You are so right. Every hardware manufacturer does it. And as blogger, I definitelly hope the guys of the product I'm blogging about sent me a laptop with the software. Can't wait actually :P. Guess it's just another bash-topic which shouldn't be taken serious.
kenwahfu
· 2 years ago
Hi, I would be happy if I could get one.
kenwahfu(health+harmony=prosperity)
David Mackay
· 2 years ago
Will Nokia change its mind and suddenly ask to have the phones returned?
James Shiell
· 2 years ago
As for 'why bash MS and not Nokia', the only legitimate reason is the monopoly MS holds.
Nokia has a large market presence, but has real competition from Sony Ericsson, HTC, Motorola etc. Hence they're just one of many in the market segment handing out freebies.
MS, however, are completely dominant. And perhaps that's why Apple doesn't get bashed on such things - they hold rather a small market share and everyone loves an underdog. Whereas Microsoft's biggest competitor for Vista is its own 5-year old OS, XP, and that does not inspire sympathy.
All this is, of course, not to say that mindless bashing is right, but it may offer an explanation...
amorson
· 2 years ago
It's not about monopoly, it's about the way a company is perceived by the public, or at least most of it.
Microsoft is perceived as an evil, overpowering monopoly and everything they do will be scrutinized, no matter what it is. But that's what you get for years of "bad behavior".
codepope
· 2 years ago
Let's see... Nokia make Cellphones and Microsoft make Laptops... ah no, they don't. And therein lies the difference. If Microsoft had just sent out free copies of Vista to the bloggers, it would have been a non story.
Robert Scoble
· 2 years ago
Codepope: that's a lame excuse, if I ever heard one.
And, free copies of Vista are the same thing, ethically.
M Freitas
· 2 years ago
I agree every manufacturer does it. The problem is that this wasn't a problem until Scoble compared the Microsoft stunt with the "PayPerPost" service (http://scobleizer.com/2006/12/26/microsoft-send...).
I imagine that comment alone ignited a series of blogs, diggs, slashdots, with the crowd going mad around the blogs and threatening people, sending vicious e-mails and posting horrible comments - for nothing, really...
Of course the subsequent post (http://scobleizer.com/2006/12/27/i-think-the-mi...) didn't do much to fix the view people have, and we all know the echo chamber is very powerful - and people don't check sources before posting things that will be forever on the "tubes"...
Robert Scoble
· 2 years ago
M.: that's a nice revisionist theory, but the truth was that this was getting noticed on blogs before I ever covered it.
M Freitas
· 2 years ago
Not a revisionist theory. I think the blogs were from the people receiving it, but not a big deal until a specific date... I am not blaming all on the original post on your blog, but on the people posting the comments and e-mailing without thinking first (hey, a lot of people just "follow" the others).
I will try to attend the podhaus at least one of the days in Las Vegas. We can have a drink together and compare notes ;0)
codepope
· 2 years ago
Robert, really, don't go near the ethics monkey, for it will land on your back and screech and point in the style of the Family Guy monkey.
I was pointing out the essential difference between the two cases. The Nokia product was given out for review and was reviewed. The Microsoft product was given out for review with a third party laptop.
Now, maybe this could be a case of subliminal honesty from Microsoft in that you will really need to get a new PC to run Vista on. Actually, it looks much better for Microsoft if you think of it that way. :)
Robert Scoble
· 2 years ago
codepipe: heheh.
The thing is the gift was really from three companies: from Edelman (PR), from Microsoft (software), and from AMD (hardware).
But, I still don't get the point about why you think that ethically it makes any difference.
Reminds me of the story of a guy who asks a girl "will you sleep with me if I pay a million dollars?" When the girl answers affirmative, then he says "how about $100?" She answers incredulously "what kind of girl do you think I am?" He follows with "we already know what kind of girl you are, now we're negotiating over price."
So, the ethics of getting something for free (and disclosure of such) are the same, whether it's a $20 item or a $2,000 item made by multiple companies.
codepope
· 2 years ago
Robert, I didn't touch on the ethics issue. I was picking up on what the difference between the two cases was, and why one garners attention while the other is 'de-facto industry practice'.
And I do have to point out that AMD don't make laptops either. :)
Disclosure is a good thing and Steve Garfield's disclosure is a good template for better disclosure (it ain't just about the product, but the associated trips).
Disclosure: Nokia sent me a NGage QD once and didn't want it back.... but I've forgiven them for that now. :D
Chris Brogan...
· 2 years ago
Isn't it just a matter of disclosure? Wouldn't the better value to end users be reviews written by bloggers using their (admittedly clouding their judgment a little) shiny new laptops OVER the value of paid advertising showing swirling windows logos and the like?
When Steve Garfield showed off that N93 and blogged about it a lot over the last little while, I was *so* envious, and I still want one more than I want a new HD camera. So, to me, Nokia made marketing GOLD by doing that.
I admit that when I read the story about Microsoft, I thought these two things: is this just more Microsoft bashing? And then, "isn't this just MSFT looking for some product reviews?"
So, I still feel that way, but probably because I'm missing a deeper perspective.
Michael Kenward
· 2 years ago
This reminds me of the old journalistic debate about ethics and whether it is acceptable to take hospitality and go on on press tours. Had I not done so, I would never have been able to get up into the Arctic Circle, for example, to look at oil rigs.
American journalists have always been more on the "holier than thou" side of this debate. They won't even accept a sandwich from a PR person.
Maybe the blog world is very different and is the PR industry's way of wielding influence through people without the qualms, or skills, or trained journalists.
