04.19.10
Microsoft PR Presented as ‘News’
Summary: The latest set of examples where articles in the press are actually Microsoft spin, sometimes sourced by former Microsoft employees whose job is to promote Microsoft
WE are occasionally warning that Microsoft deceives the public in ways that are scarcely understood by the vast majority of the public. For instance, many people believe that Bing has over 10% market share (and gaining), even though the reality is that Microsoft commands less than 5% of the global search market, despite investing heavily and losing over $2 billion per year, sometimes by literally paying companies to exclude Google (at Verizon for example [1, 2]). Microsoft’s search efforts have been pretty much dead in recent weeks, based on the fact that there is almost no news at all. It’s probably decaying and based on Google’s latest results, it failed to hurt Google in the pocket.
Google happens to be one of Microsoft’s biggest dangers at the moment not just because it controls access to a lot of information but because it’s a huge challenger to Microsoft’s cash cow, Microsoft Office. There is some media buzz about Google’s latest response to Office, which forces prices down but merely replaces one proprietary offering (Microsoft’s) with another (Google’s).
Based on this article from Forbes, Microsoft and its marionette called Yahoo! will participate in the turning of Twitter items into ads.
These tweets are to be “called out” as ads on top of search results on Twitter, much as sponsors can pay for listings atop rankings on search engines such as Google, Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo. That means Twitter users would see the new ads when they search broadly for topics being tweeted about.
We have already explained what Microsoft does at Twitter, under posts such as:
- Microsoft Twitter Bots, FTC Blowback, and Paid-for Vista 7 Glorification
- Are Microsoft Employees (Technical Evangelists) Using Spammers in Twitter?
- More Microsoft AstroTurfing (aka ‘Technical Evangelism’) in Twitter
- User “Microsoft Incentives” Wants to be Your Friend, Too
- Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf Continues
- Who is Pumping MSFT and Pimping Microsoft in Twitter?
- Does Microsoft Still Create Twitter Accounts for Guerilla Marketing?
- Microsoft’s AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
- Microsoft Offers Gentle Bribes to People Who Mention Vista 7 in Twitter
- Microsoft Was “Twitter’s First-ever Association with a Marketer”
- GE, Microsoft, Comcast and (Microsoft AstroTurf at) Twitter: Pact of Lies
- Microsoft Announces More SPAM and Bribery Tactics
- Microsoft Hires Federated Media for Twitter AstroTurfing
We have just discovered that another Microsoft-boosting blog has been created by IDG to generate endless Microsoft PR (e.g. [1, 2, 3]), including the fake “goodwill” and the schwag trips which are also described in a Microsoft-boosting Web site called Neowin:
During the tour Microsoft will demonstrate the new features of Windows 7 and Office 2010 on a bus. In January 2007 Microsoft set off on a Windows Vista coach tour that featured comfy leather recliners, wireless internet, Xbox 360s and free copies of Windows Vista.
IDG is still employing many Microsoft boosters (and GNU/Linux bashers) such as Shane O'Neill, who keeps promoting Microsoft about 80% of the time. Michael Gartenberg, a former Microsoft AstroTurfer on the company’s payroll, is still promoting Microsoft nearly 100% of the time. We wrote about him in posts such as:
- Michael Gartenberg’s AstroTurfing for Microsoft Takes ‘Entelligence’ Tag
- IDG Gives a Platform for Microsoft’s Familiar Attack Dogs (and Former Employees) to Smear GNU/Linux
- IDG Carries on Publishing Anti-GNU/Linux Rhetoric from Microsoft Evangelist in More Domains
- Paid Microsoft Slug Michael Gartenberg Does the OLPC Slog
- Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf Continues
- What is Microsoft Doing Inside the ‘Press’?
- Microsoft-Funded “Analysts” Fight Against the Truth
- Deceptive Vista 7 Advertising, Neglect, Bugs, and More Security Problems
- Microsoft is Losing to Google in Search and in Mobile (Linux)
Here is Gartenberg advertising Microsoft under the costume of “analyst” again. “Views expressed here are his own,” says the text at the bottom, but who are they kidding? This is a former Microsoft employee who pretends to be independent now that he promotes Microsoft endlessly. There is another person who is doing just that and his name is Andre Da Costa [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Here is the latest mentioning of Da Costa’s little Microsoft-boosting operation that gives him gifts and awards from Microsoft.
How many times have we seen bloggers who will write in the hope they receive a freebie from Microsoft? Have we not seen articles from people where its alleged they have received a free laptop from good old MS?
Microsoft is fooling the world by pretending to have received a lot of support from the public. Upon closer inspection, however, a lot of this public is in Microsoft’s pocket and it makes no disclosure to serve as a prior warning. Someone should. █
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Needs Sunlight said,
April 19, 2010 at 7:54 am
M$ PR presented as news, M$ marketing presented as research, M$ sales team presented as interns. That’s about got it covered.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:37 am
Some are called “ZDNet bloggers”.