Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Monday 9 July 2007, 12:55 PM
iPhone probably not discontinued
Meanwhile, a quick call to the O2 press office this afternoon reveals nothing more on the "rumours and speculation" that it will be picking up the iPhone, so it could still be up for grabs. We've had "it's definitely Vodafone", then "definitely O2"... anyone else?
PreviousComments on this post
I wonder these days about how much to read into reviews. I mean, it's not entirely possible that Apply employees (or agencies/contractors) would go round posting positive reviews on these and other websites, and also for Apple competitors to go around posting negative reviews, is it?
For proper reviews, come to sites like this one (of course!). "User reviews" can be very useful - and the majority are genuine - but I would take it as a certainty that some companies put out phony ones to big up their own products or trash their rivals. Private Eye has run some hilarious stories exposing authors who review their own works on Amazon, or get their spouses to do so, under a fake name.
Yes. There was a story a while ago about some game developers up-talking their games on forums posing as regular members. Can't remember the names though.
PS: When I said "these and other websites", I meant Amazon, not ZD!
The most notorious story I heard was of the fake blog (or Flog) set-up by Sony to promote the PSP. It purported to be a blog set-up by a couple of keen PSP players who were raving about how the PSP was amazing and, more specifically, how it was the ONLY present to buy you kid, partner or friend for Christmas.
It look pretty authentic, but they made two crucial mistakes - i) the website was registered to zapatoni, an agency that Sony used for promotions and ii) the non-stop eulogizing had more than a faint whiff of bias - particularly with the blatant 'buy this now' theme!
Anyway, bottom line is that Sony generated far more negative PR for their underhand promotional techniques then any other online promotional activity at the time. To observers, it also suggested that they were concerned that the product was not good enough to become popular on merit alone. In contrast, look at how word of mouth has spread the popularity of the Wii..
So vendors beware - if you dabble with trying to control online user views it can come back to bite you...
