Comments on: The Shameful Strategies Behind Many Viral Videos

By: Geoff Livingston

Geoff Livingston — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:34:28 +0000

Just catching up on this. What amazes me is that he really thought he was doing us all a favor by giving us this information… Uh, thanks for passing on the ethos of mass control.

The controversy only works for a while. Sooner or later people get tired of the shenanigans (being lied to, etc.) and the traffic dies off.

Another interesting point. Arrington published it. What’s that say about him?

By: Dave Fleet

Dave Fleet — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 20:57:35 +0000

Very true. Unfortunately, there’s quite a high ratio of them in the comments on that post.

My only hope is that few of them are actually marketers or PR professionals. Either way, it says bad things about perceptions of the industry.

By: Ike

Ike — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 20:14:29 +0000

Sadly, the only useful barometer here is measuring the number of people who think this is standard and accepted practice.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:09:39 +0000

That wouldn’t surprise me, Chris. Still, even if they do work, they can keep them. I wouldn’t want to be associated with something like that. I doubt those companies would be too happy with it, either.

By: Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:38:22 +0000

I’m wondering if there isn’t more to this. There are almost 200 comments (quite a lot even for TC) and it’s only been posted a few hours. Perhaps, as one commenter pointed out, it was written to prove that the methods that Ackerman uses do work, regardless of how shameful they may be.

It’s truly odd that Mr. Arrington, a straight shooter if there ever was one, would come off as surprised by a guest post on his blog. I can’t wait to see how this one plays out…