"AMD's role in Stealth Viral Marketing - Q&A" source ABT link inside

[MrK6]

Not could care less. Could NOT care less. Grammar, people...

Mein Gott, der Kapitän hat mich!*

*translation: My God, the captain got me!

 

[GaiaHunter]

Certainly possible that nv is still doing it as well, though they're at least smart enough to refrain from openly recruiting reviewers.

Wasn't that 6 years ago when appoppin wasn't a reviewer?

 

[bryanW1995]

It started in 2006, but in 2009 one of the actual viral marketers was an editor for ABT for a very short time. ir0x0r I think was his user name, I don't know his real name.

 

[WelshBloke]

Before this devolves again can someone define viral marketing and tell what's so bad about it all?

I've seen plenty of crappy videos on YouTube that the authors probably wanted to go viral. They were crappy but I don't see anything to get up in arms about.
What about supporting clans or lans, that viral marketing?

 

[gorobei]

Before this devolves again can someone define viral marketing and tell what's so bad about it all?

I've seen plenty of crappy videos on YouTube that the authors probably wanted to go viral. They were crappy but I don't see anything to get up in arms about.
What about supporting clans or lans, that viral marketing?

my general gist of the stealth marketing is that the company's surrogates go online posing as ordinary posters and use a few techniques to try to shape general perception of the product lines. usually it breaks down to:

1) play up maker A's unique features: regardless of whether anyone is actually interested in it(i.e. cuda, physx, 3d, multimonitor)
2) slow adoption of maker B's currently released products when maker A's is delayed: by building hype for upcoming product with unsubstantiated performance claims or pricing, create hysteria on secondary issues like power/noise/temp/tesselation, or just outright lying about benchmark optimizations/anisotropic filtering cheats/image quality.
3) maintain general fud or minimize bad press: have surrogates come in to a forum and make a bunch of posts that beg the question or inundate the sub-category with sensationalist topic titles.

the viral aspect is mostly in the rumor mongering, get enough people to see a false issue repeated on tech sites and it becomes real.

 

[WelshBloke]

my general gist of the stealth marketing is that the company's surrogates go online posing as ordinary posters and use a few techniques to try to shape general perception of the product lines. usually it breaks down to:

1) play up maker A's unique features: regardless of whether anyone is actually interested in it(i.e. cuda, physx, 3d, multimonitor)
2) slow adoption of maker B's currently released products when maker A's is delayed: by building hype for upcoming product with unsubstantiated performance claims or pricing, create hysteria on secondary issues like power/noise/temp/tesselation, or just outright lying about benchmark optimizations/anisotropic filtering cheats/image quality.
3) maintain general fud or minimize bad press: have surrogates come in to a forum and make a bunch of posts that beg the question or inundate the sub-category with sensationalist topic titles.

the viral aspect is mostly in the rumor mongering, get enough people to see a false issue repeated on tech sites and it becomes real.

See that isn't just what viral marketing is.

It's marketing that's spread by non normal (traditional) marketing means. This can just be word of mouth of regular people who are interested in something. Be it a funny video or some competition.
It doesn't have to have the sinister aspects that everyone in this thread keeps giving it. The problem is when it's given this aspect anyone identified as a viral marketeer is seen as someone who is trying to take over the forums, rather than a regular marketing guy with a smaller than normal budget.

 

[Grooveriding]

I took some time to read over most of that thread at abt, as well as some of the prior threads there that laid the fuel down for the bonfire that was lit under apoppin.

After having gone over it all I find myself feeling badly for him and how this has gone for him. If you look at those threads there you're left with the impression he was taken advantage of and goaded down this path by some unfortunate nvidia zealots over in that forum who got giddy over the idea of him slandering AMD and some posters here who they've never liked and never been able to overcome with their rhetoric.

There are some posts there of these individuals literally saying 'you should do it' , 'do it!' etc. Whatever happened to cause AMD to stop giving him review hardware laid the base of the fire under apoppin and these cowardly vultures swooped in and were the match to set him off and fan the flames. For them it was just a way to get their jollies seeing AMD and some individuals they can't handle dragged through the mud. For him it comes at the cost of jeopardizing the viability of his site and making a fool of himself.