I know which I would trust to offer me an uncoloured review of a piece of kit.
David Dalka
· 2 years ago
I don't know why every three months this is discussed like it's a new issue?
paul
· 2 years ago
I have yet to read a blog post writen with a gift Vista laptop, many have been writen about them.
Ironically Microsoft hired Edelman to get better Press; I think they should ask for a refund or at least have Edelman come out from behind the curtain and explain the method behind this madness.
Guy Pelletier
· 2 years ago
It amazing the power we hold, MS gives laptops to promote Vista and a majority of us boo and hiss. I agree with James @4, the primary difference is reputation. MS has been preceived as the big bad bear, and anything they do must be bad. What comes out of all of this is we see Microsoft listening to the masses.
Guy
Brian Sexton
· 2 years ago
Wow, you have gone beyond Microsoft worship into full-speed, dual-core commenter-insulting AND dubious logic mode today, haven't you, Robert?
The vendor and the price are *BOTH* relevant.
The vendor is relevant because products sold by companies other than those providing them (or upon whose behalf they are provided) are not merely review units; they seem like bribes. Nokia providing Nokia products is *VERY* different from Microsoft providing NON-Microsoft products. AMD providing the hardware seems rather less nefarious--probably because a new CPU *REQUIRES* specific hardware (a compatible socket, chipset, etc.) to be demonstrated while Microsoft software, including Windows Vista, can be demonstrated on almost any existing computer a reviewer already has sitting around.
As for the PR firm providing anything as part of a gift-giving trio, that sounds absurd; any portion of the cost of the units in question for which the PR firm does not receive direct recompense is likely considered an expense for the Microsoft and/or AMD account because they are obviously promoting client products to bloggers, not promoting their own PR services to bloggers.
The price relevance should be obvious. If someone you barely know offers you a cup of coffee, they might just be friendly; if someone you barely know offers you a fancy dinner, a few margaritas, then to escort you to a private hotel room to relax until your buzz wears off, that person wants something and it isn't a few minutes of friendly conversation.
Sérgio Carvalho
· 2 years ago
The difference is in the public karma of the company. Microsoft is perceived by many as an evil company. There's no stock of goodwill out there to absorb an act that can be viewed in a good or a bad light. Nokia, for all of its dark past, has no bad karma, so people give it the benefit of the doubt.
This must be tough for someone working inside Microsoft. However, think of the company as a misbehaved teenager. You can't stay out past midnight, even if you *were* in fact studying at a friends'.
Brian Sexton
· 2 years ago
By the way, my comments above should not be interpreted as a condemnation of the practice of furnishing review units; even if Microsoft did not pay for the hardware in this case, there might have been legitimate and ethically defensible reasons for it to have done so if it so chose: ensuring that reviewers have at least one unit that can utilize all of the features its software offers, for example, rather than partial functionality that might result from installing the software only on untested hardware. I do, however, think that reviews should disclose when review units have been furnished by vendors rather than purchased. And in cases when hardware and software are provided together, but also available separately, I think that prudent reviewers should either try the software on other hardware or disclose to readers that they have not done so and if possible, provide information about any known or anticipated compatibility issues.
John C. Welch
· 2 years ago
It's because some folks get that free crap doesn't make you have or lose your personal ethics?
Microsoft could give me a new red laptop every day for a year, I'd still not like Vista for the same reasons I currently don't. I might like a couple people at MICROSOFT better, but if they thought they were going to get me to suddenly be a fanboy, they'd not like the response.
Ethics that can be changed by free crap weren't there in the first place.
Aaron
· 2 years ago
If MS made cell phones and gave them away people would complain as well. :-) Although people are okay with them sharing their software, it was mainly just the purchase of the third party hardware to go along with it that garnered the largest complaints I believe. They didn't have to be so audacious with the hardware purchase, they could have gone with Dell and maybe not drawn as much attention. Maybe/Maybe not. But it does have something to do with who they are, along with giving away what you make vs. additional goods as well.
brem
· 2 years ago
I'm such a whore, give me goodies!!!1
Dalibor Topic
· 2 years ago
The difference between Microsoft and Nokia is simple: Microsoft is an unethical company full of unethical people (with a couple of exceptions), like SCO. Nokia isn't.
Guy Pelletier
· 2 years ago
When selling a product that requires other products to function, you do not want the support products failings to show. Thus if you are going to promote software, you want a computer that will not only handle the software, but do it well.
Persoannly, I still think that MS giving away laptops to bloggers is OK and it is up to the blogger to disclose (which he should), then the reader can judge for himself what value the evaluation has.
Guy
Michael Gannotti
· 2 years ago
Wow, talk about perception vs reality. "Microsoft is an unethical company full of unethical people" last time I looked Microsoft was a multinational organization that employed a cross section of people across all walks of life just like any other organization of its size. Some are good, some are bad, most of us just trying top work hard to make a living for our families. Our founder has set up a charitable organization that is amongst the most giving in the world and as a company Microsoft is also one of the most charitable. Yet it is staffed full of unethical people? Well before I resume my unethical work duties I just want to say that if any of those receiving such units feel some how tainted I would be happy to put the tainted hardware to good use here and replace my current underpowered work laptop.
blogger@wordpress
· 2 years ago
Q : "Why bash Microsoft and not Nokia?" A : Pageviews and RSS subscriptions
Blake P.
· 2 years ago
I don't think either one of them did anything wrong. They are setting themselves up for a review whether good or bad. Some bloggers probably won't even review some products once they start receiving free stuff regularly.
