7 ms·

Microsoft Paying Bloggers to Write about Internet Explorer

113 points by scottrblock 12y ago

pje 12y ago
> I believe it will be easier for them to pay users to use Internet Explorer.
nikster 12y ago
Wait... I thought the browser wars were over?
- Renaud 12y ago
  IE still represents abut 20% of Browser usage, it's still more than Firefox and a lot more than Safari. You never know, the new direction MS is taking with regards to openness may bear its fruits. It's going to take a lot for MS to regain its past market shares, but personally, I'd prefer if it stayed around and compete with the other browsers. I don't want Chrome to end-up being the new IE.
  - Mikeb85 12y ago
    At least Chrome is constantly updated, is fast, and most parts of it (certainly the important parts) are open source... If there's going to be a browser monoculture, Chrome seems like the best option at the moment...
    - Piskvorrr 12y ago
      "If there's going to be a browser monoculture, IE6 seems like the best option at the moment." Yay for repeating the history?
      - Mikeb85 12y ago
        Key difference - Chrome updates itself (on Windows and Chrome OS, Linux package managers update it, not sure about OSX). You'd have to do something very, very wrong to wind up with a version of Chrome as outdated as IE6 had become...
    - iopq 12y ago
      You mean Firefox is the best option. All of it is open source.
      - tomswartz07 12y ago
        Well... so is the Chromium project.
        TheCoelacanth 12y ago
        But practically no one uses Chromium; they're using Chrome, which has significant proprietary components.
      - Mikeb85 12y ago
        Except it has a slow JavaScript engine, crashes on certain pages, and just annoys me all around. I love open source, but I like things that work too.
  - WorldWideWayne 12y ago
    Where are you getting your numbers? IE is at ~60% of desktop browsers and sites that report combined numbers for multiple device types sometimes reduce their desktop numbers.
ekianjo 12y ago
This stuff is true for many things in many businesses. and media is just a piece of the Iceberg. Video Games Magazines/websites have been paid for decades to write positive review and generate awareness for certain games, and I guess most people are aware of it. That's why I usually take with a big grain of salt anything that's written without any clear declaration of conflict of interest (or its absence).
tsurantino 12y ago
For reference, here are details about the program: http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce6/ http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce...
shmerl 12y ago
Next step in MS evolution would be paying bloggers to write about Windows ;) Though it might still take a while.
- yaeger 12y ago
  Windows8 to be precise. Wouldn't want that marketing money go to waste, paying people to write about how to successfully upgrade from Windows8 to Windows7 to have a real desktop OS to work with instead of a Frankenstein Hybrid.
mappu 12y ago
There's nothing new under the sun. On several websites i visit it's become increasingly difficult to tell whether or not someone is a paid marketer (giving rise to parodies thereof, and consequently Poe's law).
- scottrblock 12y ago
  I think the news is that it was sent to Arrington of all people. Plus the "Go TechCrunch" bit.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
zacharycohn 12y ago
I love the "Go TechCrunch!" line at the end.
Yuioup 12y ago
Why am I getting a Déjà vu? I've seen the "Go TechCrunch" comment before. This looks like a repost to me.
- camillomiller 12y ago
  It's just that Mike Arrington, whose posts on TC have been some good money printers for many startups of the fund he went on creating, likes to bash who is more naïve and less expert than he is at monetizing or rewarding Web contents. So, yes, he's probably repeating himself somehow, here.
codezero 12y ago
I guess it says a lot about how much Microsoft has improved over the years that this seems "low, even for Microsoft." right?
- ekianjo 12y ago
  When you need to pay people to write about your product, it means you've fallen pretty deep. Just like Detroit would probably be forced to pay businesses to settle in their town to attract them in the first place.
  - codezero 12y ago
    I doubt it's so much that they need to, but that someone in that large organization authorized it, either not knowing any better, or seeking some short term benefit ignorant of the long term negatives.
    - ekianjo 12y ago
      > that someone in that large organization authorized it, The fact that it's even remotely possible shows that this organization does not have much principles in the first place, unfortunately.
  - jasonlotito 12y ago
    > When you need to pay people to write about your product, it means you've fallen pretty deep. I equate it to marketing your own product by bashing on the competition. The former, people aren't interested in speaking about your benefits, and in the latter, even you aren't interested in speaking about your benefits.
- yuhong 12y ago
  I wrote a wishlist for Satya sometimes ago on Hal Berenson's blog: http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-leadership/#comment-14856 http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-leadership/...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
amaks 12y ago
So unsurprising.
aosmith 12y ago
This seems vaguely familiar to me... Remember when they paid to port apps to windows phone?
- markkanof 12y ago
