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Saturday, August 3, 2013

My, that grass is rather green, isn't it

What does it mean when the only people who come out in support of something are those who keep saying things like "I work for X, but this is my own opinion, not theirs"? It just seems mighty odd. A technology, service, product, or other thing which could stand on its own merits should do it based on them.

In other words, if something is any good, then someone from the community at large will probably speak up about it. If, however, you only hear from the same half-dozen or so people who are unambiguously connected with the company which made it (while somehow claiming to not speak for them), what's going on there?

Back in the early days of Slashdot, people used to accuse Microsoft of "astroturfing". I never heard whether that was proven or not. However, there's no need for a time machine. I think there are still plenty of examples of it going on right now with the forums and companies of today.

I like the times when the ordinary people who worked for a company just shut up about it and let other people (users, customers, ...) do the talking about it, or let PR do their jobs and generally stayed out of it themselves.

The names may change, but the actions remain the same.