As long as a disclosure is made, I am all for it.
LayZ
· 2 years ago
Does the free Nokia cell phone come with free service or does the user have to use their existing service, or buy a service that supports the Nokia device? For example, that N93 doesn't work with Verizon.
Now, if Nokia is also comping the cell phone service, then that rises to the level of what Microsoft did.
Scoble, can't you see the difference. If MS dropped free copies of Vista into bloggers laps and said "Go ahead and install it, here's the PID. Let everyone know how it goes and what you think" Then I think people would have less of a problem with it.
As is stands MS are letting bloggers bypass the experience many people will be asked to undergo. Either buy the product and install it on their existing hardware hoping to hell it will work---along with undergoing the loooooong and painful process of installing the OS; or figure out which PC or laptop they will need to buy to give them the best Vista experience. Microsoft is stacking the deck in their favor by giving bloggers a properly decked out and configured platform in which to run Vista. Whatever experience these bloggers have will not reflect most normal people.
blogger@wordpress
· 2 years ago
LayZ : That's lame.
Whatever a company does it can never make the out of the box experience same for a reviewer and a user. For one, the reviewer is not going to depend on the product and won't be using it for critical functions. That makes a lot of difference.
Besides, what you are mentioning is the install process. The OS can still be reviewed excluding the installation.
Let's say Microsoft sent out the software in a media with PID. Here are some blog headlines for you
1) "Arrogant Microsoft expects bloggers to spend hours installing VISTA"
2) "Super-rich Microsoft can't afford a laptop for reviewers"
3) "Microsoft doesn't get blogging : Thinks bloggers are extension of their test team"
Seriously, it's not a question of 'What'. It's a question of 'Who?'. Microsoft gave out free Vista licenses to some beta testers. What was the blog coverage on that?
Shawn Levasseur
· 2 years ago
"It’s because some folks get that free crap doesn’t make you have or lose your personal ethics?...
...Ethics that can be changed by free crap weren’t there in the first place." -John Welch
Yeah, lots of rules and actions that are meant to be for ethical matters rarely improve ethics. They tend to only address what may appear to be a corrupting influence, and not actual corruption.
A book about this (although more from a governmental perspective) even suggests that so much of what passes for ethics enforcement discourages ethical behavior. That book is The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society by Peter Morgan and Glenn Reynolds. Haven't read it yet, but I've read Reynolds talk about this topic on his blog quite a bit, and find what he has to say quite illuminating.
Brett C.
· 2 years ago
Actually, I don't have a huge problem with this whole laptop issue, but I have a couple of observations: First, MS might have picked a less ostentatious "loaner" than an Acer Ferrari. That's not so much an ethical issue as a perceptual one.
Secondly, any ethical blogger who gets one of these puppies needs to disclose the gift PROMINENTLY on his or her blog.
Thirdly, bloggers aren't really journalists, and few of them try to even make the claim anymore. Professional journalists have stronger ethical codes in this area, and that is appropriate. CNET routinely returns "review" product, and does not accept unsolicited gifts.
That also means that I'm probably going to give more weight to CNET's formal review of Vista than I might to a blogger's account of his/her own personal experience with the product.
ET
· 2 years ago
The only problem I have with my Nokia is the lack luster battery life and why do I have to go to the calendar to find out the darn date!!
David Dalka
· 2 years ago
blogger@wordpress
Despite your lack of Wordpress blog link, your point about difficulty installing Vista could lead to certain headlines is a good one.
However, I recently interacted with the mainstream media on two articles where I felt the headline was not in sync with the articles.
The answer in both cases? The editor and not the writer picked the headline! This is a problem as the editor can sometimes hype controversy when an article is just analyzing a complex situation fully to let the reader make a decision or they are making a lowest common denominator headline.
I think the disclosure issue is overplayed. Every time you see AOL/Time Warner entity write about Google you don't usually see a statement about the % ownership. This may in fact played a role in not formally naming the Youtube guys person of the year btw. People who take the time to know influences that will draw their own conclusions about any precieved bias. Shouting it out too boldly just looks silly to me when I see it.
Teresa Valdez Klein
· 2 years ago
I'd argue that there's a big difference between a free cell phone that retails for hundreds of dollars and a laptop that retails for many thousands. Obviously, disclosure is mandatory in both situations, but I think part of the objection here was the value of the gift and not the fact that a gift was given.
Also, it's Microsoft and everyone wants to criticize them for something...
Margaret Norkett
· 2 years ago
Well, well, well.... ethics and Microsoft vs Nokia providing "hardware" with "software". What a moral dilemma!
Those of you who are saying there is this huge difference don't know cellphone technology (or are ignoring the facts). Both a cellphone along with the laptop have software installed in order to function. While Microsoft may have been soliciting bloggers responses to the software portion of the gift, and Nokia was soliciting bloggers responses to the hardware portion of the gift, they both provided essentially the same stuff to the bloggers i.e. that which was required by each to get an even-across-the-board review. I'm not sure Vista would/will perform the same way across all computer hardware configurations, so providing the laptop was a way of ensuring that all reviewers were reviewing the exact same thing.
I agree with Scoble that the key here is that disclosure is made by those reviewers that their products were provided by the "mother ship". From there, it's up to the reader of said review to take the review's pros and cons with whatever faith they have in that person.
JMO
è¿é
vps hosting
· 2 years ago
Strategic techniques are the base structure of the major technical tycoons, they always tend to give in more in order to get the best out of it.