  Paying developers to port their apps is completely legitamete. It's a chicken and egg problem. Users don't want to use the platform because there are few apps, but developers don't want to write apps because there are few users. If Microsoft can spend some money to get additional apps in the store it's just a business decision. In my opinion they should have dedicated more money to that program. This on the other hand is deceptive and I think pretty embarrassing. Completely different scenarios.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    It's not quite as slimy as, say, Samsung paying for fake grassroots badmouthing of competing products [1], but it's little different from fake user reviews on Amazon, unless the blogger discloses upfront, in a very visible way, that it's a paid-for post. Nothing wrong with rewarding developers for porting app to your platform, there is nothing deceptive or otherwise unethical about it. 1: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-reviews/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-rev...
  - yaeger 12y ago
    The $100-per-app bounty was clearly an embarrassment. What kind of apps did they think to get with this? Some more fart apps? Cause that is about as complex an app as you can get by spending 100 bucks on a developer. 100 bucks gets you between 1 or 2 hours of a freelancers time. There is not really that much that could be done in that time frame. Either MS was completely naive when setting that bounty or they of course realized that this would just help inflating the total app numbers in the store. Better not mention how many of those are pure crap when boasting about how much the app store has grown in the next press release etc.
varkson 12y ago
Meh, so many companies do this, it's not new or evil.
- Paul_S 12y ago
  Advertisements masquerading as impartial opinion pieces are not evil? What is evil - strangling kittens?
mkhpalm 12y ago
I thought that was the norm these days... Or maybe I should ask, what major blog doesn't accept payments to write articles about whatever? Thats how the blogging business works.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- yuhong 12y ago
  If you actually read the page linked from the Facebook post, you will realize this is false.
  - fekberg 12y ago
    My bad, I missed that so deleted the parent comment as it made no sense at all. I really hoped that wouldn't be true, that they offered real money that is. I'd be OK with plain stickers..
- gone35 12y ago
  It is for money: under an actual contract, invoice and going-rate, etc. From the page referred to[1]: Compensation - This will be a sponsored post opportunity and payment will be made out via check. - Please send an email (...) with the amount you typically charge for sponsored post opportunities. Payment Process When your blog post and corresponding social shares are live, please create an invoice (...). Upon receipt of the invoice, you will be paid the agreed amount within 60 days via check. In the regards to the content itself, the language appropriately Orwellian: no explicit directive to write "positive" posts and plenty of fakey exhortations to "be creative" and "share your viewpoint"; but also a contractual requirement to include "required assets", and mentions of readily packaged, shareable "prepopulated content". On a side note, I wonder how the disclosure of this particular campaign will affect them and any involved bloggers given Google's notoriously stringent linking policies... Doesn't getting caught posting/soliciting paid links get you a massive Panda penalty? [1] http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce6/ http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce...
  - fekberg 12y ago
    Yeah, I'm sorry I completely missed the link to that. Regarding linking, did they require linking or just content that talks about the product?
peterkelly 12y ago
While I can understand some of the concerns here, I'd encourage you to look at where Internet Explorer is now; it's come a long way in the past few years. IE today offers a brand new experience with many different features. The reworked Internet Explorer lets you search smarter and do more with its cool new features, such as multitasking, pinnable sites, and full-screen browsing. Wherever you are, Internet Explorer is the ideal way to play games, catch up on your reading, watch videos, and browse the web, of course. Use fast and fluid Internet Explorer across all your Windows devices—tablet, Windows Phone, and TV with an Xbox with an Xbox Live Gold subscription. This program is really a great way for bloggers and HN commenters to spread the word about the new Internet Explorer web experience in a cool, visual way. There's also opportunities for fun prizes and rewards through duration of the program.
- taspeotis 12y ago
  I'm upvoting you for clever parody. I think [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
- officialjunk 12y ago
  At least try to make is sound like a real comment rather than copy and pasted marketing verbiage. Unless this is satire...
  - m_mueller 12y ago
    You must be one of these people who complain about Onion articles not being truthful.
    - gbog 12y ago
      But this is not the Onion, this is HN and if we let too many parody comment on the top of the discussion, I fear it will become boring. Downvoted the GGP
      - netcan 12y ago
IvyMike 12y ago
What's really amazing is how lackluster the whole campaign is. IE is a touted as a "new browser", but here are the features they are especially proud of: 1) Full Screen Browsing. 2) Multitasking, which apparently means "Skype while full screen browsing". 3) Reading view, a la the Readability or Clearly plug ins. 4) Pinned sites, which I guess I don't understand, but it looks like Windows 8 tiles. http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-again/#/newbrowser http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-again/#/newbrowser Do I qualify for a payment?