However misguided his suspicions may be, I give him credit for having the courage to voice them and put something very real and of importance to him on the line for his beliefs. Contrasted to the snivelling, cowardly dirtbags who egged him on for their own perverse satisfaction, he at least shows some courage in his for the most part unfortunately misguided convictions.

Ultimately he made his choices though and having read over most of it, I feel he made some poor ones based on what he is using as evidence.

 

[bryanW1995]

I think we need to get back talking about video cards in the video card forum. Given the timing of this "news" (and I use the term very loosely given the age of these wild tales) it's pretty clear someone wanted to rain on the 7950 parade. (as if anything could - woot! for real bang per hard earned buck!)

Don't take this the wrong way, but you should probably stay out of this conversation. That is, unless you're actually a banned member using an alias or a shill for one camp or the other, in which case you're more than welcome to participate!

Seriously, you think that this thread was launched almost a week ago to rain on the parade of a 2nd tier card launch? On second thought, you should just stay out of this thread.

 

[sandorski]

See that isn't just what viral marketing is.

It's marketing that's spread by non normal (traditional) marketing means. This can just be word of mouth of regular people who are interested in something. Be it a funny video or some competition.
It doesn't have to have the sinister aspects that everyone in this thread keeps giving it. The problem is when it's given this aspect anyone identified as a viral marketeer is seen as someone who is trying to take over the forums, rather than a regular marketing guy with a smaller than normal budget.

I suspect that was the intent, but that's not how it played out, at least as far as the infamous Rollo was concerned. As I recall, here's basically what happened:

1) It was revealed that Stealth Marketing was occurring. Immediately many people didn't like the concept mainly because it seemed underhanded and made people suspicious of other Members recommendations/advice.

2) Before this, many people(myself included) were already very puzzled/suspicious about Rollo. He always had strange and unique "problems" with ATI Cards that mysteriously all disappeared when he switched to Nvidia Cards. Not only once, but 2 or 3 times he claimed to have tried differing ATI Cards and have the same strange issues with them. With that "experience" he constantly went from thread to thread repeating his claims and recommending an Nvidia Card despite no one else experiencing those problems and most website Reviews recommending otherwise.

3) AEG/Stealth Marketing by Nvidia revealed and Rollo insisted he was not involved. I don't recall how long his denials went on, but it seemed like a long time then, but many people suspected he was involved as that was the only explanation for his odd posting. IIRC though, others were exposed who were thought to be Nvidia Fans, but certainly not with the kind of stories being spread by Rollo. These outed AEG members beared the brunt of criticism while Rollo continued on and the suspicious members constantly followed him around raising their suspicions he was involved devolving thread after thread into giant cluster****s. People were Banned for not letting it go and devolving threads into huge flamefests over the issue.

4) Again my memory is a little sketchy, but it seemed like this went on for months, although it may just seem that way due to the sheer volume of discussion on the matter. Regardless, it was eventually revealed that he was indeed part of AEG. Given all the drama that had ensued during the whole thing, this revelation caused its' own ****storm and damaged the integrity of the whole Forum. IIRC, it took a few days after this to finally Perma-Ban him.

AEG/Stealth Marketing: Like said earlier, a lot of people didn't like the idea of it from the moment they heard of it. Rollo was the sum of all fears in that respect and he really tainted the concept so badly that even the accusation of it occurring causes a furor. See this thread for proof.

 

[Will Robinson]

I love how Rollo conveniently forgot to mention the wrecking of the video card forum at Rage3d by his alter ego "Jethro Bodine" or his attempts to do the same at The Tech Report by "Brian_S.
Instead he comes in here to basically stick his finger in the air to say.."Yup I did it."I had a good time" and you all should forgive me cause"I'm a family man now"
What a wanker.:thumbsdown:

 

[AnandThenMan]

However misguided his suspicions may be, I give him credit for having the courage to voice them and put something very real and of importance to him on the line for his beliefs.

