Microsoft’s latest sucker ploy
p2pnet.net News:- Bill and the Boyz have launched a beta release of what they’re calling, “a new community-outreach initiative”.
“If you’re a leader in an online group or website that helps others get more out of their PCs, and you’re passionate about consumer technology, then this is the place for you,” says Microsoft under the brilliantly witty category headings, Sweet Stuff, No Stinging and Join the Hive.
And, “did you know you can also win* prizes just for participating?
“If you check the ‘Yes, I’d like to participate in the contest’ box during registration or in your member profile, you become eligible to win* prizes, software, and more. It’s easy.”
It doesn’t say what the * is for, or it didn’t when we looked at 7:59 am Pacific.
The green sucker at the bottom of the Sweet Stuff page says it all.
See:-
Microsoft – A Forum for Online Community Leaders, June 14, 2005
June 15th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
the * means you get your postings rated by users. the more points you have, the more chance you have to “win” something.
from http://www.inthehive.com/sweet_stuff.aspx
“You’ll receive points when:
* You post messages and content in The Hive forums
* Other members reply to your messages
* Others rate the value of your posts and content
* You post files in the download section (coming soon)”
June 15th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
The member with the most points in each category wins. See the full contest rules for details.
http://www.inthehive.com/sweet_stuff.aspx
June 15th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
Gee thanks Bill =)
June 15th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
Microsucks never does stuff without trying to increase the bottom line somewhere. So what is it this time? Too many IT representivites in the help section? Or too many on the W2K section? Could it be that if successful that some of those could be laid off?
Maybe it’s none of the above. However I hesitate to grant them the idea that this is solely a “out of the goodness of our hearts” thing. Wk2 support ends soon with Microsucks. Considering that it is the most popular software in use with Corporations (rated at still above 50%) and that many corporations have refused to use the SP1 upgrade; I will watch this most carefully.
June 15th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
Looks to me like an ingenious way of creating a large
unpaid IT tech support staff.
Stay away.
June 15th, 2005 at 10:36 pm
It’s at the bottom in a very faint words…
*…
June 15th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
no, it’s here: http://www.inthehive.com/sweet_stuff.aspx as i posted in the first two messages above.
June 16th, 2005 at 1:52 am
I had personal experience with how people are suckered by Microsoft and Gates foundation marketing. I previously ran a Linux server (Internet access, Mail server, fileserver, etc) for the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada (PPFC) in their office, and hosted their website. At one point they received money from the Gates foundation and things started to change: I started to get more questions of why the servers weren’t running Microsoft software, and why I was only supporting Netscape email rather than Outlook, and why I was using StarOffice (this was prior to the release of OpenOffice.org ).
The licensing fees for the Microsoft versions of all this software would have been about the same amount of money as they were receiving from the Gates foundation, meaning that using Microsoft software would have effectively nullified the Gates “donation”.
I haven’t done any work for PPFC for a few years now (I don’t use, support or create “software manufacturing” software), and last I heard they ripped all the non-Microsoft software off their network and moved their website to a Microsoft server.
While this groups mandate was to promote planning and choices for parents and potential parents, all it took was a small donation from the Gates foundation to not only make them want to switch their own software, but to turn them into volunteer marketing arms for this corporation.
June 16th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
This will be a good reason for the Christian Right to switch to Linux