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  That's because IE development is typically around 2 years behind the others. So they can only "brag" about stuff others have already had for a while, but try to spin the features as new.
  - mkr-hn 12y ago
    It works for Apple.
- boobsbr 12y ago
  > 1) Full Screen Browsing. Like pressing F11? IE8 has it...
chondos 12y ago
Microsoft pays people to write about their products. It's called marketing. How evil huh? Is there a medium to large company who doesn't do this?
qhoc 12y ago
This is why I like about working in Microsoft's Marketing. They have a lot of money to spend (or waste). It's just fun to experiment different things with huge resources. So why not? I would do the same if I work in IE Marketing anyways. There is nothing bad about it but the ROI is probably low. However, there is always a way to tweak the metrics to say: hey, I ran a successful IE rebrand program or some shet like that. Go Microsoft (Marketing)!! ;-)
PStamatiou 12y ago
They pitched me as well yesterday: https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/478757246323548162 https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/478757246323548162
davyjones 12y ago
Just a few hours ago I have run into a weird bug in IE 11. I am guessing some cookie values are cached and this is leading to unpredictable behaviour in my app. Seems to disappear when I have the dev tools open or when I clear the browser. IE8 -> IE9 -> IE10 was fraught with stability issues that didn't go away till I upgraded to 11. I get it that all browsers have bugs but somehow IE seems to lead the pack.
- sixQuarks 12y ago
  No kidding. I also have weird IE bugs on sites that work flawlessly in other older browsers.
dasil003 12y ago
As long as Microsoft continues improving IE the way they have been I'm not going to get my undies in a bunch over a little astroturfing.
higherpurpose 12y ago
I hope now everyone sees the Penny-Arcade reviews in a totally different light, too (and by the way, Gabe has already admitted to getting lots of free stuff from Microsoft).
- sheltgor 12y ago
  It may be the case that he gets paid, but the Surface is at least a legitimately good piece of hardware (much better in its product domain than IE)
higherpurpose 12y ago
Remember when Google penalized its own Chrome in the search engine? They should do the same with these IE posts now. After all, they apply that rule to everyone else, so why not Microsoft/IE, too? Downrank the posts and the sites, and ban their Adsense accounts - if Google wants to treat everyone the same way, and not just the little guy.
anonymfus 12y ago
That "Advocate Marketing" company has a list of customers in the slider banner on their website: Target, AT&T, Fossil, Dole Food Company, McDonalds, Bing, Verizon, UnitedWay (non-profit?!), 3M, Anheuser-Busch, The Clorox Company, Walmart, EMC Corporation, Aveda Corporation, Expedia, Windows Phone, Citibank, Purina, Wells Fargo, Snapfish, Clinique, Oral-B, Sara Lee, Haier. (IT companies/brands are italicized.)
- DanBC 12y ago
  It's a nice list for search engine providers. Perhaps DDG could low-light results that include companies that have paid-blogging programs? "Caution: the quality of these pages might be low because $CORP pays bloggers to promote them"
  - JonnieCache 12y ago
    Advocacy tracking/detection/whatever would be a great feature for ddg.
booruguru 12y ago
Microsoft doesn't deserve a second chance. They went out of their way to destroy Netscape and then allowed IE to languish for years. Microsoft has always been an underachieving bully. Mediocrity is part of their DNA and they simply have no desire (or ability) to make good products consistently.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  They don't deserve a second chance at what? Being your friend? If Netscape had their way you'd be paying for web browsers. The web is a pit of mediocrity held together by hacks. What browser do you use that isn't mediocre?
mathnode 12y ago
The thing is, it's boring. We don't care! We have had good browsers for years! Too late to the party as always MS.
aikah 12y ago
Of course it does,like it is paying astroturfers right here on HN.
dashdot 12y ago
I think this is perfectly legit. Of course as long as they do not instruct you WHAT to write and do not interfere your publishing process in any way at any point.
baconstrp 12y ago
There is no need to pay for marketing, IE creates jobs, period. Endless hours of web dev goes to fixing stuffs just for IE, that's what distinguish a professional Web developer from template generator. trolling
spion 12y ago
Unfortunately, IE hasn't fixed its main problem yet, and that problem is the slow upgrade cycle. Until they fix that IE will unavoidably remain the lowest common denominator of all browsers (on average). I'm sure that by the time IE11 becomes obsolete I'm going to end up dreading the fact that a huge set of missing features will have to be taken into account.
benaston 12y ago
The problem is that now this is public, any positive review of a Microsoft product will be viewed with suspicion, having the very opposite of the intended effect.
- pllbnk 12y ago
  Many have always viewed with suspicion to most positive IE reviews in the past. I like giving a honest try for IE from time to time, just like the Bing search (as a user and developer), but always it looks like almost on purpose IE team just refuses to fix most of the annoying things. I believe changing a name might be a good start.
ycGee 12y ago
yeh Microsoft definitly is inspired by Google in this regard... http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-post-campaign-for-chrome-106348 http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-p...

