Boing Boing Gadgets was recently the victim of an overzealous comment spammer . Commenter “MGOODE08″ was noticed repeatedly posting comments which just happened to always mention the Motorola Krave. This tactic might have gone unnoticed if used sparingly, but MGOODE08 overdid it, writing loads of comments, all with similar (and laughable) wording.
For example:
I’m so glad my boss isn’t like that! I’m working with Motorola right now, and became a huge fan of the Krave (motorola.com/krave). I especially like the full touch screen display and html web browser. It’s awesome!
and:
Oh man this looks awesome! I hope they release a version for the Krave by Motorola. Ever since I started working with Motorola I have became a huge fan of the phone (motorola.com/krave). With a full list of features, like a full touch screen, I can’t stop obsessing over it.
This practice is known as “Astroturfing“, a name for a public relations campaign which creates the (false) impression of being spontaneous grassroots behavior. MGOODE08 gets around too. CrunchGear reports on some astroturfing going on at their site, and a Google search for “Ever since I started working with Motorola” turns up over a thousand results.
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
I mentioned this on Techcrunch too, but I don’t think this is astroturfing.
Although it is a hideously stupid way of trying to create some hype, the guy does disclose he works for Motorola.
Wiki’s definition of astroturfing:
The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event.
He’s not disguising his role within the company.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
And some people wonder why we hate most ad people….
November 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
This was a widely used strategy for the Obama campaign. There are thousands of comments and blogs that were identical in nature. It was very successful at conveying that 90% of the public was behind Obama, when it turned out to only be 51%.
November 26th, 2008 at 4:20 pm