How Microsoft influences blogosphere
September 06, 2005 [General] | By Edward J. R.
Dictionary definition of bribe is : 1 money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust, or 2 something that serves to induce or influence. If Microsoft loans new fantastic, yet unreleased, mobile phone to editor in chief of certain news website, but at the same time it denies the same favor to all other news websites, and if this website then publishes positive stories about this phone, then can it be called "bribe"? Well, judge for yourself:
Microsoft has loaned, for 2 weeks, a HTC Universal Pocket PC phone to Peter Rojas, editor in chief of engadget. In return Peter Rojas wrote FAQ about HTC Universal (FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions) and a superficial review of the HTC Universal. Peter Rojas even admits "let us know and we’ll try our best to accommodate you". In other words in return of favor - loaning unreleased phone very early - engadget is making positive publicity for Microsoft!
This is strange to see such behavior at engadget, part of WeblogsInc, because previously management of WeblogsInc was strongly reproaching behavior of Gizmodo: Gizmodo once accepted Siemens's offer to cover costs of travel and lodging of Gizmodo staff to CeBIT in return for publishing some stories about Siemens products... however clearly (not) all questions about HTC Universal were answered by engadget - after all there is no UMTS network in New York, so Peter Rojas was not able to test any UMTS features of HTC Universal, like fast downloads or video calling...
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