● 03.15.12

●● Apple: When ‘Fans’ Are Simply Bribed, Too

Posted in Apple, Marketing, Novell, SLES/SLED at 6:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Another good example of paid-for Apple ‘fans’

THE CULT of Apple is not as organic as one might be led to believe. In the past we covered examples of Apple AstroTurfing and this new example shows us paid queue standers — people who are paid to hype up products:

Airtasker paying man to queue to buy the very first new iPadSTEPHEN Parkes is first in line for a new iPad at the Apple store in Sydney but it’s not because he actually wants one. Instead jobs site Airtasker is keen to cash in on Apple’s cachet has paid the former truck driver $950 to wait there until Friday’s launch wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with its logo.Airtasker.com is an online marketplace where people can bid for the right to earn cash for running day errands and completing everyday chores.

This is ridiculous. Sometimes celebrities are used like this too — a form of deceitful endorsement. Apple also gives the illusion/delusion of its products being the most wanted by providing ‘i’ Prizes in all sorts of competitions and raffles. It’s effective PR.

Now, consider the fact that Novell keeps losing its free (voluntary) fans despite pretending to be “open” and soon enough it’s realised that a lot of this is plain marketing for Microsoft-taxed GNU/Linux like this SP2, which oddly enough was picked for review:

SLES 11 SP2 adds a new kernel, support for Btrfs and LXC, and Snapper to manage snapshots and rollbacks. Koen Vervloesem explains all…

Was the author contacted by Novell/SUSE to write this review? We saw Novell doing this before and even offering gifts for it. This is a subject for another day. █

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