"Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of the computer industry."

--James Plamondon, Lead Microsoft Evangelist

Summary: Identity theft, AstroTurfing for Microsoft, or both?

DETECTIVE GOBLIN has just uncovered something quite fascinating.

Microsoft's Twitter AstroTurf is divided into two kinds:

1. The type where Microsoft sends those jobs to other companies [1, 2] and people who do this for Microsoft from a distance (similar to pro-Microsoft letters from dead people, courtesy of CAGW, ATL (Jonathan Zuck), and probably DCI);
2. The type where Microsoft, without disclosure, has its own employees mock competitors like GNU/Linux in Twitter.

A few hours ago, one of our readers mentioned his "challenging of a Twitter user called Optionetics." To tell the story as he told it: "They were promoting Microsoft stock almost exclusively and after further investigation and challenge it transpired that they were actually imposters, using the name of an innocent company to try and appear legitimate. The real company (as a result of my challenge) made a complaint to Twitter and the account has been disabled. Optionetics actually is a Stock market education company and does not give out stock tips ever. I wonder what the imposters motives were for promoting MS stock under a false name? Could there be a nasty shock instore for shareholders when the next set of sales figures are released? Ill let your readers decide what the motives could be."

“It is a serious problem , which is further exacerbated by Microsoft's ownership of or affiliation with a lot of the American press.”In his analysis of the real Microsoft, Bill Parish wrote about how Microsoft uses major publications to perpetuate its homebred myth of infinite success. It is a serious problem , which is further exacerbated by Microsoft's ownership of or affiliation with a lot of the American press. These points were thoroughly defended before, so further discussion is not so necessary right now.

Microsoft is now evolving in an age where a lot of influence is exerted in the Web. Microsoft is bribing bloggers and gaming all sorts of Web sites because this type of practices are the way Microsoft competes.

For details about this latest revelation about Twitter activity, see this first post containing examples of twits:

For your enjoyment, heres a selection of their “gems of wisdom” from Twitter:

“Stock Tips of the day. MSFT is releasing a new Xbox, Windows 7, cloud computing. Buy in now before the stock goes up! Way up!”

“Microsoft Stores to Include Games, Xbox Goodies, and Software! Investors love this! A hot BUY op!”

“Show your support for #Microsoft by buying MSFT stocks.”

“Secret tech stock that you must own right now. MSFT (#Microsoft)”

“I’m buying MSFT stocks right now. My analysts forecast it at $24.”

And here is the followup.

Now it appears we have an answer, as this comment was left by the real company Optionetics:

Hi all,

Thanks for posting this to the blog. I’m actually with Optionetics, which has done investor education for 15 years.

We NEVER do stock tips and investment advice like @optionetics has done. That’s illegal. We only provide education and tools to teach people how to increase trading profit and protect downside risk.

We’re currently talking with Twitter so we can take back our company name from this impersonator. Thanks for asking the important questions!

We’re just diving into Twitter now as a company. You can follow me at @AKatOptionetics, or http://twitter.com/AKatOptionetics

Aaron

So it appears our Microsoft promoter Optionetics is not all they seem. I hope this matter gets resolved.

We leave it for readers to decide if Microsoft could be involved in this. ⬆