It was at this point SPOnG took serious action. The world of Internet news reporting is a strange place. A place where initiative and telephones seemingly donÂ’t exist. Ignoring these norms however, we set about combining the Internet with telephony, all held together with a smattering of initiative. And hereÂ’s what we found out.
Nosing around the site led us to the legend, “This site hosted for Microsoft by Global Market Research Group” hidden away in the notes. Hitting Global Market Research Group’s homepage led us to a contact, going by the name of Scot Astor.
Speaking to Scot Astor was a slightly strange experience. He sounded a little startled, perhaps uneasy. Is the survey currently running commissioned by Microsoft? “I can tell you that yes, yes it is,” asserted Astor. Next question – So the wording in the survey, the language used is all direct form Microsoft? “Yes of course,” we were told, “Microsoft has approved everything, including the wording.”
Right then, things didn’t add up. Why? Well, as we explained to Scot Astor, we showed it to someone close the Xbox project and they said they’d never heard of it, going as far as to call the language used “laughable.” It was at this point that the story changed. “It’s not through Microsoft directly; the survey is commissioned by a third-party software company working directly with Microsoft. And Microsoft has approved the survey in its entirety.” Which of course opened up the question of which third-party?
“I cannot give you that information,” Astor told us. “What I can do is ask the company to contact you directly.” We left contact details, but no-one called.
I totally skipped this sentence ^^''