LayZ
· 2 years ago
@31. "Microsoft gave out free Vista licenses to some beta testers. What was the blog coverage on that?" Are you seriously asking that question?
There was plenty of blog coverage on that. Read Paul Thurott's site at all? Seems to me Microsoft was trying to overcome the reviews some of the more vocal and honest beta testers were given Vista by given bloggers a pristine experience with it. That was my point.
blogger@wordpress
· 2 years ago
@38 : There was some coverage on that. But not the amount it deserved.
The blogosphere reaction would have been much much worse had Microsoft just sent the media and expected bloggers to install it on a PC or Laptop. Not long ago a team from Firefox was invited to redmond to test compatibility with Vista. The reaction at best for that was cynical. Same when the IE team sent a cake over to firefox.
Stanley
· 2 years ago
The *tech* blogger community is made up of a bunch of tech geeks, and it's "cool" among that set to hate Microsoft like they're the modern version of IG Farben. That's how deluded these haters are.
Some fool above said that Microsoft is full of unethical people and another talked of years of "bad behavior". What are you talking about? Oh, that's right, the bundled a browser in an OS. That violates all 10 Commandements I guess (actually, it violates none of them). The "bad behaviour" you guys speak of wasn't all that bad (it was normal biz practice, but MS was declared to have a monopoly at the time, after that fact, that got them in trouble), and happened 10 years ago! Get over it!!
Meanwhile, Apple has a stock option scandal, uses sweatshops to make iPods, and has been rated as the worst polluter of high-tech companies. They also killed off the Mac clone market, a more blatant abuse of monopoly power (as the sole provider of the Mac OS hardware specs and license) than Microsoft ever committed. Yet the same losers that hate MS for minor transgressions that happened 10 years ago, look a blind eye at Apple's recent, and indeed long history, of "bad behavior" (threatening to sue bloggers, anyone?) and worship Apple and Jobs like he's the Second Coming.
The hypocrisy is palpable.
M Freitas
· 2 years ago
@John C Welch
"Ethics that can be changed by free crap weren’t there in the first place."
Agreed...
"Microsoft could give me a new red laptop every day for a year, I’d still not like Vista for the same reasons I currently don’t."
Right. Have you ever used Windows Vista beyond a "look over someone's shoulders"? I mean, like a couple of weeks? I don't think so. I visited your blog just now and there are lotsof affiliate links to Apple products, so obviously you have a biased view on the issue.
Just like everyone else does...
Stanley
· 2 years ago
Oh, I forgot one of Apple's most recent "sins" that they get a total pass on, and it involved their move to intel.
Metrowerks Codewarrior owned the Mac IDE market for years. All the big players (MS, Adobe, etc) used them rather than Apple's offerings (MPW, ProjectBuilder, XCode). But with the move to intel, Apple made it a *requirement* that a developer use their XCode IDE in order to create universal binaries (apps able to run both on PPC and Intel Macs). Now, Codewarrior already had PPC and Intel compilers; all they needed to make universal binaries was the information from Apple on how to package PPC and Intel code into one package that OSX would understand. Apple withheld that info, thus forcing all devs to move to XCode. Codewarrior essentially went out of business shortly thereafter.
Now, imagine if Microsoft made it a requirement that only Visual Studio could be used to make Vista apps. The bloggers and tech community would be all over them like white on rice. Apple does that exact thing, forces a company that had dominated them for years out of business, and that same hypocritical tech community raises nary an eyebrow.
sk
· 2 years ago
"Why bash Microsoft and not Nokia?"
Simply because Nokia doesn't compete with Apple and Linux.
Rob Greenlee
· 2 years ago
I am part of the Nokia Blogger Review program and must say that the key to this blog review program working is the honesty of the blogger. I always mention in my blog posts about the getting these Nokia phones via this program. I also give an honest review about its abilities in the context of the topic of my blog. My current blog is about Mobile Phone Podcast Listening and the use of Melodeo Mobilcast to do it. In my blog I talk about many types of cool phones that enable podcast listening.
I also think that this program is very smart for Nokia to do. I know that these cool Nokia N-series phones get a lot of attention when I use them in public. I am in the mobile media business and thus these phones get shared a lot in the office and Mobilcast gets tested on these devices.
My teen age kids also use them sometimes and share them with their friends. The benefits of doing this program are huge for Nokia.
I don't think any company should be bashed for doing one of these programs with key influencers. I believe that most of these key influencers are honest people that disclose. I am currently using the N80 phone and it is a small cool phone, but am dying to get the N95 as that sounds like it could be a dream smartphone with a quad-band, wifi, 3G UMTS/HSDPA and 5 megapixel camera. It is only missing an internal hard-drive like the N91.
Stanley, Metrowerks gave up on CodeWarrior for OS X.
Metrowerks focused on embedded platforms and made it quite obvious to everyone, just like how Microsoft's apathy towards IE for the Mac spawned Safari it resulted in the creation of Project Builder/XCode.
Nokia promotes Linux and Open Source/GPL code use in commercial products.
When you go to circuit city, you don't HAVE to buy a Nokia phone. Nobody is forcing you to. You see the difference now?
Jonathan Sheppard
· 2 years ago
Being sent products to try and test is what companies have always done. As on the post about the laptops. I see no difference in journalists who write book reviews getting the book for free as people who know about technoloy getting new gadgets for free. Surely if you really know what you're talking baout even if a product is free, if it is for want of a better word, "crap" you would write something along the lines of - 'its a good job they're giving it away as they wont sell many of them.'