113 points by scottrblock 12y ago

pje 12y ago

> I believe it will be easier for them to pay users to use Internet Explorer.

nikster 12y ago

Wait... I thought the browser wars were over?

Renaud 12y ago
IE still represents abut 20% of Browser usage, it's still more than Firefox and a lot more than Safari. You never know, the new direction MS is taking with regards to openness may bear its fruits. It's going to take a lot for MS to regain its past market shares, but personally, I'd prefer if it stayed around and compete with the other browsers. I don't want Chrome to end-up being the new IE.
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  At least Chrome is constantly updated, is fast, and most parts of it (certainly the important parts) are open source... If there's going to be a browser monoculture, Chrome seems like the best option at the moment...
  - Piskvorrr 12y ago
    "If there's going to be a browser monoculture, IE6 seems like the best option at the moment." Yay for repeating the history?
    - Mikeb85 12y ago
      Key difference - Chrome updates itself (on Windows and Chrome OS, Linux package managers update it, not sure about OSX). You'd have to do something very, very wrong to wind up with a version of Chrome as outdated as IE6 had become...
  - iopq 12y ago
    You mean Firefox is the best option. All of it is open source.
    - tomswartz07 12y ago
      Well... so is the Chromium project.
      - TheCoelacanth 12y ago
        But practically no one uses Chromium; they're using Chrome, which has significant proprietary components.
    - Mikeb85 12y ago
      Except it has a slow JavaScript engine, crashes on certain pages, and just annoys me all around. I love open source, but I like things that work too.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  Where are you getting your numbers? IE is at ~60% of desktop browsers and sites that report combined numbers for multiple device types sometimes reduce their desktop numbers.

ekianjo 12y ago

This stuff is true for many things in many businesses. and media is just a piece of the Iceberg. Video Games Magazines/websites have been paid for decades to write positive review and generate awareness for certain games, and I guess most people are aware of it. That's why I usually take with a big grain of salt anything that's written without any clear declaration of conflict of interest (or its absence).