I have a similar sentiment. But at the same time, believing whole heartily in something stupid is still just being stupid. Plus he is picking a fight with an "enemy" that can't be defeated, he is never going to somehow conquer the marketing initiatives of Nvidia or AMD, or anyone else given how he is going about it. You can't just start slinging the mud around and hope for the best, it's counter-productive. It reminds me of someone that goes for a job interview and all you do is badmouth your former employer. Even if what you are saying is 100% true, you will never get hired.

If he actually has substance behind his beliefs, then he simply needed to shut the hell up, gather the evidence, and write up a professional piece and let the chips fall where they may, let people make up their own minds. But as it stands now, it will be very difficult for anyone to take him seriously, he's coming across like a crazy man on the corner with the end of the world sign. Even if that guy is right, no one wants to listen to him. Approach and credibility is very important.

 

[ZimZum]

I suspect that was the intent, but that's not how it played out, at least as far as the infamous Rollo was concerned. As I recall, here's basically what happened:

1) It was revealed that Stealth Marketing was occurring. Immediately many people didn't like the concept mainly because it seemed underhanded and made people suspicious of other Members recommendations/advice.

2) Before this, many people(myself included) were already very puzzled/suspicious about Rollo. He always had strange and unique "problems" with ATI Cards that mysteriously all disappeared when he switched to Nvidia Cards. Not only once, but 2 or 3 times he claimed to have tried differing ATI Cards and have the same strange issues with them. With that "experience" he constantly went from thread to thread repeating his claims and recommending an Nvidia Card despite no one else experiencing those problems and most website Reviews recommending otherwise.

3) AEG/Stealth Marketing by Nvidia revealed and Rollo insisted he was not involved. I don't recall how long his denials went on, but it seemed like a long time then, but many people suspected he was involved as that was the only explanation for his odd posting. IIRC though, others were exposed who were thought to be Nvidia Fans, but certainly not with the kind of stories being spread by Rollo. These outed AEG members beared the brunt of criticism while Rollo continued on and the suspicious members constantly followed him around raising their suspicions he was involved devolving thread after thread into giant cluster****s. People were Banned for not letting it go and devolving threads into huge flamefests over the issue.

4) Again my memory is a little sketchy, but it seemed like this went on for months, although it may just seem that way due to the sheer volume of discussion on the matter. Regardless, it was eventually revealed that he was indeed part of AEG. Given all the drama that had ensued during the whole thing, this revelation caused its' own ****storm and damaged the integrity of the whole Forum. IIRC, it took a few days after this to finally Perma-Ban him.

AEG/Stealth Marketing: Like said earlier, a lot of people didn't like the idea of it from the moment they heard of it. Rollo was the sum of all fears in that respect and he really tainted the concept so badly that even the accusation of it occurring causes a furor. See this thread for proof.

5) After he was "perma-Banned" he was actually unbanned and allowed to come back. I think the rationale from the mods at the time was something like "since hes now out in the open, hes no longer a viral marketer". Then he went and got himself perma-banned again (rollo's gonna rollo). Dont know the specifics of the 2nd "perma-ban".

 

[Idontcare]

Don't take this the wrong way, but you should probably stay out of this conversation. That is, unless you're actually a banned member using an alias or a shill for one camp or the other, in which case you're more than welcome to participate!

Seriously, you think that this thread was launched almost a week ago to rain on the parade of a 2nd tier card launch? On second thought, you should just stay out of this thread.

AMDAscent was Rollo again. Banned again.

Expect a bit of repeated RBM activity from this guy for a while. Best offense is to report suspicious posts so the mods can do what they do with suspected RBM's. Don't escalate an encounter publicly, false accusations of RBM are just as damaging as false accusations of being a shill.

I love how Rollo conveniently forgot to mention the wrecking of the video card forum at Rage3d by his alter ego "Jethro Bodine" or his attempts to do the same at The Tech Report by "Brian_S.
Instead he comes in here to basically stick his finger in the air to say.."Yup I did it."I had a good time" and you all should forgive me cause"I'm a family man now"
What a wanker.:thumbsdown:

Well said.

