths and Hype

Business travelers like Michelle Madhok used to consider online hotel reviews a reliable reference.

Whenever she traveled to an unfamiliar city, Ms. Madhok said, she clicked on sites like TripAdvisor.com or IgoUgo.com, where she found thousands of ratings written by real guests.

Or so she thought.

Ms. Madhok, the president of the Internet shopping site Shefinds.com, said she was now becoming increasingly skeptical of what she saw online. "I read reviews of hotels that I've stayed at," she said. "And they're just wrong. I wonder if they've really stayed at the hotel."

On a recent visit to a spa in New York, she says, her doubts turned to disbelief: the resort was discreetly offering a free reflexology treatment to customers who posted a positive review of the establishment on Citysearch.com. "It was very troubling," she said.

As Web sites that publish guest hotel reviews become more influential, some hotels — from bed-and-breakfasts to large resorts — are going to greater lengths to ensure that their properties are rated highly. Their efforts, analysts say, range from encouraging guests to write flattering reviews to, in extreme cases, submitting bogus recommendations to Web sites.

Why is this topic on Channel9? What could it possibly bring to the table for people who are interested in what Microsoft is doing right now?

It's about Forums on the Internet and C9 is a forum on the Internet....