Microsoft Pays Bloggers to Tout MS Slogan 339
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."
Nothing unusual (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
My post. (Score:4, Funny)
Click here to get to their "post your own story" page. http://peopleready.federatedmedia.net/prpost [federatedmedia.net]
"I knew my business was people-ready the day I dumped all Microsoft products and switched to linux. No more worries about people complaining about viruses in emails or attachments, no more rebooting."
The response page:
" Thanks!
Thanks for posting! We'll give your post a quick once-over and get it up on the site shortly. "
Somehow, I'm skeptical.
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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
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Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:4, Insightful)
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?"
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this what's been happening in most magazines now for years?
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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My heart broke a long time ago.
Torben
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And, since I used the preview button, I can't even believe my own comment.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:4, Informative)
It's a case of getting paid for letting Microsoft quote them saying the "people ready" slogan.
See this link [valleywag.com].
Easy Way To Counteract That (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Easy Way To Counteract That (Score:5, Funny)
(*) $100 dollars have been transferred to your Swiss bank account. Also, it's "drive" not "push".
- Microsoft
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Re:Easy Way To Counteract That (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it turns out that money is our most important asset. People are ninth. Carbon paper is eighth.
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Integrity demands crying foul immediately (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Integrity demands crying foul immediately (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Integrity demands crying foul immediately (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, you know those commercials were two people meet in a checkout line, one of them coughs and the other starts up on this spiel praising the virtues of product x? Imagine that not being a commercial anymore. Millions of independent contractors work as "product evangelists", working hard to track down the people with jobs and create situations where they might provide a personal witness of how wonderful the product is. It's a mixture of stagecraft and spycraft, dressing like and passing for a jobber, speaking the gospel without coming across like just another evangelist.
Sick, scary future, right? Well, that's already happening in trendy hotspots. Marketing scumfucks pay beautiful people to be seen talking about and enjoying new products to start a buzz.
The CIA has robot assassin drones (i.e. Predator), PRAVDA proves more accurate than the New York Times, we've got slug-hunting robots that power themselves by digesting animal flesh, you do more time for copyright violation than murder, Russian spies are getting offed with radioactive poisons, we've got thought-controlled robotic limbs, voice recognition computers, several variations on the original Metaverse concept, the environment is on the verge of collapse, the US is discredited and reviled as a world power, the White House was overtly stolen by thugs who openly laugh at the law, corporations are gathering more power than ever... as much cyberpunk as I read as a kid, I never actually expected to be living in a cyberpunk future. I wanna be a street samurai.
Everything (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:How is it different from what Google does? (Score:5, Informative)
Now, placing ads on your site is something completely different. It's clearly not part of the bloggers opinion, nor is it hard to distinguish it from the real news you're reading. In this case, the line is not blurred, it's simply gone.
Awesome slogan (Score:5, Funny)
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ethics are easy if your wealthy, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Ethics are easy if your wealthy, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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 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.
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.
Re:Ethics are easy if your wealthy, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean, a trip to Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, California ? Isn't that a tad late ?
Or a trip with Paris ? Isn't that a tad dangerous ?
Oh, I agree, a tad lame this is. Still
Re:Awesome slogan (Score:5, Funny)
It wouldn't fly, most people would have been worried about how many have gone there before them, particularly after the whole jail sentence.
Big f-ing deal (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Makes you think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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You should trust a blogger not to do these things, and immediately remove the ones you know that did do it.
The solution is NOT to try and take away the temptation of the money. The solution is to ASK them to reject it, and if possible use your own 2c of reading eyes to prevent them from doing it.
Looks like it worked. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Looks like it worked. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yea, it worked. I can totally imagine thousands of Slashdotters storming Microsoft with "damn, get me some of that people-ready business software!".
Truth is Microsoft marketing sucked for nearly 12 years now. They're totally clueless about how to advertise even their good products (such as Office 2007, which is a great piece of software*).
*Microsoft paid me $100 to post this.
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Now I've heard the slogan, and no doubt this will increase hits to their site, people linking to them, PageRank, etc.
However I completely disagree that their marketing is horrible.
Marketing is arguably more important than making a quality product. Marketing isn't just the ads you see on TV. It the deals you strike with vendors and the like, and whether ethical or not, their marketing has been EXTR
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Wait a minute... (Score:4, Informative)
Where's the scandal here? There's no mention of Microsoft forcing these guys to say that they weren't being paid, and doing something like this is up to the personal ethics of the individual blogger, surely?
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This is just showing that bloggers really are no different to the traditional press - they are just as easily bought.
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That its posted on this site as news....
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nobody is forcing you to believe everything you read on the internet, after all
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and astroturf isn't real grass.
