does this look more like an advertisement than a genuine post?

December 6, 2004 1:48 PM

Am I seeing what's not there, or does this look more like an advertisement than a genuine post?
posted by frykitty to Etiquette/Policy at 1:48 PM (51 comments total)

Even clubmedia's blog seems corporate to me. I could be reading this wrong, but it smells fishy.
posted by frykitty at 1:49 PM on December 6, 2004

I think a good general rule is that your first post (which this is) should not even come close to being perceived as shilling a product. Once you establish a reputation here, then we have some history and can let some borderline cases go by.

But in this case, I'd delete the post. It's not a very good post by Mefi standards anyways.
posted by vacapinta at 1:56 PM on December 6, 2004

could be stealth marketing. hard to tell. could just be lame.
posted by clubfoote at 2:00 PM on December 6, 2004

Speaking as one whose first newbie post was a double post to a news page about a crappy 1980s TV series remake which turned out to be a disappointment, I say go easy.
posted by brownpau at 2:03 PM on December 6, 2004

Not good.
posted by me3dia at 2:10 PM on December 6, 2004

clubmedia's homepage is highly dubious. The 'comments' for all the links on the page are copied from the linked articles. I think we've been had.
posted by driveler at 2:32 PM on December 6, 2004

Take a look at clubmedia's comment history: Plain, one-line comments ("bonds is a tool", "Google is God" etc) made probably just to get past the comment limit to make an FPP>
posted by vacapinta at 2:38 PM on December 6, 2004

I thought the same thing, frykitty. It's a crap post too. I thought the exotic animal "discuss this" thread was better
posted by puke & cry at 2:40 PM on December 6, 2004

It did seem borderline when I saw it, and if you guys also think it smells fishy, I'll ax it.

I know last week there was a big stink about a bunch of fan sites getting an early on-the-set photo published, but this was way more commercial seeming, as it was just leading to mainstream info on the movie.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:42 PM on December 6, 2004

Damn, I didn't even get to post the pic of Cooter & myself & the General Lee in Sperryville, VA.

/proud, not really
posted by dhoyt at 2:45 PM on December 6, 2004

On a similar note, my blog is getting spammed; especially today, by sites similar to his. Some pretty blatant "Pepsi Blue" sites disquised as blogs, I might add. Thankfully Blacklist took care of them.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:46 PM on December 6, 2004

Curiouser and curiouser...the account has been around for four years, but the first comment was eight days ago.

*scratches head*

Also: thanks, Matt.
posted by frykitty at 2:49 PM on December 6, 2004

Strange, his homepage has 'RIAA Lawsuits Suck' up the top...not what you'd expect from a market-buzzing corporate lackey.

I just felt sad for anyone excited about the Dukes of Hazzard movie, as if they still held hope that a movie could be made based on a TV series and still be watchable.

It breeds despair for the Blue that this was the second lacklustre post about the same lacklustre movie in two days.

[And his ":)" totally looks like a spammer's smile, as in "OMG! v1agra on sail now cheapy she wil luv u :)"]
posted by cosmonik at 2:52 PM on December 6, 2004

Hate stealth marketing, will definately boycott movie, though might consider downloading it.
posted by bobo123 at 2:59 PM on December 6, 2004

[Hi frykitty!]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:59 PM on December 6, 2004

frykitty, maybe they bought it on ebay?
posted by dabitch at 3:03 PM on December 6, 2004

[Hi stav! **smooch!**]

Dabitch: that was my first thought. My second thought was someone finding a way to compromise unused accounts.

My third thought was to hate the advertising industry.
posted by frykitty at 3:06 PM on December 6, 2004

A google search for clubmedia brings up clubmedia.* domains for lots of different countries and pages saying things like:
'ClubMedia, established in 1997, capture the youth market - 16 to 25 years of age - by taking our media to the youth. We reach the market in Night clubs, on campuses, on beaches and a variety of other targeted areas. Clubmedia is today the countries largest and most successful "top of mind" awareness product for the Youth Market.'
posted by driveler at 3:07 PM on December 6, 2004

My oh my, I find this annoying. Anyway, auto-comment-spamming is considered sodomy in 16 states.

(Forgive me if this kind of stalking is inappropriate.)

