How many of you have been approached by Becky E. Colgate Smile to be connected as her "friend"?
I generally look at members who want to connect with me, and I was not amused.
Seems that Becky has written a whole string of articles all connecting back to Colgate's website. Contests, articles about tooth care etc. etc.
Why should we care about this?
On the one hand, no one really believes that the member calling himself "Barack Obama" is the political candidate (and if it is, forgive me Senator!). Someone on the Obama staff was savvy enough to open an account and if nothing else, some of us have a thrill that we are "connected" to him.
But this isn't some guy named B. O. Senatordude who is surreptitiously masquerading as a Gather member, writing fake "articles" that point to Obama's fundraising site. And, to my knowledge, no one has hit me or anyone else up for a contribution either.
On the other hand, Gather is advertiser sponsored and supported. Only the dullest Gather member thinks that Gather is a "free" site. If nothing else, the constant ads for pantie protection should dissuade us from that notion.
So what's the problem? This Becky E. Colgate Smile is robbing Gather of ad revenues. This member is shilling the Colgate product and pays NOTHING for the privilege of it. Not only that, there is something disingenuous about posing as a person when all you are is some corporate PR hack trying to make a buck for nothing but some effort cutting and pasting articles on Gather.
In this day of fake corporate blogs, I would think that most companies would shy away from overtly using Web 2.0 Media disingenuously like this. We can all recall fake corporate efforts to steer public opinion by pretending to be street-smart web-loggers.
I've already sent my email to Gather.
As much as we might dislike the ads on Gather, we can at least say one thing about these advertisers -- they have recognized yours and my value to them and are paying for the privilege of hopefully getting my business. I don't love it, but I don't fault them for it either. It's due to these efforts that Gather gives out these nifty points that buy me my Border's Gift Cards.
What do you think?
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Comments: 28
12. Winners' List: For Grand Prize Winner announcement, check http://smile.gather.com on or after May 9, 2008 or send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Gather Inc, 99 Summer Street, Boston, MA, 02110 and reference the Colgate Show Us Your Smile Contest.
Therefore, Gather is fully aware of this "person" and it is probably a paid advertiser. I would expect to see "Colgate" ads on this site very soon.
This is worse. This is a corporate attempt to capture our business but done with subterfuge. If they want to advertise honestly -- I have no beef with that.
But posing as a Gather member to avoid paying the ad fees is taking money out of my Border's Gift Card fund. And it's dishonest.
And did I mention that it's taking money out of my Border's Gift Card fund...
I welcome those people to Gather, but not the connection/friend requests that I suspect Gather mass-initiates for them.
I had not seen the articles you speak of but I've seen plenty of similar articles. They are little more than infomercials and they piss me off. I always take the time to flag them.
I don't mind if someone who is otherwise active at Gather wants to tell us about their web site or blog once in awhile but these infomercial articles posters never do anything else here.
We should call them articlomercials.
He is called Gather's sitewizard because his vast amount of knowledge about the Gathering process is never ending.
Please send him your concerns to his help group, and you may be rewarded with an innovative and pragmatic answer to your dilemma.
Im Alexia by the way, I am also here to help
See you on Gather!!
and yes those people who want me to add them to my friends, but they never read my wonderful stories...very annoying.
I have also posted an extremely stringent set of guidelines for requestions my connection/friendship. If you don't meet the requirements, forget it. I don't think I would have even looked past this Becky chick's name before hitting "No Thanks."
I commented on one article and then had my comment about Spam removed. Now the whole article has disappeared! Maybe someone else reported the spam!
I think it's SNEAKY to pretend to be 'members' when you are actually pushing a product.