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the term astroturfing pejoratively describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous public reactions to a politician or political grouping, product, service, event, etc. by many diverse and distributed individuals acting of their own volition, when in fact the efforts are centrally coordinated.
Microsoft didn't even try and keep this secret. It was fully public and the bloggers had every opportunity to state that they were acting on Microsoft's behalf.
parent is not a troll...mods wake up (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing wrong with writing advertisement (Score:5, Insightful)
What IS moraly wrong is presenting it as a personal opinion; that's verbal prostitution. Publishing it on the web would be indecent exposure.
MS sits back and watches (Score:5, Insightful)
PRB = Public Relations Bullsh*t (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe that's the People-Related Business they're talking about.
People-ready business (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Why can I practically hear the Apple "switch" background music chimes when I read Slashdot these days?
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You're in denial if you think Microsoft is dying.
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I know a fair number of system integrators (i.e. hardware vendors that also offer you complete sets). They get some "gentle" pressure into their backs from MS to push Vista instead of XP, and the policy of MS that you may use an older versi
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" signed long long int catchpahrase_rating;"
afterall we would need a very large negative number to rate "money^H^H^H^H^Hpeople ready busines"
Last I checked... (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely the Salshdot crowd has some ideas (Score:5, Funny)
Business ready to fleece the people?
If we're talking Vista, maybe it means business with some people-sized holes where the customers should havebeen inserted?
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Business ready to fleece the people?
Is this another opportunity to mention vivoleum [youtube.com]?
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Actually I'm being blatantly paid-off to tout this shit (literally): The Wipe-Ready Business [wipeready.com]. Is your business wipe-ready?
Unfortunately I can't claim the credit for this masterpeice. :)
I'm Secretary of State, (Score:2, Funny)
People-driven business means: (Score:5, Funny)
(The BS bingo blurb is courtesy of the DailyWTF)
What if... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Support by trashing? (Score:2)
People Ready??? (Score:2)
Bloggers != Journalists (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A List ? (Score:2)
Been done. (Score:2)
They manage it on slashdot as well... (Score:2)
This part has "PR shill" written all over it. No tech would write this.
The slashdot editors might want to pay a little more attention to the stories they accept. I'll admit that this one is hardly the worst, but it's less visible than normal, which makes the story almost believable (instead of the guerilla marketing campaign it in fact is)
Collective noun (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the collective noun was "a crock of bloggers".
PRB (Score:5, Insightful)
People Ready Business = DRM shop (Score:2)
Ready to restrict people with hideous DRM and milk them for every cent they'll spend. Ready to take on slogans from the people at large because their own ad execs can no longer stomach the BS long enough to produce a slogan.
Michael Arrington got confused. (Score:2)
It looks like Michael Arrington got confused. He's written his MS assignment about Slashdot instead of his site!
Reverse Slashdot effect (Score:2)
Then post an exact copy of that text on every blog, forum and community we can find. Link to it everywhere. Have that be the #1 hit in every search engine. When people search for Microsoft and "People-Ready Business" let them find exactly Microsoft represents.
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Recently Microsoft unveiled their new slogan, "People-ready business". They have asked bloggers to write about what exactly this means to them. As someone who has grown up on Microsoft technologies, not only in the home, but in the workplace as well, I feel that I am very qualified to write about what this means to me.
Not everyone is a computer genius, and ever for those with strong technical skills, information technology is e
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More and more people seem to invest a huge interest into blogs. They accept it as sincere opinion. We dismiss an ad because it is paid for and biased. When we see blogs that are paid for, we assume the opinions are sincere, when really they are deceptively biased.
I'm not sure the average user will Google for "Peopl
People-ready business (Score:2)
- Running around naked is not good.
- Shades are very important.
- I can not kill or lethally wound people for no good reason.
- If a human will not believe, peel off hand.
- I can't say "negative" and "affirmative". I gotta say "no problemo" or "hasta la vista" or "chill out". Or randomly permutated combinations.
The Terminator
Slashdot, too. Let's take a day off... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [itwire.com.au] 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.
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Prior art! (Score:2)
I'd sue.
Cue in "soviet russia" (Score:2)
Oh my God! MS is turning communist!
What happens if you reverse it? (Score:3, Insightful)
So the slogan is just a restatement of the normal situation. It's spin.
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/. contributing (Score:3, Funny)
I for one, will not help contribute to this meaningless mentioning of the phrase "people ready business" in slashdot, which is helping microsoft get it's phrase "people ready business" higher up in google's rankings, and into people's heads...
That's all I have to say about that....
ps..... "people ready business"