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Microsoft up to their old tricks again

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vangace

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20051121...saz8g2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-

Over time, many of the facts about these tricks were revealed, and ethical considerations have essentially removed these practices from Microsoft's marketing strategies. But what about using the opposite approach—becoming the white hat? Think about tricks used in political campaigns where you set up a phony shop for your opponent and then use that front to make your opponent look like a complete idiot. If done correctly you come out smelling like a rose—a good guy
Thus we have the odd creation of a Microsoft-bashing site called Major Ynos, which lambastes Microsoft and the Xbox day after day, sight unseen (until a few days ago when its author actually got hold of one—suspicious in itself). When not bashing Microsoft, this guy extols the virtues of the Sony PlayStation 3, also sight unseen. Ynos is, of course, Sony spelled backwards.


Now this site is shilling for someone. The domain is registered by Domains by Proxy, so we can get no real details on who is doing the site. The supposed author is a guy named Mark Creig, who claims to be some sort of console expert and an "award-winning" journalist. There are zero images of this guy on Google and scant information about him. Any Google search shows him to be some pseudonymous character who is variously German or English or American.—
This fellow and his site were brought to my attention through a flippant note criticizing my comments about the Xbox 360 being an excellent piece of engineering (it is). Apparently I was an idiot to even suggest this. I now wonder whether the timing of this note was actually part of a strategy to get me to defend myself and the Xbox by looking at the Major Ynos site. And since I like the Xbox, I'd come to the defense of Microsoft—as if they needed my help for anything.


Then I read the posts and the comments. The rants are silly and confused. In a recent post Ynos/Creig cites a Fox News story suggesting people not buy the Xbox, calling Fox News a "respected news agency." Since Fox is controversial as a news organization, this sounded cynical. Then I looked at the comments. The majority in the blog defend Microsoft to an extreme and blast Ynos as an idiot and a shill for Sony. There are so many negative comments about Ynos and his posts that you come away with at least six thoughts: 1) Ynos is unfair and perhaps a stooge/shill for Sony; 2) Sony must be behind all this bashing; 3) What did Microsoft do to deserve this?; 4) Commentators are seeing through this scam; 5) Commentators seem to like the Xbox; 6) Commentators are smarter than Ynos






hmmm interesting...
 
*scratches beard*

Something tells me the viral marketing department at Microsoft is so entirely disconnected from the rest of the company that the shit they pull really shouldn't be considered indicative of the company's stance or strategy.
 
Am I missing something? His whole article seems to lead up to the conclusion that this is actually clever marketing by Microsoft or Microsoft fans with the purpose of calling together a super defense team...

...but that's not one of the 6 "thoughts" he listed at the end. Again, did I miss something or is the guy just dense?
 
Mihail said:
Am I missing something? His whole article seems to lead up to the conclusion that this is actually clever marketing by Microsoft or Microsoft fans with the purpose of calling together a super defense team...

...but that's not one of the 6 "thoughts" he listed at the end. Again, did I miss something or is the guy just dense?
Click to expand...
It makes sense. What hes saying is someone who reads Ynos will walk away thinking what a dickhead he is, and Sony are; not what he himself thinks about the site.
Basically MS (marketing) created a site pretending to be run by Sony, to unfairly and stupidly diss the X360 and make pro-PS3 comments. When someone (with a brain) reads this they think that Sony are being petty, stupid tools.
 
Striek said:
It makes sense. What hes saying is someone who reads Ynos will walk away thinking what a dickhead he is, and Sony are; not what he himself thinks about the site.
Basically MS (marketing) created a site pretending to be run by Sony, to unfairly and stupidly diss the X360 and make pro-PS3 comments. When someone (with a brain) reads this they think that Sony are being petty, stupid tools.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I thought -- but his 6 thoughts at end seem to miss this and fall for the marketing, thinking that the site really is created by Sony.
 
Mihail said:
That's exactly what I thought -- but his 6 thoughts at end seem to miss this and fall for the marketing, thinking that the site really is created by Sony.
Click to expand...
No, hes saying what the average person will think about the site. Hes basically concluding that the site served its purpose.
 
I always kinda thought that TeamXbox did as much damage to the Xbox mindshare as it did good, for much the same reasons described in that article. TeamXbox sponsored by Sony?!

