Microsoft Attempts Wilkipedia Corrections January 25, 2007
Microsoft Relevant Products/Services has found itself embroiled in another blogger scandal this week, in what some are calling a demonstration of the Internet’s power to cast a spotlight on corporate strategies.
Earlier this month, Microsoft sent Vista-powered Acer laptops to several bloggers in a bid to generate positive buzz about the new operating system. Now, Redmond has found itself in the hot seat once again after offering to pay a writer to edit certain posts on Wikipedia.
I don’t normally flag stories about this kind of thing, but this one, combined with Microsoft’s earlier purchase of laptops for bloggers merits attention. Wikipedia specifically discourages any attempts by PR experts to influence entries in the enormously popular encyclopedia. Microsoft apparently hired a blogger to correct certain errors , and in doing so once again raises the question of how effective Wikipedia can be in preventing undetectable corporate shilling.
This one was easy, self- ,as the previous story about Microsoft’s gifts of Acer’s high end laptop to influential bloggers was disclosed rather handily. With a little more stealth, and it would not be hard to imagine that, the company could have gotten away with corrections and with planting favorable reviews for a long time without anyone knowing.
Corporate sponsorship of blogs, especially clandestine sponsorship, is a problem in its infancy. There are numerous think tanks and nonprofit organizations which act primarily as fronts for corporate interest, and their funding is mixed enough or hidden just enough to conceal a sometimes very subtle agenda. The unregulated world of blogs could go the same way, but a secret told to more than two people tends to gain the status of an open secret before too long. It is more than nightmarish to contemplate doing 1984 one better. Imagine a world in which dissent is managed , along carefully constructed parameters of acceptable deviance, or where corporate sponsorship is so effectively disguised and mediated as to be apparent only to the most diligent of investigators. Think that is unrealistic? You have only to consider the newspapers, where media consolidation and advertising accomplish a high degree of ideological uniformity across through determining what subjects can be covered at all.
Tags: writer | offered | Blogger | Articles | approached | Wikipedia | Vista | Redmond | Politics | Microsoft
