Email Hall of Shame, Humor, Technology Comments
Well, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement.
“Astroturfing” refers to “formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf” according to Wikipedia.
Since my last post on Tag44.com last year, I’ve gotten a few comments. One of them was from Arthur Rowa (who appears to be passionate about money). Arthur calls me ignorant stupid:
You know what’s wrong with the internet?
Smart people and stupid people get equal airtime. And since stupid people like you tend to shout longer and louder than people who have acquired wisdom and judgment, ignorance usually prevails.
Not generally something you want to call someone whom you’re trying most desperately to convince to hire the people you’re shilling for, but I figure he got the message from the post that I’m not going to be hiring their folks anyway. So, no harm, no foul, right?
Wrong.
You see, those two comments (and a trackback ping) aren’t the only things that have come in. There was more! I was debating whether I should write this follow-up until I saw (and decided to approve) Mr. Rowa’s comment. That comment just made up my mind for me.
[UPDATE: I went ahead and approved the comments in the other post that I'm writing about below so that people can see the level of workers that Tag44 is apparently trying to hire out.]
First, let’s have a look at a comment from Shawn. Shawn writes:
Hello Friends, No its not like that, they are not spamming for any jobs, they just select the right candidate for the right job. They call you, they email you but they never try to cheat you, fool you. I am saying that because i have past experience with them. They helps me a lot in finding the right job for me & because of them today i am at the position where i always dream to be. So please never ever consider there mails or calls, spamming. Regards, Shawn
Man, guys, if this is the level of professionalism exuded by the people you’re trying to get me to hire, I’m glad you felt the need to spam me, insult me, and do everything in your power to make sure I’d never use your service to make a hiring decision. Well, even that’s not completely true. I’ll make hiring decisions based on their service, it’s just that those decisions won’t go the way they’re hoping for.
Next, we have a comment from Joe, who says:
I don’t think so that they harassed people or spamming by sending mails.
I also got there call & its nice experience to talk with them. So make your mind & get ready for there call.
Joe, if you’re reading this, could you please write back and tell me how to make my mind? And where is there so I can make sure to miss it?
Finally, we have the thoughts of one Tofique Shaikh, who opines:
Its totally fake and against the reputation of the site Tag44.com as this site helps me lot in finding job in my area. So pls dont write anything wrong about it & if possible delete this post as been a Intellectual Intercourse you are writing such fake & spam.
Now, remember, I said that they’re failing at Astroturfing, not grammar and spelling (although they have tickets on the Fail Boat for that, too). Let’s have a look at the IPs they posted from:
Shawn posts from 59.145.227.24, and lists encircleps.com for his link. If you’ll remember from first Tag44 post, Encircle Payments and Tag44 appear to be the same company as the Administrative and Technical contacts are both the same person who is using an encirclepayments.com address for contact. So, Shawn may not be the most, shall we say, objective of commenters. In fact, I’m going to guess that the position that you “always dreamed to be” is with Tag44 or Encircle Payments.
I think that they desire for Joe to appear to be a manager who got a call from them that he didn’t mind. Goodness knows there are plenty of illiterate managers out there, right? Only problem is that Joe is also posting from 59.145.227.24. That’s right. He’s posting from the same IP address as Shawn.
Finally, we have Tofique Shaikh. Tofique at least lists tag44.com for his link, but hey, you can put google.com in there if you wanted to, and maybe since he’s shilling for the site, he just really likes it. So, let’s have a look at his IP address: 203.101.92.166. Oooh! Guess who owns it? That’s right, boys and girls, Encircle!
Three positive comments. All of which were made by mostly illiterate people from IP space owned by Tag44/Encircle.
Can you say “astroturf”? I knew you could. Only three posts is pretty lame yeah, but that’s what you get from spammers.
MickC @ June 1, 2009
So, yesterday XMSirius rolled out its new lineup. And after one day in, the verdict is in:
OUCH!
I want to know what they did to come up with the new lineup. It almost seems like a deliberate attempt to kill off the industry.
The lineup is just plain painful. There is no way that XM 26 (Flight 26) doesn’t beat “The Pulse”. Even the DJs were better (and didn’t talk as much). The play list was more extensive. Lucy, Ethel, and Fred are all gone.
There are far too many single artist channels now. I think that they’ve probably been doing this because of the success of their first attempt with “The 30 Days of Coldplay” back in July/August, timed to coincide with the release of Viva la Vida. I think it worked out well for them as Carol is now a fan and bought “me” (who is also a fan and a bigger one thanks to that channel) a couple of their CDs for my birthday. But really, look at who they’re pushing now: the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC. How many of you are going to run out after listening to this for a few days and buy more 60s, 70s, and 80s hair band CDs? Frankly, I didn’t even like AC/DC the first time around. Exposing me to it 24/7 is a good way to get me to forget about that channel. Like forever, man.
And, I get to say that I’m not alone this time. I was talking to Al this morning. He is on a business trip and says that he really regrets not bringing his iPod with him. And Al is much bigger music person than I am. (And Al has finally weighed in with his own blog post.)
I’m not seeing anything better than mostly-negative mixed reviews on message boards and blogs, either.
MickC @ November 13, 2008
If you follow the instructions to integrate XM Radio Online with MythTV, you need to select “low” for the bandwidth setting. Some channels (like Flight 26) will throw a 401 error if you try to stream them on high. Selecting “low” doesn’t make much of a difference with TV speakers.
MickC @ October 25, 2008
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