tsurantino 12y ago

For reference, here are details about the program: http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce6/ http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce...

shmerl 12y ago

Next step in MS evolution would be paying bloggers to write about Windows ;) Though it might still take a while.

yaeger 12y ago
Windows8 to be precise. Wouldn't want that marketing money go to waste, paying people to write about how to successfully upgrade from Windows8 to Windows7 to have a real desktop OS to work with instead of a Frankenstein Hybrid.

mappu 12y ago

There's nothing new under the sun. On several websites i visit it's become increasingly difficult to tell whether or not someone is a paid marketer (giving rise to parodies thereof, and consequently Poe's law).

scottrblock 12y ago
I think the news is that it was sent to Arrington of all people. Plus the "Go TechCrunch" bit.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

zacharycohn 12y ago

I love the "Go TechCrunch!" line at the end.

Yuioup 12y ago

Why am I getting a Déjà vu? I've seen the "Go TechCrunch" comment before. This looks like a repost to me.

camillomiller 12y ago
It's just that Mike Arrington, whose posts on TC have been some good money printers for many startups of the fund he went on creating, likes to bash who is more naïve and less expert than he is at monetizing or rewarding Web contents. So, yes, he's probably repeating himself somehow, here.

codezero 12y ago

I guess it says a lot about how much Microsoft has improved over the years that this seems "low, even for Microsoft." right?

ekianjo 12y ago
When you need to pay people to write about your product, it means you've fallen pretty deep. Just like Detroit would probably be forced to pay businesses to settle in their town to attract them in the first place.
- codezero 12y ago
  I doubt it's so much that they need to, but that someone in that large organization authorized it, either not knowing any better, or seeking some short term benefit ignorant of the long term negatives.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > that someone in that large organization authorized it, The fact that it's even remotely possible shows that this organization does not have much principles in the first place, unfortunately.
- jasonlotito 12y ago
  > When you need to pay people to write about your product, it means you've fallen pretty deep. I equate it to marketing your own product by bashing on the competition. The former, people aren't interested in speaking about your benefits, and in the latter, even you aren't interested in speaking about your benefits.
yuhong 12y ago
I wrote a wishlist for Satya sometimes ago on Hal Berenson's blog: http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-leadership/#comment-14856 http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-leadership/...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

amaks 12y ago

So unsurprising.

aosmith 12y ago

This seems vaguely familiar to me... Remember when they paid to port apps to windows phone?

markkanof 12y ago
Paying developers to port their apps is completely legitamete. It's a chicken and egg problem. Users don't want to use the platform because there are few apps, but developers don't want to write apps because there are few users. If Microsoft can spend some money to get additional apps in the store it's just a business decision. In my opinion they should have dedicated more money to that program. This on the other hand is deceptive and I think pretty embarrassing. Completely different scenarios.
- mercurial 12y ago
  It's not quite as slimy as, say, Samsung paying for fake grassroots badmouthing of competing products [1], but it's little different from fake user reviews on Amazon, unless the blogger discloses upfront, in a very visible way, that it's a paid-for post. Nothing wrong with rewarding developers for porting app to your platform, there is nothing deceptive or otherwise unethical about it. 1: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-reviews/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-rev...
- yaeger 12y ago
  The $100-per-app bounty was clearly an embarrassment. What kind of apps did they think to get with this? Some more fart apps? Cause that is about as complex an app as you can get by spending 100 bucks on a developer. 100 bucks gets you between 1 or 2 hours of a freelancers time. There is not really that much that could be done in that time frame. Either MS was completely naive when setting that bounty or they of course realized that this would just help inflating the total app numbers in the store. Better not mention how many of those are pure crap when boasting about how much the app store has grown in the next press release etc.

varkson 12y ago

Meh, so many companies do this, it's not new or evil.