Comic Strip Blogger
· 2 years ago
Nokia not being monopoly? Why nobody mentioned Symbian Ltd yet?! Symbian Ltd is owned in 49% by Nokia and practically is controlled by Nokia so if companies license Symbian for smartphones Nokia gets half of that no matter what... and on the hand Nokia itself releases Symbian phones with earlier access to the code and insider infos practically cannabilizing license takers of Symbian. In other words Symbian Ltd is just a puppet of Nokia, a cover-up invented to hide Nokia's monopoly.
So you see that Nokia is even worse than Microsoft - Microsoft is licensing Windows Mobile operating system but is not making Windows Mobile phones - and Nokia through their Symbian puppet do both!
@Bob Jones, Project Builder predates OS X by many years -- my NeXT Cube circa 1993 has an almost identical version of Project Builder to the one that Apple shipped in 10.0. As for XCode, Project Builder was, as noted above, early 90s technology. Competing development environments (Eclipse, IDEA, VS.Net) are newer and have more conveniences (code completion, for one), so Apple had to do something about upgrading Project Builder. Unlike Microsoft and Jetbrains, though, Apple provided it for free.
Michael Markman
· 2 years ago
For some outside perspective on gifts, three suggestions:
Read the piece in The NY Times today, byRonald Pies, M.D. for a look at the issues involved when patients offer gifts to therapists.
Watch episode 7 of season 6 of the Sopranos, "Luxury Lounge." See what happens when Christopher Moltisante encounters the marketing practice of bestowing luxury gifts on celebrities.
Listen to Frank Loesser's "Take back your Mink" from Guys and Dolls. ("I thought that each expensive gift you'd arrange was a token of your esteem. Now when I think of what you want in exchange, it all seems a horrible dream.")
Stephen
· 2 years ago
@Bob Jones
Um, no. You now darn well that the big devs like MS and Adobe were using CodeWarrior up until the intel switch, and only swithched to Xcode because XCode is the only IDE that can make universal binaries. This is common knowledge; don't sit there and try to pretend that Codewarrior abandoned the market and forced everyone to switch to XCode. They didn't abandon the market until they were forced out by Jobs.
LayZ
· 2 years ago
@55 Interesting, but not really relevant. The gift baskets for the celebrities are really just additional incentives to get them to show up at the events, and/or "payment/thank yous" for showing up. Same happens, for example at college bowl games. The players get gift baskets with lots of stuff. But, the players aren't expected to shill for those companies. Neither are the celebrities.
There's a difference between getting a gift and bribing someone to hopefully say good things about your product.
Dominic Jones
· 2 years ago
The value of the freebie is relevant. The more expensive, the greater the potential to influence, as your $1 million vs. $100 debate illustrates.
We all know that, and that's why the review you link to failed to fully disclose the freebie. The retail value was not disclosed. I guess if you know the guy and know cell phones, you would have an idea of the cost. I don't, so I can't really judge how much incentive he has to say nice things about the phone and gloss over some problems.
If bloggers want to take free stuff, fine as long as they disclose properly and no one is being deceived.
As for whether companies should send free laptops to bloggers so they can try out some software that doesn't work as the average machine, well that's a completely different story. It was a stupid thing for the companies to do because they gained nothing from it.
kaizensand
· 2 years ago
There are generally two schools of thought on things being free:
1. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
2. As my grandfather used to always say, if someone's giving you something for free - TAKE IT - and worry about the strings later.
Sorry gramps, but I'm more along the mindset of #1.
Any tech company giving me something supposedly for free wants my bones, blood, and soul. I'll buy my own damn laptop and phone.
Bill Sledzik
· 2 years ago
While it's possible for a blogger to write an objective post about Vista AND keep the laptop, a discerning reader must view the opinion as tainted.
Edelman wouldn't offer a freebie like this to the New York Times, would they? First because it violates the ethical guidelines of most respectable MSM outets, but also because credibility with readers is compromised in the process. You know, once in a while the MSM folks have ideals worth emulating. This is one of those times.
Okay, in this bizzaro fantasy world where Metrowerks hadn't abandoned CodeWarrior for their embedded platform tools, why would Apple want to spend the time and resources to develop/enhance Xcode (which they don't make a dime on) when an outside company was going to instead?
Metrowerks didn't want to spend the developer time because they were refocusing on a more profitable embedded market, which is why they sold off their x86 stuff to Nokia.
I don't see what Apple has gained from this muscling out CodeWarrior, they don't sell Xcode and it costs Apple a very non-trivial amount of resources.
Bertil
· 2 years ago
A heated debate: I guess the teaching for tech companies is not to send anything, but have the potential blogger fill in a form like:
[] Send me the disk (and a return envelope)
[] Send me your product with supporting platform :Wink:
[] I'll buy it, just allow me to do so in advance
Pete Prodoehl
· 2 years ago
I've been trying to get on Nokia's list of folks who can test their phones. I'm a fan of Nokia, but their phones have issues just like anything else. I'd praise the good, and complain about what is wrong, all in the hope that it would be improved in the next rev...
Jeremy Pepper
· 2 years ago
I wrote about this a couple days ago on my blog - where I am a Nokia blogger, and disclosed - and what the differences are.
It's an apples / oranges, thing, though.
Sebhelyesfarku
· 2 years ago
Why bashing MS and not Nokia? I thought it's obvious. The bloggers in the MS affair were Maczealots. Sending a Windows laptop to a Mactard is like placing a bloody horse head in their bed.
All Comments
Guess it's just another bash-topic which shouldn't be taken serious.
