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As you would expect from the same great advertisement minds that brought you Zune squirting, I present to you Microspotting. Note: I am not bashing Microsoft overall, just their advertising.
Example of Marketing Genius
The website was already 2 years old, but it was only recently famous when it posted an interview about a rags to riches man who liked the fact he could go to the bathroom whenever he wanted to.
He can go to the bathroom anytime he wants to. That's why you should join him at Microsoft.
The sad part is that it is a thinly veiled attempt at astroturfing.
Here are the ways it attempts to look like a grassroots movement.
- It doesn’t look corporate.
- Its a Wordpress blog.
- Ironically it is hosted on Dreamhost which uses Linux technology. A simple reverse DNS lookup shows the IP address resolving to “apache2-heavy.snake.dreamhost.com”.
- At the bottom of the website: “The perspectives shared on this site expressed herein are personal opinions.”
And here are the ways that betrays its ulterior motives.
- At the bottom of the website: “Copyright © 2007–2009 Microsoft Staffing Marketing.”
- It uses the official Microsoft.com nameservers: ns1.msft.net etc.
- The domain registrant and contacts are exactly the same as Microsoft.com
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Hey there — this is Ariel. I run Microspotting.
I’m genuinely confused about the accusation of astroturfing, which implies that there’s a level of deceit going on. There’s no “thin veil” here: Microspotting is a marketing website run by a marketing manager.
How can you tell? Because on my about page, I say: “I work with the Staffing Marketing team.” If that’s astroturfing, I’m doing a piss-poor job of it.
The Microsoft footer doesn’t “betray” anything because … it’s totally not a secret. This is a site run and operated by a Microsoft employee (me!) to promote Microsoft. Granted, I come from an entertainment journalism and blogging background, so the site doesn’t look or sound like your average corporate marketing site … but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to trick anyone. That’s how I write. That’s why they hired me.
As for WordPress, I address using Microsoft competitor tools on my about page. Again, it’s not really a secret. You can see the flickr photos and youtube videos right there on the homepage.
All this is to say — you can hate on Microsoft and its advertising all you want … but I’m not sure it’s fair to act like it’s a big GOTCHA! to catch a marketing site being, well, a marketing site.
Hello Ariel thanks for replying. I don’t hate Microsoft at all, in fact, some of their products are very good.
But sometimes the advertising is baffling. It is a bit confusing that half of your website presents a non-corporate front while the other half is: ie. your website being allowed to use the official Microsoft DNS servers while being hosted at Dreamhost instead of on the Microsoft campus.
As I am not really a marketing expert, I simply described what I observed. And maybe this is a new trend of marketing where it looks like an employee’s own sideproject, but has disclaimers so it doesn’t completely backfire upon discovery when you do more traditional viral marketing.
> in fact, some of their products are very good.
Name ONE. Name ONE. ONE. 1. UNO.
Mike Mathews: Look Joe, it just happened.
Joe Hallenbeck: Sure, sure, it just happened. Could happen to anybody. It was an accident, right? You tripped, fell on the floor and accidently stuck your dick into my wife. “Oops, I’m sorry, Mrs. H, I guess this just isn’t my week”.
You really sound retarded – oh my,some pointless website from microsoft that nobody will use is using my photography? Because nobody gives a shit.
Your writing style is prepubescent.
Good day.
Seriously, what the hell, it is like they gave you a pack of crayons, you ate them, and then shit them out onto a web page:
http://www.microspotting.com/spreadthelove
You’ve included a fucking intranet share //spreadthelove link on a webpage, and make a quaint remark about how this will only work for people on intranets.
Don’t you cumdumpsters learn about internal mailing lists? And stop writing in a six year old voice. Get some self respect.
Why is the site owned by Zed Shaw (programmer drama queen) according to whois? What is his connection in all of this?
A simple Google search reveals that he’s just another attention whore.
You write “entertainment journalism” as if that means something. The two have nothing to do with each other unless you write exposés about lies and deceit behind the scenes. You are — most charitably — a “reporter”. You are by your own admission a marketer. You therefore couldn’t have less to do with “journalism” if you were making espresso for minimum wage at some coffee chain. You work in a profession that has helped rape the bloodied corpse of journalism. Don’t forget it.