Paul_S 12y ago
Advertisements masquerading as impartial opinion pieces are not evil? What is evil - strangling kittens?

mkhpalm 12y ago

I thought that was the norm these days... Or maybe I should ask, what major blog doesn't accept payments to write articles about whatever? Thats how the blogging business works.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

yuhong 12y ago
If you actually read the page linked from the Facebook post, you will realize this is false.
- fekberg 12y ago
  My bad, I missed that so deleted the parent comment as it made no sense at all. I really hoped that wouldn't be true, that they offered real money that is. I'd be OK with plain stickers..
gone35 12y ago
It is for money: under an actual contract, invoice and going-rate, etc. From the page referred to[1]: Compensation - This will be a sponsored post opportunity and payment will be made out via check. - Please send an email (...) with the amount you typically charge for sponsored post opportunities. Payment Process When your blog post and corresponding social shares are live, please create an invoice (...). Upon receipt of the invoice, you will be paid the agreed amount within 60 days via check. In the regards to the content itself, the language appropriately Orwellian: no explicit directive to write "positive" posts and plenty of fakey exhortations to "be creative" and "share your viewpoint"; but also a contractual requirement to include "required assets", and mentions of readily packaged, shareable "prepopulated content". On a side note, I wonder how the disclosure of this particular campaign will affect them and any involved bloggers given Google's notoriously stringent linking policies... Doesn't getting caught posting/soliciting paid links get you a massive Panda penalty? [1] http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce6/ http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce...
- fekberg 12y ago
  Yeah, I'm sorry I completely missed the link to that. Regarding linking, did they require linking or just content that talks about the product?

peterkelly 12y ago

While I can understand some of the concerns here, I'd encourage you to look at where Internet Explorer is now; it's come a long way in the past few years. IE today offers a brand new experience with many different features. The reworked Internet Explorer lets you search smarter and do more with its cool new features, such as multitasking, pinnable sites, and full-screen browsing. Wherever you are, Internet Explorer is the ideal way to play games, catch up on your reading, watch videos, and browse the web, of course. Use fast and fluid Internet Explorer across all your Windows devices—tablet, Windows Phone, and TV with an Xbox with an Xbox Live Gold subscription. This program is really a great way for bloggers and HN commenters to spread the word about the new Internet Explorer web experience in a cool, visual way. There's also opportunities for fun prizes and rewards through duration of the program.

taspeotis 12y ago
I'm upvoting you for clever parody. I think [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
officialjunk 12y ago
At least try to make is sound like a real comment rather than copy and pasted marketing verbiage. Unless this is satire...
- m_mueller 12y ago
  You must be one of these people who complain about Onion articles not being truthful.
  - gbog 12y ago
    But this is not the Onion, this is HN and if we let too many parody comment on the top of the discussion, I fear it will become boring. Downvoted the GGP
    - netcan 12y ago

IvyMike 12y ago

What's really amazing is how lackluster the whole campaign is. IE is a touted as a "new browser", but here are the features they are especially proud of: 1) Full Screen Browsing. 2) Multitasking, which apparently means "Skype while full screen browsing". 3) Reading view, a la the Readability or Clearly plug ins. 4) Pinned sites, which I guess I don't understand, but it looks like Windows 8 tiles. http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-again/#/newbrowser http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-again/#/newbrowser Do I qualify for a payment?

higherpurpose 12y ago
That's because IE development is typically around 2 years behind the others. So they can only "brag" about stuff others have already had for a while, but try to spin the features as new.
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  It works for Apple.
boobsbr 12y ago
> 1) Full Screen Browsing. Like pressing F11? IE8 has it...

chondos 12y ago

Microsoft pays people to write about their products. It's called marketing. How evil huh? Is there a medium to large company who doesn't do this?

qhoc 12y ago

This is why I like about working in Microsoft's Marketing. They have a lot of money to spend (or waste). It's just fun to experiment different things with huge resources. So why not? I would do the same if I work in IE Marketing anyways. There is nothing bad about it but the ROI is probably low. However, there is always a way to tweak the metrics to say: hey, I ran a successful IE rebrand program or some shet like that. Go Microsoft (Marketing)!! ;-)