I would be happy if I could get one.
kenwahfu(health+harmony=prosperity)
Nokia has a large market presence, but has real competition from Sony Ericsson, HTC, Motorola etc. Hence they're just one of many in the market segment handing out freebies.
MS, however, are completely dominant. And perhaps that's why Apple doesn't get bashed on such things - they hold rather a small market share and everyone loves an underdog. Whereas Microsoft's biggest competitor for Vista is its own 5-year old OS, XP, and that does not inspire sympathy.
All this is, of course, not to say that mindless bashing is right, but it may offer an explanation...
Microsoft is perceived as an evil, overpowering monopoly and everything they do will be scrutinized, no matter what it is. But that's what you get for years of "bad behavior".
And, free copies of Vista are the same thing, ethically.
I imagine that comment alone ignited a series of blogs, diggs, slashdots, with the crowd going mad around the blogs and threatening people, sending vicious e-mails and posting horrible comments - for nothing, really...
Of course the subsequent post (http://scobleizer.com/2006/12/27/i-think-the-mi...) didn't do much to fix the view people have, and we all know the echo chamber is very powerful - and people don't check sources before posting things that will be forever on the "tubes"...
I will try to attend the podhaus at least one of the days in Las Vegas. We can have a drink together and compare notes ;0)
I was pointing out the essential difference between the two cases. The Nokia product was given out for review and was reviewed. The Microsoft product was given out for review with a third party laptop.
Now, maybe this could be a case of subliminal honesty from Microsoft in that you will really need to get a new PC to run Vista on. Actually, it looks much better for Microsoft if you think of it that way. :)
The thing is the gift was really from three companies: from Edelman (PR), from Microsoft (software), and from AMD (hardware).
But, I still don't get the point about why you think that ethically it makes any difference.
Reminds me of the story of a guy who asks a girl "will you sleep with me if I pay a million dollars?" When the girl answers affirmative, then he says "how about $100?" She answers incredulously "what kind of girl do you think I am?" He follows with "we already know what kind of girl you are, now we're negotiating over price."
So, the ethics of getting something for free (and disclosure of such) are the same, whether it's a $20 item or a $2,000 item made by multiple companies.
And I do have to point out that AMD don't make laptops either. :)
Disclosure is a good thing and Steve Garfield's disclosure is a good template for better disclosure (it ain't just about the product, but the associated trips).
Disclosure: Nokia sent me a NGage QD once and didn't want it back.... but I've forgiven them for that now. :D
When Steve Garfield showed off that N93 and blogged about it a lot over the last little while, I was *so* envious, and I still want one more than I want a new HD camera. So, to me, Nokia made marketing GOLD by doing that.
I admit that when I read the story about Microsoft, I thought these two things: is this just more Microsoft bashing? And then, "isn't this just MSFT looking for some product reviews?"
So, I still feel that way, but probably because I'm missing a deeper perspective.
American journalists have always been more on the "holier than thou" side of this debate. They won't even accept a sandwich from a PR person.
Maybe the blog world is very different and is the PR industry's way of wielding influence through people without the qualms, or skills, or trained journalists.
I know which I would trust to offer me an uncoloured review of a piece of kit.
Ironically Microsoft hired Edelman to get better Press; I think they should ask for a refund or at least have Edelman come out from behind the curtain and explain the method behind this madness.
What comes out of all of this is we see Microsoft listening to the masses.
Guy
The vendor and the price are *BOTH* relevant.
The vendor is relevant because products sold by companies other than those providing them (or upon whose behalf they are provided) are not merely review units; they seem like bribes. Nokia providing Nokia products is *VERY* different from Microsoft providing NON-Microsoft products. AMD providing the hardware seems rather less nefarious--probably because a new CPU *REQUIRES* specific hardware (a compatible socket, chipset, etc.) to be demonstrated while Microsoft software, including Windows Vista, can be demonstrated on almost any existing computer a reviewer already has sitting around.
As for the PR firm providing anything as part of a gift-giving trio, that sounds absurd; any portion of the cost of the units in question for which the PR firm does not receive direct recompense is likely considered an expense for the Microsoft and/or AMD account because they are obviously promoting client products to bloggers, not promoting their own PR services to bloggers.
The price relevance should be obvious. If someone you barely know offers you a cup of coffee, they might just be friendly; if someone you barely know offers you a fancy dinner, a few margaritas, then to escort you to a private hotel room to relax until your buzz wears off, that person wants something and it isn't a few minutes of friendly conversation.
This must be tough for someone working inside Microsoft. However, think of the company as a misbehaved teenager. You can't stay out past midnight, even if you *were* in fact studying at a friends'.
Microsoft could give me a new red laptop every day for a year, I'd still not like Vista for the same reasons I currently don't. I might like a couple people at MICROSOFT better, but if they thought they were going to get me to suddenly be a fanboy, they'd not like the response.
Ethics that can be changed by free crap weren't there in the first place.
Persoannly, I still think that MS giving away laptops to bloggers is OK and it is up to the blogger to disclose (which he should), then the reader can judge for himself what value the evaluation has.
Guy
Well before I resume my unethical work duties I just want to say that if any of those receiving such units feel some how tainted I would be happy to put the tainted hardware to good use here and replace my current underpowered work laptop.
A : Pageviews and RSS subscriptions
As long as a disclosure is made, I am all for it.
Now, if Nokia is also comping the cell phone service, then that rises to the level of what Microsoft did.