Nice attention-seeking blog post, and of course your accusations of astroturfing are unoriginal, and wholly wrong.
An orchestrated campaign of paid staffers making anonymous comments in support of your position – to give the impression of a grassroots movement – is astroturfing.
Secretly setting up, or funding, a concerned citizens group to run a campaign on your behalf is astroturfing.
Setting up a marketing site that expressly says the author works at Microsoft, that advertises careers at Microsoft, that clearly states is owned and run *by Microsoft* is not even halfway to astroturfing.
Amazing the journalistic lengths you went to to uncover this deception!
Who cares if it’s a scam or not. What about it being totally ridiculous.
Microsoft is a better place to work than McDonalds. Gee, who would have thought that.
He can go to the bathroom whenever he pleases.
Talking about taking a piss … i’m pretty sure he was making fun of you Ariel.
Question: are there any jobs in IT in the US, where you have to get a piss permit? I don’t think so.
And dear Arial, if you want Microsoft to look like a nice place to work, perhaps the central corporate strategy needs to be different. Don’t treat us like idiots, with a site like this. Microsoft is a white collar mob company. If they want to buy you up, they’ll either pay a low price which you have to accept or they will destroy you. If you don’t use their products they will use legal threats of software patents to bully you into paying money. You guys bribe foreign government officials to ‘demand’ windows when a grassroots idealistisc movement is trying to provide these kids with laptops. Laptops that unfortunately for you guys run Linux.
People don’t love Google because they are ‘not evil’. They just don’t hate Google and associate it with working with for the devil because of it. You don’t have to be an angel, but not being evil is not some sort of magic trick. It’s mandatory. Otherwise the Einsteins will run and give the other country the atomic bomb.
And if you are in marketing, than that would be my primary goal. Make microsoft do something nice. Perhaps every friday or something.. .. i mean, being not evil, one day in the week, shouldn’t be too expensive? And it might make it easier to hire intelligent people.
I didn’t think of that. Yeah. Ariel, he was totally making fun of you.
Bonus, even a guy that ugly doesn’t want your dumb trig-face hanging around.
And I could add to the list of reasons why people don’t want to work at Microsoft, the fact that the intelligent people that _do_ work there, their work is merely patented and then put in the drawer. That talents of rockstars like Simon Peyton Jones is complete wasted for example. Some nice prototype.
I don’t know when it exactly happened. But Microsoft doesn’t innovate anymore. Perhaps they never did and I was just too young to realize back then that all the ‘innovative’ copy-catting was just external ip being bought in. There was a glimmer of hope for .NET but the decisions are all being made by the money-hungry moral-lacking non technical staff. Given the budget Microsoft has and their unique position, it is actually possible to just make a nice, sympathetic product that competes on quality alone and still make a buckload of money. But that requires a cultural change in Microsoft that I don’t see happening with angry monkey boy at the top.
Not that you will ever need to worry. The current ‘techniques’ of making money will pay your paycheck just fine. And if the ship will ever sink, you will know soon enough. The rats will fill their pockets and run first. And you’ll be left behind think if that random guy on the internet was right all along.
Calling that site astroturfing is a lot like calling the “Zune Social” site astroturfing. it’s obvious to anyone with the slightest intelligence that it’s a Microsoft marketing site, and even basically says so.
To Ariel: Part of the problem for Microsoft over the years has been how extremely ersatz their marketing fluff appears. Are we REALLY expected to believe that multicultural hipsters jump up and down in O-face ecstasy while listening to their zunes?
It looks to me like there are factions in Microsoft marketing that just don’t “get it” somehow, in a very deep and pervasive way. Of course, it’s quite possible that I (as a lunix geek since 1985) am not their target market.
Apple seems to be losing a lot of their “non-evil” image. And Windows 7 seems to have an amazing proportion of non-suck. But it’s looking more and more like Microsoft’s territory is shrinking, somehow, in some ill-defined fashion.
These are some great points you make, very interesting post! If you’d be interested, I’d love to hold an interview with you on my web 2.0 blog. Check it out and let me know if you’re interested – http://www.insidethewebb.com/