Clubmedia is some sort of company:
(this is admin contact for clubmedia.com)

davis jr., richard [e-mail]
clubmedia
5056 mills rd
milford, de 19963
US
3022223785

With recent accounts elsewhere as well :
http://forums.autoweek.com/profile.jspa?userID=3043
http://forums.dealnews.com/profile.php?2,7355

And an awesome anti-spam message here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=79830

But he does have a lomo!
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=56408
posted by metaculpa at 3:09 PM on December 6, 2004

The 'comments' for all the links on the page are copied from the linked articles.
Comments are gone now.

Which neither confirms nor denies the conspiracy theory.
posted by me3dia at 3:12 PM on December 6, 2004

metaculpa, lots of people list their website name in the "company" line of registration. So that doesn't prove much.
posted by me3dia at 3:15 PM on December 6, 2004

frykitty, you hate marketeers so do I.

/works in the advertising industry, hates seedy shill.
posted by dabitch at 3:25 PM on December 6, 2004

bah, who am I kidding I hate most of my collegues.

;)
posted by dabitch at 3:26 PM on December 6, 2004

I wouldn't read too much into the username. It's 4 years old too.
posted by smackfu at 3:33 PM on December 6, 2004

Fair enough, me3dia.

You may be right, although, it does smell fishy to me. I'd certainly hate to be wrong on a call-out like this. But I do find evidence across the 'net of a) signing up to forums only to self-link:

(Total posts: 1; total self-links: 1.)
http://forums.autoweek.com/profile.jspa?userID=3043
http://forums.autoweek.com/thread.jspa?forumID=11&threadID=5147&messageID=60886#60886

And check out this list of domains!
(From http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=2181 )

clubmedia.com
mixinvisuals.com
vwsites.com
rxmeds.com (!!)

Of course, maybe he's just terse ...
http://www.engadget.com/entry/7674671713523335/#c45047

... and rather concerned about adsense.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=4769

But I do feel like (whether my suspicionies are corect or not) I'm being a snarky brat now. I'll lay off, and go post a bunch of comments before I fpp my VxagraROXORS site.
posted by metaculpa at 3:34 PM on December 6, 2004

dabitch: I have a love/hate thing with advertising. I love to see wonderful stuff like this, but on the other hand, I'm a shrill, foaming, anti-consumerist bugnut.

*shrugs*
posted by frykitty at 3:34 PM on December 6, 2004

we're in the same boat then. (except I thought that citroen ad was a total rip off) self link, I obsess about twin ads a lot)
posted by dabitch at 3:57 PM on December 6, 2004

You guys are debating whether this is legitimate? Google searches turn up the aforementioned "Youth Market" spiel, and his blog is corporate wankery like "Halo sells 5 million, company says!" and "got speeding tickets? try this!" It's either a boring parody or an advertising hackjob. You'd think these twits would at least be a little bit sneakier.
posted by The God Complex at 4:37 PM on December 6, 2004

Strange, his homepage has 'RIAA Lawsuits Suck' up the top...not what you'd expect from a market-buzzing corporate lackey.

I don't know about that. I'm a market-buzzing corporate lackey with much the same kind of RIAA Sucks statement at the top of my web site.

FWIW, it looked more like excited fanboy stuff than a shill to me. But given that the movie is probably going to suck hard, I'm not to sorry to see it get the axe.
posted by willnot at 4:40 PM on December 6, 2004

How about that; I do have speeding tickets.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 5:41 PM on December 6, 2004

Umm, may I have his member number, Matt?
posted by frecklefaerie at 7:58 PM on December 6, 2004

His comments make for interesting word salad:

sucks...
i bet a crack for this is just about ready for mass consumption
i like my sites..... :)
bonds is a tool
there is no doubt, google is god!
ball licking is out of the question :)
yeah sony needs to get a life
microsoft sucks
i don't want either! hehehe
stem cells are the wave of the future!


Thank you Clubmedia. I hope you thought your hard work was worh it.
posted by joelf at 1:05 AM on December 7, 2004

Oh come on, the guy's blog reads like Consumer's Digest for ROBOTS.
posted by mek at 1:10 AM on December 7, 2004

And I know we're gettin' all conspiratorial here. But This is weird. His IP address hosts 3 websites - the two listed in his profile, and this one.