PStamatiou 12y ago

They pitched me as well yesterday: https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/478757246323548162 https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/478757246323548162

davyjones 12y ago

Just a few hours ago I have run into a weird bug in IE 11. I am guessing some cookie values are cached and this is leading to unpredictable behaviour in my app. Seems to disappear when I have the dev tools open or when I clear the browser. IE8 -> IE9 -> IE10 was fraught with stability issues that didn't go away till I upgraded to 11. I get it that all browsers have bugs but somehow IE seems to lead the pack.

sixQuarks 12y ago
No kidding. I also have weird IE bugs on sites that work flawlessly in other older browsers.

dasil003 12y ago

As long as Microsoft continues improving IE the way they have been I'm not going to get my undies in a bunch over a little astroturfing.

higherpurpose 12y ago

I hope now everyone sees the Penny-Arcade reviews in a totally different light, too (and by the way, Gabe has already admitted to getting lots of free stuff from Microsoft).

sheltgor 12y ago
It may be the case that he gets paid, but the Surface is at least a legitimately good piece of hardware (much better in its product domain than IE)

higherpurpose 12y ago

Remember when Google penalized its own Chrome in the search engine? They should do the same with these IE posts now. After all, they apply that rule to everyone else, so why not Microsoft/IE, too? Downrank the posts and the sites, and ban their Adsense accounts - if Google wants to treat everyone the same way, and not just the little guy.

anonymfus 12y ago

That "Advocate Marketing" company has a list of customers in the slider banner on their website: Target, AT&T, Fossil, Dole Food Company, McDonalds, Bing, Verizon, UnitedWay (non-profit?!), 3M, Anheuser-Busch, The Clorox Company, Walmart, EMC Corporation, Aveda Corporation, Expedia, Windows Phone, Citibank, Purina, Wells Fargo, Snapfish, Clinique, Oral-B, Sara Lee, Haier. (IT companies/brands are italicized.)

DanBC 12y ago
It's a nice list for search engine providers. Perhaps DDG could low-light results that include companies that have paid-blogging programs? "Caution: the quality of these pages might be low because $CORP pays bloggers to promote them"
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  Advocacy tracking/detection/whatever would be a great feature for ddg.

booruguru 12y ago

Microsoft doesn't deserve a second chance. They went out of their way to destroy Netscape and then allowed IE to languish for years. Microsoft has always been an underachieving bully. Mediocrity is part of their DNA and they simply have no desire (or ability) to make good products consistently.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago
They don't deserve a second chance at what? Being your friend? If Netscape had their way you'd be paying for web browsers. The web is a pit of mediocrity held together by hacks. What browser do you use that isn't mediocre?

mathnode 12y ago

The thing is, it's boring. We don't care! We have had good browsers for years! Too late to the party as always MS.

aikah 12y ago

Of course it does,like it is paying astroturfers right here on HN.

dashdot 12y ago

I think this is perfectly legit. Of course as long as they do not instruct you WHAT to write and do not interfere your publishing process in any way at any point.

baconstrp 12y ago

There is no need to pay for marketing, IE creates jobs, period. Endless hours of web dev goes to fixing stuffs just for IE, that's what distinguish a professional Web developer from template generator. trolling

spion 12y ago

Unfortunately, IE hasn't fixed its main problem yet, and that problem is the slow upgrade cycle. Until they fix that IE will unavoidably remain the lowest common denominator of all browsers (on average). I'm sure that by the time IE11 becomes obsolete I'm going to end up dreading the fact that a huge set of missing features will have to be taken into account.

benaston 12y ago

The problem is that now this is public, any positive review of a Microsoft product will be viewed with suspicion, having the very opposite of the intended effect.

pllbnk 12y ago
Many have always viewed with suspicion to most positive IE reviews in the past. I like giving a honest try for IE from time to time, just like the Bing search (as a user and developer), but always it looks like almost on purpose IE team just refuses to fix most of the annoying things. I believe changing a name might be a good start.

ycGee 12y ago

yeh Microsoft definitly is inspired by Google in this regard... http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-post-campaign-for-chrome-106348 http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-p...