 

[Creig]

Brian, you've become such a joke. I don't see why you haven't slunk off to hide in obscurity by now. You seem to have some sort of compulsive behavior disorder that compels you to return to these forums time after time, just so you can get in the last word. And another last word. And another. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

You've done far more harm than good to Nvidia over the years, yet you persist in your quixotic crusade against AMD. Give it up, man. It's over. Just take whatever shreds of dignity you think you still have and depart.

 

[wahdangun]

Couldn't he have just looked at somebody's IP address over there (since he's the site admin) and that user has the same userid over there as here?

BTW, I've been pm'ing apoppin over at ABT. I'm not as familiar with the ABT im system, and I accidentally clicked on a group of pm's that we sent back and forth about 18 months ago. He asked me not to post the contents so I won't, but suffice to say that things were just as bad btwn ABT and nvidia 18 months ago as they are today with ABT and AMD. He did send me a link to a thread where the gtx 470 issues were discussed at length, however, and that thread probably does a pretty good job of showing just how bad things were btwn ABT and nvidia at that time. Here's the link:

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21560

The more I look at this crap, the more I think that apoppin isn't crazy at all. At least, he wasn't crazy when he outed Rollo and he wasn't crazy when he outed AEG, so why is he crazy now when he accuses AMD of copying those (somewhat) successful tactics? And the more I think about it, the more I think that NV marketing is being smart about how they now manage relationships on the up-and-up instead of skulking around in the shadows like they used to. AMD marketing has generally looked much more competent to me in recent years, and honestly they don't need to skulk around in the shadows any more, anyway. They don't need to apologize for anything they've launched since 5870, and right now they have by far the best gpu lineup from top to bottom. I'm still not 100% convinced that there is some sort of vast conspiracy out here, but apoppin has been right many times in the past regarding these issues and I'm not willing to dismiss his claims just because his antagonistic posting style has ruffled a few feathers.

btw can you ask appopin why the hell he can know our ip address trough anandtech ?

 

[AnandThenMan]

You are bought and paid for chief.

You need to pay for a good shrink. A really, really good one.

 

[BFG10K]

btw can you ask appopin why the hell he can know our ip address trough anandtech ?

It looks like he was bluffing and didn't really have ATF IP addresses.

 

[Rifter]

can we just permaban rollo's whole IP block?

 

[Creig]

The more I look at this crap, the more I think that apoppin isn't crazy at all. At least, he wasn't crazy when he outed Rollo and he wasn't crazy when he outed AEG, so why is he crazy now when he accuses AMD of copying those (somewhat) successful tactics?

You are giving apoppin way too much credit here. Trust me, he didn't somehow 'out' Rollo and AEG all by himself. AEG news was broken by the consumerist, IIRC. And Rollo? Well, he was just broken. Period.

 

[blackened23]

can we just permaban rollo's whole IP block?

He's probably behind a VPN

 

[RobertR1]

Couldn't he have just looked at somebody's IP address over there (since he's the site admin) and that user has the same userid over there as here?

BTW, I've been pm'ing apoppin over at ABT. I'm not as familiar with the ABT im system, and I accidentally clicked on a group of pm's that we sent back and forth about 18 months ago. He asked me not to post the contents so I won't, but suffice to say that things were just as bad btwn ABT and nvidia 18 months ago as they are today with ABT and AMD. He did send me a link to a thread where the gtx 470 issues were discussed at length, however, and that thread probably does a pretty good job of showing just how bad things were btwn ABT and nvidia at that time. Here's the link:

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21560

The more I look at this crap, the more I think that apoppin isn't crazy at all. At least, he wasn't crazy when he outed Rollo and he wasn't crazy when he outed AEG, so why is he crazy now when he accuses AMD of copying those (somewhat) successful tactics? And the more I think about it, the more I think that NV marketing is being smart about how they now manage relationships on the up-and-up instead of skulking around in the shadows like they used to. AMD marketing has generally looked much more competent to me in recent years, and honestly they don't need to skulk around in the shadows any more, anyway. They don't need to apologize for anything they've launched since 5870, and right now they have by far the best gpu lineup from top to bottom. I'm still not 100% convinced that there is some sort of vast conspiracy out here, but apoppin has been right many times in the past regarding these issues and I'm not willing to dismiss his claims just because his antagonistic posting style has ruffled a few feathers.