Wacky!
posted by glenwood at 6:55 AM on December 7, 2004

So much lame advertising going on...
posted by tpl1212 at 8:06 AM on December 7, 2004

yeah, it's shill city. But there's not much that can be done other then just getting them deleted when they come up.
posted by chaz at 9:45 AM on December 7, 2004

how would me advertising for the dukes of hazzard remake benefit me in the least?

it was the first i had heard about it, i searched metafilter with no results, then posted it

get a grip guys, come on...
posted by clubmedia at 11:26 AM on December 7, 2004

you might be a bzzagent for all we know.
posted by dabitch at 2:24 PM on December 7, 2004

(argh! I shouldn't have linked that, bad habit - copy paste this http://blog.bzzagent.com/ instead)
posted by dabitch at 2:25 PM on December 7, 2004

i have already emailed frykitty about this

it was a simple innocent post about something that I thought was interesting

there is a lot of stuff on here that i don't find interesting, but i don't feel the need to call someone out because they do find it interesting
posted by clubmedia at 2:47 PM on December 7, 2004

i have already emailed frykitty about this

Yes, you did. And as I said in my reply, I stand by my post.
posted by frykitty at 3:49 PM on December 7, 2004

there is a lot of stuff on here that i don't find interesting, but i don't feel the need to call someone out because they do find it interesting

the real interesting stuff, like the phony Rx site, and the one post self links on other forums, be sure to studiously avoid addressing any of that, ok? i doubt we'll notice.
posted by quonsar at 4:48 PM on December 7, 2004

usually if someone goes making an accusation, and then finds her / his accusations to be false, a simple apology is just a common courtesy

or maybe i was just raised differently
posted by clubmedia at 4:51 PM on December 7, 2004

what is phony about the medication site? its a simple site with information about popular medications, which i do make money on the banner ads. i do not sell any medications at all.

its just web design, put up some banner ads, let google do the rest

the other posts in forums are when i was getting my volkswagen site started and off the ground.

i think there is way to many up tight people here for some reason. lighten up please.

i have always had fun reading metafilter entries, and the first time i post one thing, it turns into a flame war

relax guys, please...
posted by clubmedia at 4:57 PM on December 7, 2004

clubmedia's new post about texas hold'em (the current spam obsession) makes me even more suspicious about their motives.

However, its a well constructed post about a relevant topic. I've always wondered what would happen if a smart spammer showed up on mefi - not the usual idiots but rather someone who had been studying us intently and knew how to play by the rules and get their message across. Can we spot the wolf among us?

This may be the one of the most interesting threats Mefi has faced.
posted by vacapinta at 12:28 AM on December 8, 2004

please let me know how i can make money off of it then :)

i don't gamble, or ever care too.

but watching friends blow $230 a piece in a texas hold'em contest with 100 (or more contestants in the pot) in the past weekends makes me even more of a skeptical gambler.

i honestly do not understand it.

risk is cool, stupidity losing money isn't though really
posted by clubmedia at 12:41 AM on December 8, 2004

Well, I'd imagine bringing this texas hold'em craze to more people's attention will benefit any site that caters to this. Sure, the sites you link to have mixed reviews but, as we all know, all publicity is good publicity.

As I said, its not a bad post, but don't you have any non-commercial interests? :)
posted by vacapinta at 12:53 AM on December 8, 2004

not right now honestly.

i don't really think about "if this is commercial or not" before i give myself the OK to talk about it with others

freedom of speech (thinking / speaking freely) is a good thing
posted by clubmedia at 1:57 AM on December 8, 2004

usually if someone goes making an accusation, and then finds her / his accusations to be false, a simple apology is just a common courtesy

I'm waiting for my apology from you.
posted by mosch at 2:24 AM on December 8, 2004

Seriously, Clubmedia, explain your blog. Why does it consist only of links to news stories accompanied by, invariably, the first couple hundred words of those stories, with no commentary at all? It looks like it's put together algorithmically, like it exists for you to run google ads on.

Which is fine. But it doesn't help your credibility on this issue.
posted by Tlogmer at 4:13 AM on December 8, 2004

because that is the way i want to run it. its my own type of rss of stories that i find interesting.

mosch, hold your breath
posted by clubmedia at 9:40 AM on December 8, 2004