Busted: Microsoft-hired agency paying bloggers to write pro-IE posts

[Himanshu Arora]

SocialChorus, an "advocate marketing" firm working on behalf of Microsoft, has been offering to pay bloggers for promoting Internet Explorer. The campaign was exposed after popular blogger and Twitter designer Paul Stamatiou, who also contributes to TechCrunch as a guest writer, was approached by the company to write a paid piece.

Today Microsoft offered to pay me to blog about Internet Explorer. There's not enough bitcoin in the world..

— Paul Stamatiou (@Stammy) June 17, 2014

Besides Stamatiou, TechCrunch founder and former editor Michael Arrington also received the offer through an email.

“In this program, we are looking to spread the word about the new Internet Explorer web experience in a cool, visual way, which is where you come in”, it read, adding that if Arrington accepts the invitation to work on the program, he'll have to come up with a blog post by July 10, for which he'll be paid.

Arrington responded to the email asking, “Is this for real?”. The vendor then apologized and said they weren’t sure how they got on the email list, and ended the message with “Go TechCrunch!”.

Of course, sponsored posts are not unusual, and any reputable site that do accepts them will clearly disclose it as such and make sure its a good fit for the audience. The particulars of  SocialChorus' campaign are unknown.

A quick look at the marketer's website reveals that Microsoft's Bing team is, or at least has been, one of its customers. Microsoft officials, on the other hand, are distancing themselves from the campaign.

When reached out for a comment, a Microsoft spokesperson said the "action by a vendor is not representative of the way Microsoft works with bloggers or other members of the media". Since then, the program has been suspended.

SocialChorus' poor execution certainly backfired, harming Microsoft more than doing IE any good. A quick search for the #IEBloggers hashtag on Twitter reveals the hilarious -- if unintended -- results.

Internet explorer stole my car and tortured my dog. #iebloggers

— Maxwell Lamb (@Panopticrat) June 18, 2014

As an independent consultant, IE compatibility has brought in more money than any other browser. Love IE! #IEBloggers #RethinkIE

— jeswin (@jeswin) June 18, 2014

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/57162-busted-microsoft-hired-agency-paying-bloggers-to-write-pro-ie-posts.html

 

[Kibaruk]

Good try Microsoft, I like some of your products, IE is not one of those

EDIT: Although on my corporate network I'm obligated into using it and it's not that bad as everyone says it is, I wouldn't trade Firefox for home usage.

 

[misor]

I wish MS would pay me too! (for IE use, Bing search, and techspot login )

 

[Bitvar]

Not new or particularly unique. Every major group be it political or corporate does this on a very large scale. Typically the going rate for these workers is starting 40 cents per post.

 

[VitalyT]

There is nothing special about this "news". All big companies are doing it.

99% of all AD-s have lie in them one form or another, and that's no news either.

It is not any near as sinister as price fixation, for example.

 

[Rippleman]

Curious to how some are saying MS is paying them? The article CLEARLY states a totally separate company promotional company named "SocialChorus" are the ones who offered to pay. This had nothing to do with MS. (before someone says anything, I haven't used IE in 10 years)

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I wish MS would pay me too! (for IE use, Bing search, and techspot login )

I don't use IE in any way shape or form but if MS paid me, I'd reconsider.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Hey Paul Stamatiou, they offered to pay you to blog about IE and there's not enough bitcoin in the world to make you do it huh? You must have some extraordinary morals there, buddy.

A quick search for the #IEBloggers hashtag on Twitter reveals the hilarious -- if unintended -- results.

Ahhh, Twitter... If it's good for one thing, it's finding everyone with internet access who thinks other people care about what they have to say.

 

[veLa]

Samsung does this for their Galaxy phones all the time.

 

[GeforcerFX]

I wish MS would pay me too! (for IE use, Bing search, and techspot login )

I don't use IE in any way shape or form but if MS paid me, I'd reconsider.

they will pay you to use bing on any browser


having used both ie10 and 11 for a lot of testing (and its the only browser on the rt) I can say I could survive without any hitch in my day to day with internet explorer. its lacking some features that firefox and chrome have but those are features I just don't use. but I will stick with firefox since I switch between windows and Linux a lot.

 

[FF222]

So why are you lying right in the title?

 

[Nobina]

So why are you lying right in the title?

News do that from time to time.

Anyway, I always had my Internet Explorer uninstalled but since Skype stopped working because of it I had to get it back. Now I have IE11 installed and I just tried it a couple of times. I must say that it is not as bad as everyone says. Ofcourse, it's nothing like Chrome and I will probably never switch from it.

 

[Jos]

@FF222 @Nobina I don't see the lie. Microsoft hired a company and that company was offering bloggers money for writing IE posts. That's what the title says and that's what happened here.

 

[misor]

I wish MS would pay me too! (for IE use, Bing search, and techspot login )

I don't use IE in any way shape or form but if MS paid me, I'd reconsider.

they will pay you to use bing on any browser

...except bing rewards is available only for the U.S.A.; bing login says 'cannot create account' as I am in the Philippines.

 

[gamoniac]

Yawn... TechSpot, please tell me something that isn't being done by all large companies (tech or non-tech).

 

[Guest]

Agency? They could just ask some users on Neowin - they would do that for free!

 

[FF222]

@FF222 @Nobina I don't see the lie. Microsoft hired a company and that company was offering bloggers money for writing IE posts. That's what the title says.

Wrong. The title says that the bloggers would have been supposedly paid to write "pro-IE posts", whereas the statements imply nothing alike.

Also, there's no confirmation that paid blog posts was Microsoft's idea in the first place, and not something that the agency decided for themselves as part of a generic campaign for IE.

 

[drjekel_mrhyde]

I wish MS would pay me too! (for IE use, Bing search, and techspot login )

This

 

[Guest]

Yep exactly. I hate IE for lots of reasons like bad usability, inaccesable UI, horrible security not even possible to use real white lists, no extentions and quite amaterurish BING, but I will write everything good about it for good real money. Cash, of course.

 

[Guest]

Yawn... TechSpot, please tell me something that isn't being done by all large companies (tech or non-tech).

You realize that Microsoft is now also a search engine, and this kind of SEO is called black hat and is what every search engine spent lots of time fighting. In other words, extremely hipocratic.