Scoble, can't you see the difference. If MS dropped free copies of Vista into bloggers laps and said "Go ahead and install it, here's the PID. Let everyone know how it goes and what you think" Then I think people would have less of a problem with it.
As is stands MS are letting bloggers bypass the experience many people will be asked to undergo. Either buy the product and install it on their existing hardware hoping to hell it will work---along with undergoing the loooooong and painful process of installing the OS; or figure out which PC or laptop they will need to buy to give them the best Vista experience. Microsoft is stacking the deck in their favor by giving bloggers a properly decked out and configured platform in which to run Vista. Whatever experience these bloggers have will not reflect most normal people.
Whatever a company does it can never make the out of the box experience same for a reviewer and a user. For one, the reviewer is not going to depend on the product and won't be using it for critical functions. That makes a lot of difference.
Besides, what you are mentioning is the install process. The OS can still be reviewed excluding the installation.
Let's say Microsoft sent out the software in a media with PID. Here are some blog headlines for you
1) "Arrogant Microsoft expects bloggers to spend hours installing VISTA"
2) "Super-rich Microsoft can't afford a laptop for reviewers"
3) "Microsoft doesn't get blogging : Thinks bloggers are extension of their test team"
Seriously, it's not a question of 'What'. It's a question of 'Who?'. Microsoft gave out free Vista licenses to some beta testers. What was the blog coverage on that?
...Ethics that can be changed by free crap weren’t there in the first place." -John Welch
Yeah, lots of rules and actions that are meant to be for ethical matters rarely improve ethics. They tend to only address what may appear to be a corrupting influence, and not actual corruption.
A book about this (although more from a governmental perspective) even suggests that so much of what passes for ethics enforcement discourages ethical behavior. That book is The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society by Peter Morgan and Glenn Reynolds. Haven't read it yet, but I've read Reynolds talk about this topic on his blog quite a bit, and find what he has to say quite illuminating.
Secondly, any ethical blogger who gets one of these puppies needs to disclose the gift PROMINENTLY on his or her blog.
Thirdly, bloggers aren't really journalists, and few of them try to even make the claim anymore. Professional journalists have stronger ethical codes in this area, and that is appropriate. CNET routinely returns "review" product, and does not accept unsolicited gifts.
That also means that I'm probably going to give more weight to CNET's formal review of Vista than I might to a blogger's account of his/her own personal experience with the product.
Despite your lack of Wordpress blog link, your point about difficulty installing Vista could lead to certain headlines is a good one.
However, I recently interacted with the mainstream media on two articles where I felt the headline was not in sync with the articles.
The answer in both cases? The editor and not the writer picked the headline! This is a problem as the editor can sometimes hype controversy when an article is just analyzing a complex situation fully to let the reader make a decision or they are making a lowest common denominator headline.
I think the disclosure issue is overplayed. Every time you see AOL/Time Warner entity write about Google you don't usually see a statement about the % ownership. This may in fact played a role in not formally naming the Youtube guys person of the year btw. People who take the time to know influences that will draw their own conclusions about any precieved bias. Shouting it out too boldly just looks silly to me when I see it.
Also, it's Microsoft and everyone wants to criticize them for something...
Those of you who are saying there is this huge difference don't know cellphone technology (or are ignoring the facts). Both a cellphone along with the laptop have software installed in order to function. While Microsoft may have been soliciting bloggers responses to the software portion of the gift, and Nokia was soliciting bloggers responses to the hardware portion of the gift, they both provided essentially the same stuff to the bloggers i.e. that which was required by each to get an even-across-the-board review. I'm not sure Vista would/will perform the same way across all computer hardware configurations, so providing the laptop was a way of ensuring that all reviewers were reviewing the exact same thing.
I agree with Scoble that the key here is that disclosure is made by those reviewers that their products were provided by the "mother ship". From there, it's up to the reader of said review to take the review's pros and cons with whatever faith they have in that person.
JMO
è¿é
There was plenty of blog coverage on that. Read Paul Thurott's site at all? Seems to me Microsoft was trying to overcome the reviews some of the more vocal and honest beta testers were given Vista by given bloggers a pristine experience with it. That was my point.
The blogosphere reaction would have been much much worse had Microsoft just sent the media and expected bloggers to install it on a PC or Laptop. Not long ago a team from Firefox was invited to redmond to test compatibility with Vista. The reaction at best for that was cynical. Same when the IE team sent a cake over to firefox.
Some fool above said that Microsoft is full of unethical people and another talked of years of "bad behavior". What are you talking about? Oh, that's right, the bundled a browser in an OS. That violates all 10 Commandements I guess (actually, it violates none of them). The "bad behaviour" you guys speak of wasn't all that bad (it was normal biz practice, but MS was declared to have a monopoly at the time, after that fact, that got them in trouble), and happened 10 years ago! Get over it!!
Meanwhile, Apple has a stock option scandal, uses sweatshops to make iPods, and has been rated as the worst polluter of high-tech companies. They also killed off the Mac clone market, a more blatant abuse of monopoly power (as the sole provider of the Mac OS hardware specs and license) than Microsoft ever committed. Yet the same losers that hate MS for minor transgressions that happened 10 years ago, look a blind eye at Apple's recent, and indeed long history, of "bad behavior" (threatening to sue bloggers, anyone?) and worship Apple and Jobs like he's the Second Coming.
The hypocrisy is palpable.
"Ethics that can be changed by free crap weren’t there in the first place."
Agreed...
"Microsoft could give me a new red laptop every day for a year, I’d still not like Vista for the same reasons I currently don’t."
