One of the things I always loved most about social media was the transparency it created. If a product, service, hotel, etc. was terrible, you could be sure that you’d hear about it from plenty of bloggers. On the other side of things, small companies and talented individuals were able to get noticed because of word-of-mouth marketing online. It used to be so easy to get really honest, unfiltered views of products, services, etc. on the web as people were writing reviews because they felt strongly about the product. Now the water has been muddied by PR folks and the people who feed at their swag-giving teat. Some people are writing reviews of things not because they bought a product and loved it or hated it, but because someone either paid them or gave them a freebie. And others aren’t reading to get honest reviews — they’re reading to get freebies from the manufacturer. It gives power back to the big corporations who can afford to spend the most on incentives, trips, etc. for bloggers. It’s such a sad perversion of what social media can offer.
Source: Meredith Farkas (Information Wants to Be Free)
See Also: Buying Your Friends and Followers on Social Networks (ResourceShelf, December 20, 2009)
This post is about uSocial and how they sell Twitter followers.
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on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Consumer Issues, Information Literacy, Search News, Social Media, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0.
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