All the exposing of AEG and breakdown was done on Beyond3D. Apoppin or anyone from AT had nothing to do with it. Rollo, ever desperate for attention jumped the gun and "outed" himself when the whole thing was unraveling quickly at B3D.

look on b3d for the thread if you want more details and proof. http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=26199

 

[railven]

On a more serious note:

ATF forum members: Instead of talking about what Rollo was doing seven years ago, you might want to ask IDontCare why he won't force employees of AMD and intel to put their company affiliation in their sigs.

Can ANYTHING these people post be anything but marketing? They would literally be fired if it became known they were posting anything negative about their employer and they are among you.

Apoppin has shown you that AMD viral has existed for years and the forms it takes. Look at the people protesting loudest in this thread and how they post about AMD in other threads.

You can turn a blind eye to all of this and pretend these people are just "enthusiastic fans", but I guarantee you no one is that enthusiastic about a part in a machine they own.

Food for thought.

Ironically he gave us a perfectly good reason why people shouldn't have to disclose their employers. I've given myself as an example multiple times. I trash my employer because of ethics and other things I feel they are poor on, and I never recommend them to family/friends - at the same time I don't wear a big "Hi my name is and I work @ XXXXX" ID because if they saw what I was saying, as honest as my opinion is of them, I'd be fired in a heart beat.

So, basically - Apoppin/This guy is asking that all employees identify themselves - if you ask me that is going to either chase said person away from the countless "X-Company shill" attacks to the self-censoring of their own opinions out of fear of being reported and disciplined, inadvertly MAKING THEM SHILLS.

 

[Martimus]

We put so much effort into cleaning up this forum from this type of flame fest, can't we just lock the thread?

We all have our oppinions on certain posters. I think that I have a good feel for it, since it is my job to survey people who are consistently trying to defraud in anyway they can. I really only see two posters in this forum who appear to be paid "viral marketers", although they actually act as one, so I doubt it is two seperate people. That said, I dont' really care. If people are paid to promote a product and bash a competitor, that is their business.

I would like to avoid these very stupid conversations. I know I had the option to not click on this link at all, and I did not until just now, but it upsets me that Keys felt the need to post this. If it was almost anyone else, I wouldn't have read it, but I respect Keys. This type of post serves no good purpose, other than financially for specific companies, which none of us should care about.

 

[Idontcare]

You are bought and paid for chief.

Must be tough to rationalize at times, I feel sorry for you.

I thought everyone knew this? Surely you didn't figure this out only just now?

It is so cute when the young ones realize for their first time that I am the puppetmaster, the grand daddy of viral marketing coordinators.

Its all true to, every bit of it. In some circles there are folks who consider 9/11 to be my best work. But I consider the gulf of tonkin to have been a far more challenging project. Still though, success was mine, as is always the case.

Wait till you see what I masterminded for you all this autumn, bought and paid for by global corp, naturally. :sneaky:

 

[Grooveriding]

I thought everyone knew this? Surely you didn't figure this out only just now?

It is so cute when the young ones realize for their first time that I am the puppetmaster, the grand daddy of viral marketing coordinators.

Its all true to, every bit of it. In some circles there are folks who consider 9/11 to be my best work. But I consider the gulf of tonkin to have been a far more challenging project. Still though, success was mine, as is always the case.

Wait till you see what I masterminded for you all this autumn, bought and paid for by global corp, naturally. :sneaky:

This is all true. The liberal infractions IDC lays down on me are just to keep up appearances, but I'll never be perm-banned as long as the royalty cheques keep rollling in.