Right. Have you ever used Windows Vista beyond a "look over someone's shoulders"? I mean, like a couple of weeks? I don't think so. I visited your blog just now and there are lotsof affiliate links to Apple products, so obviously you have a biased view on the issue.
Just like everyone else does...
Metrowerks Codewarrior owned the Mac IDE market for years. All the big players (MS, Adobe, etc) used them rather than Apple's offerings (MPW, ProjectBuilder, XCode). But with the move to intel, Apple made it a *requirement* that a developer use their XCode IDE in order to create universal binaries (apps able to run both on PPC and Intel Macs). Now, Codewarrior already had PPC and Intel compilers; all they needed to make universal binaries was the information from Apple on how to package PPC and Intel code into one package that OSX would understand. Apple withheld that info, thus forcing all devs to move to XCode. Codewarrior essentially went out of business shortly thereafter.
Now, imagine if Microsoft made it a requirement that only Visual Studio could be used to make Vista apps. The bloggers and tech community would be all over them like white on rice. Apple does that exact thing, forces a company that had dominated them for years out of business, and that same hypocritical tech community raises nary an eyebrow.
Simply because Nokia doesn't compete with Apple and Linux.
I also think that this program is very smart for Nokia to do. I know that these cool Nokia N-series phones get a lot of attention when I use them in public. I am in the mobile media business and thus these phones get shared a lot in the office and Mobilcast gets tested on these devices.
My teen age kids also use them sometimes and share them with their friends. The benefits of doing this program are huge for Nokia.
I don't think any company should be bashed for doing one of these programs with key influencers. I believe that most of these key influencers are honest people that disclose. I am currently using the N80 phone and it is a small cool phone, but am dying to get the N95 as that sounds like it could be a dream smartphone with a quad-band, wifi, 3G UMTS/HSDPA and 5 megapixel camera. It is only missing an internal hard-drive like the N91.
Rob Greenlee
http://mobilcasting.blogspot.com
Microsoft does not make laptops.
Metrowerks focused on embedded platforms and made it quite obvious to everyone, just like how Microsoft's apathy towards IE for the Mac spawned Safari it resulted in the creation of Project Builder/XCode.
Nokia promotes Linux and Open Source/GPL code use in commercial products.
When you go to circuit city, you don't HAVE to buy a Nokia phone. Nobody is forcing you to. You see the difference now?
So you see that Nokia is even worse than Microsoft - Microsoft is licensing Windows Mobile operating system but is not making Windows Mobile phones - and Nokia through their Symbian puppet do both!
Scoble is spot on!
http://anina.typepad.com/anina/ ?
Project Builder predates OS X by many years -- my NeXT Cube circa 1993 has an almost identical version of Project Builder to the one that Apple shipped in 10.0. As for XCode, Project Builder was, as noted above, early 90s technology. Competing development environments (Eclipse, IDEA, VS.Net) are newer and have more conveniences (code completion, for one), so Apple had to do something about upgrading Project Builder. Unlike Microsoft and Jetbrains, though, Apple provided it for free.
Read the piece in The NY Times today, byRonald Pies, M.D. for a look at the issues involved when patients offer gifts to therapists.
Watch episode 7 of season 6 of the Sopranos, "Luxury Lounge." See what happens when Christopher Moltisante encounters the marketing practice of bestowing luxury gifts on celebrities.
Listen to Frank Loesser's "Take back your Mink" from Guys and Dolls. ("I thought that each expensive gift you'd arrange was a token of your esteem. Now when I think of what you want in exchange, it all seems a horrible dream.")
Um, no. You now darn well that the big devs like MS and Adobe were using CodeWarrior up until the intel switch, and only swithched to Xcode because XCode is the only IDE that can make universal binaries. This is common knowledge; don't sit there and try to pretend that Codewarrior abandoned the market and forced everyone to switch to XCode. They didn't abandon the market until they were forced out by Jobs.
There's a difference between getting a gift and bribing someone to hopefully say good things about your product.
We all know that, and that's why the review you link to failed to fully disclose the freebie. The retail value was not disclosed. I guess if you know the guy and know cell phones, you would have an idea of the cost. I don't, so I can't really judge how much incentive he has to say nice things about the phone and gloss over some problems.
If bloggers want to take free stuff, fine as long as they disclose properly and no one is being deceived.
As for whether companies should send free laptops to bloggers so they can try out some software that doesn't work as the average machine, well that's a completely different story. It was a stupid thing for the companies to do because they gained nothing from it.
1. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
2. As my grandfather used to always say, if someone's giving you something for free - TAKE IT - and worry about the strings later.
Sorry gramps, but I'm more along the mindset of #1.
Any tech company giving me something supposedly for free wants my bones, blood, and soul. I'll buy my own damn laptop and phone.
Edelman wouldn't offer a freebie like this to the New York Times, would they? First because it violates the ethical guidelines of most respectable MSM outets, but also because credibility with readers is compromised in the process. You know, once in a while the MSM folks have ideals worth emulating. This is one of those times.
For my complete take: http://toughsledding.wordpress.com/2007/01/03/f...
Metrowerks didn't want to spend the developer time because they were refocusing on a more profitable embedded market, which is why they sold off their x86 stuff to Nokia.
I don't see what Apple has gained from this muscling out CodeWarrior, they don't sell Xcode and it costs Apple a very non-trivial amount of resources.
[] Send me the disk (and a return envelope)
[] Send me your product with supporting platform :Wink:
[] I'll buy it, just allow me to do so in advance
It's an apples / oranges, thing, though.