[kwlug-disc] Is MS humbling down?

[Kyle Spaans]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 10:28 PM, <john at netdirect.ca> wrote:
> Further they pay independent bloggers and writers to tote the company line
> as if it were an independent opinion:
> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-08-23-microsoft-letters.htm. Although
> I can't cite a reference apparently posts  critiquing IBM's OS/2 in 1994 and
> 1995 were indeed paid for by Microsoft in order to encourage people to wait
> for Windows 95. We all thought we were reading honest reports.

Tangential anecdote, I independently invented astroturfing a few months ago.
The Comp Sci Club at school works hard to promote it's own events to the student
population. We put up a lot of posters in buildings. One day I realized when I
stopped to read our own poster that more students walking past me also looked
at it. When I ran back to the club office to tell me friends they just
looked at me
and laughed. "Yeah, that's called astroturfing, fake grassroots."