Ronald, how could you?
According to the Strategic Public Relations blog, there's a fake blog running on TypePad that's there to support some dumb Super Bowl advertisement.
If you link to the site, I suggest using the text "fake blog" because, you know, some search engines care about that stuff. :-)
You can also read Scoble's Shel's take on The Red Couch:
... Fake blogs have neither. In fact, they demonstrate that no one is passionate enough about the product inside the company so they had to hire an ad agency to do a fake blog to try to get bloggers to link up.
Dyson wouldn't need to do a fake blog to sell their vacuum cleaners, would they?
Posted by jzawodn at February 07, 2005 12:26 AM
Theres an auction up for the fake fry:
http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/89133085?aucview=0x23
I've actually been seeing many more fake blogs lately, so this wasn't too suprising at all..
Fake blogs fly in the face of why blogs are created in the first place, to create an honest, direct dialogue with customers. It shows a clear misunderstanding of the medium and will payoff with tons of negative buzz online for our fake fry friends.
"Liz and I are amazed at the traffic this blog has gotten. But I'm getting overwhelmed by the volume of comments coming in."
Total comments to date: 15
Total trackbacks to date: 2
Total spam based trackbacks: 1
Yeah, I can see where they can be overwhelmed. No, wait, what's the opposite of over again?
(I'm lovin' it.)
Kinda funny that the site mentioned in the commercial, lincolnfry.com, redirects to http://lincolnfry.yahoo.com/. Is Yahoo! working with McD's on this?
If I had to guess, I'd think they're using Yahoo for hosting because of the possibly high traffic levels you'd expect from a Stupid Bowl ad.
"Fake blogs" from known sources such as Macdonald's may be a problem, but from what I've seen, these are outnumbered 10-to-1, 20-to-1 by fake blogs which operate more anonymously.
If you check through Technorati with the names of popular digital content (software, movies, etc) you'll find tons of blogs which advertise things they don't own, or which use the names of popular digital content to increase their search engine rankings for varied purposes.
(I search several blog engines each day with term "macromedia", so I end up seeing dozens of fake blogs every day.)
I guess the big issue in this case isn't the fakiness, but rather the potential boomerang effect...?
Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support
Kevin Dugan>"Fake blogs fly in the face of why blogs are created in the first place..."
Why would anyone assume any blog is authentic, by this standard?
Why would I assume that Kevin Dugan used his real name for the comment he posted above?
Why is McDonald's use of a blog for marketing any different from someone who has professional skills marketing himself or his wares on a blog?
I think many blogs are fake (written by pretenders/marketeers/etc), don't you?
Randy
Well I for one can vouch that $blog is completely legitimate and that $blog_author is not in the back pocket of $company_name.
Will Fake Blog Directories (like Blog Catalog, Blog Explosion, etc.) come out so we can visit lots of fake blogs all at once, during one evening when there isn't nothing else to not do?
How about Fake Wikis, Fake RSS Feeds, Fake CyborgLogs?
I wish they'd make Fake Television Commercials that only pretended to interrupt programs, or Fake Telemarketing Calls that didn't actually ring your phone.
I'll bet the marketing company was surprised by the small reception.
"But it's a meme! We created a meme, right? Shouldn't we be getting a billion hits?!"
Jeremy,
Thanks for the link to Naked Conversations. Atually we have written a good deal about character blogs and other fakes in te book. But just for the sake of vanity, the post you linked to was written by me, not that other guy.
Happy New Year,