In other words, I think that average internet idiot/fanboy is probably just as likely, if not more so, to buy into whatever mindless bashing was at that Ynos site than to laugh at and ridicule it :\
 
Striek said:
It makes sense. What hes saying is someone who reads Ynos will walk away thinking what a dickhead he is, and Sony are; not what he himself thinks about the site.
Basically MS (marketing) created a site pretending to be run by Sony, to unfairly and stupidly diss the X360 and make pro-PS3 comments. When someone (with a brain) reads this they think that Sony are being petty, stupid tools.
Click to expand...

Right...but if Microsoft actually created this site, then it would look petty on their part, as they would appear to have set up a phony "rabid Sony fanatic" persona as a straw man just to knock him down.

There's no evidence that this is the case, though. After reading the Google cache, my guess would probably be a Microsoft fan set it up purely as a mockery. The idea isn't to promote the PS3, but rather to promote the idea that Sony fans are obsessed nerds like this, and that (as the ultimate goal) the reader would be turned off by this and not want to buy Sony products for fear of being associated with nutjobs like the character portrayed here. It's reverse psychology.

If it's just an individual doing this on his own, then he's just having a little fun and it's no big deal. (Hey, I never even heard of the site until now.) If, in fact, it turns out that either Microsoft or Sony is behind this, then it's reprehensible and will almost certainly have some backlash.
 
Marconelly said:
I always kinda thought that TeamXbox did as much damage to the Xbox mindshare as it did good, for much the same reasons described in that article. TeamXbox sponsored by Sony?!

In other words, I think that average internet idiot/fanboy is probably just as likely, if not more so, to buy into whatever mindless bashing was at that Ynos site than to laugh at and ridicule it :\
Click to expand...

Works both ways. TXB was actually funded by MS at the launch of the first xbox launch.
 
I heard this today, but it seems stupid. Yea, he's a Sony fanboy, but why work in such subtlety to achieve this sort of goal? That doesn't really seem feasible to me. Funny, I linked to this site about 3 days ago in a blog thread here as a laugh.
 
Agent X said:
my guess would probably be a Microsoft fan set it up purely as a mockery. The idea isn't to promote the PS3, but rather to promote the idea that Sony fans are obsessed nerds like this, and that (as the ultimate goal) the reader would be turned off by this and not want to buy Sony products for fear of being associated with nutjobs like the character portrayed here. It's reverse psychology.
Click to expand...
If it's really that, whole things falls flat the moment anyone looks at comments, because for every comment that takes it for the mockery that it is, there are ten of them doing damage control, be it dead-serious or just infantile and profane, painting the picture of even bigger nutjobs and nerddom.

On the other hand, frankly, I don't even know why this particular site attracted Dvorak's attention. There are so many sites that spread fanboy ramble all over the internet, that this one seemed just like one of many... nothing special or significant (I never even heard about it before that article)
 
Marconelly said:
If it's really that, whole things falls flat the moment anyone looks at comments, because for every comment that takes it for the mockery that it is, there are ten of them doing damage control, be it dead-serious or just infantile and profane, painting the picture of even bigger nutjobs and nerddom.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. I just read some of the comments on the one remaining active post, and they're all over the place from all sides of the fanboy playground. Unfortunately, I can't read the comments from the other posts that appear on the Google cached version, but I'd imagine they're in the same vein. Even the reputable game blog sites like Joystiq seem to get their fair share of maniacs.

For whatever reason, the blogs that invite user comments seem to attract more rabid fanaticism compared to more structured forums such as this one. Some of these might be people "amping up" one or more personas, since most of these blogs often don't, won't, or can't put individual user accounts in check. Therefore, the gloves come off and anything can (and often does) get said.

With that in mind, it's likely that many of the posters on that blog viewed the site as a running joke, and decided to "play along" for fun.

Marconelly said:
On the other hand, frankly, I don't even know why this particular site attracted Dvorak's attention. There are so many sites that spread fanboy ramble all over the internet, that this one seemed just like one of many... nothing special or significant (I never even heard about it before that article)
Click to expand...

The site seems to have gotten more notoriety from this article than it ever did in the past. Maybe it was secretly Dvorak's pet project. :)
 
So wait, MajorYnos was supposed to be more then a parody of MajorNelson? (mind you, not a very funny one, but keep in mind it's very tough to parody something as silly as Nelson's site). When I originally saw it, it was mirroring everything from Nelson's right down to those nonsensical benchmark charts.

But on that note, does this mean Nelson is working undercover for Sony? *_*
 
How many viral campaigns has MS had in just this year? There was that 101101010101.com thing(not the exact url), there was the origenxbox360 thing, there's possibly this Major Yons guy. MS is going crazy with this viral stuff, and if the Yons site really is MS's then that kinda low on their part.
 
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