
Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users  - ZoFreX
http://delyan.me/08-01-2013/samsung-agency-is-buying-off-stackoverflow-users/
======
archivator
Hi all. Delyan here.

I'm kinda bummed I didn't submit this myself. I would've loved to cash in on
those most precious of internet points. Oh, well. :)

To address the question of discussing this publicly: I don't think I'm doing
them any favours right now. I'd like to think that the developer crowd
(especially the one at HN) is not as easily swayed by competitions, challenges
and brands as to forget sleazy behaviour like this.

I'm calling them out publicly because our places of discussion are very rarely
guarded by tall walls. Instead, they let everyone in (and that's what makes
them great). The price is that every once in a while we all have to push some
people out. That's what I'm trying to do by writing this post.

Also, I apologize for the spelling and grammar, I wrote it early in the
morning and my brain was still complaining about sleep deprivation and
whatnot. Stupid brain.

P.S. also, guys, can I ask a quick favour? If anyone notices the site is down,
please drop me a line (my email is in my profile). It's shared hosting and I'm
not sure how well it will cope with top-of-HN. Especially when PST wake up.

~~~
justplay
Your website is working fast and up,which host you use? It scaled up
brilliantly.

~~~
archivator
I'd love to say it's my amazing architecture and optimizations skills. But
it's not. It's just a static blog, generated with Ruhoh
([http://ruhoh.com/](http://ruhoh.com/)) and nginx. I'm on Webfaction's
cheapest plan, on the Amsterdam servers.

------
farmdawgnation
This is, in my mind, evidence that companies like this are out of touch. They
want to treat Stack Overflow like a search engine and marketing tool to be
optimized, and, in their ignorance, don't see it as something different than
what it actually is: a community of people passionate about their craft and
helping others with it.

Eventually people are going to learn that the way you leverage a community
like that toward doing something is to become a respected member of the
community yourself. It seems that today is not that say for Samsung. Honestly,
they would have been smarter to just have their engineering team dedicate time
to answering questions on SO every week, then have a piece done in tech media
about why. That is still a bit gimmicky, I guess, but much cooler than this
method.

I know that I, at least, would be really entertained to have an exchange with
a Samsung engineer about a problem I was having on SO.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
Out of touch? This guy maybe, but I would be surprised if SO, like most other
communities, wasn't already successfully being gamed by marketeers a hell of a
lot smarter than this clown.

And let's not have the illusion that HN an pg are too smart to be manipulated
by people that are at least as clever as we are but who have specialized
themselves in manipulating people instead of bits and bytes.

No place where human beings gather, virtual of physical, is safe from this.
It's only the clueless an lazy ones that get caught like this.

~~~
eksith
I'll bite.

"And let's not have the illusion that HN an pg are too smart to be manipulated
by people..."

You're vastly underestimating how many people are interconnected in this
hodgepodge of gray matter we call HN.

Blind allegiance (or antipathy) is not how things work here.

Part of the reason this community is different from others is that the best
way to respect people like pg or tptacek or anyone else who's been around is
to call them on something when you disagree. I think that's how they'd like it
as well.

It has nothing to do with being "smarter". It's got everything to do with
being genuine.

In that regard SO is at a marked disadvantage because it's such a tempting
target for drive-by dropping of bait for marketing. With the exception of a
handful of long time contributors, the vast number of accounts there have no
discussion between each other (since that itself leads to the question getting
closed) and so they have no means to get to know each other really. That's not
what happens here.

You can follow people, you can read their past threads. You can even go back
and watch people evolve in their thought process with the kinds of discussions
we've had. Try that on SO.

~~~
jacquesm
HN is being used for astroturfing according to PG.

~~~
brudgers
With it's connection to YC there's a bit of it implicit in the model - e.g. YC
applications.

And, no I am not finding fault with the connection to YC or the special
status, just pointing out that the HN playing field is not natural grass, and
that it is that way for very reasonable reasons and that it is, in my opinion,
almost certainly to the benefit of the HN community.

On a site with a larger commercial tie in, "astroturfing" like "weed" in a
horticultural setting lacks scientific definition.

------
ebbv
Anyone who finds this shocking, I have news for you; every large company has
been and is doing this type of astroturfing all over the internet for well
over a decade now.

I guess it can be surprising when you get asked to participate in it directly,
but every type of site that's driven by "the public" (Slashdot, Digg, reddit,
Twitter, Stack Overflow, etc.) is going to be a target for this type of
activity.

It's usually pretty obvious, and I think if we ever want it to stop I think
it's important to publicly shame companies who do it like this.

~~~
natch
Really? Come on. To be fair, since the immediate comparison that jumps to mind
is between Samsung and Apple, let's put it right on the table: I don't think
Apple does this.

~~~
ksec
I am sorry if this comment spark off any other pointless debate and argument
or offended any Apple Fan boys or Samsung Fan boys.

But the truth is, pretty much every company does this.. except Apple.

Ans Samsung are at the top of this game. They are number 1 in spending on
advertising and they spend double the advertising budget compared to 2nd in
place. ( And their Rate are pretty awesome too compared to others )

You see heavy advertising on a Newspaper from Samsung? Lots of bashing and
irresponsible reporting while bending the truth on Apple. Coincidence? You
should make up your own mind.

Compared to all other dirty thing that Samsung does behind the scene, these
things are really tips of the iceberg.

~~~
vectorpush
_But the truth is, pretty much every company does this.. except Apple._

Any evidence or even subjective reasoning why I'd believe Apple is any
different from any other company? In the absence of evidence I wouldn't accuse
Apple of anything but only a fool would give Apple a pass on something that
"every company [supposedly] does".

 _Lots of bashing and irresponsible reporting while bending the truth on
Apple. Coincidence_

Good point; Apple never trashes the competition, that's above them.

~~~
eridius
Apple simply does not engage in anything even remotely resembling
astroturfing. The simplest reason is that they don't need to, but the more
accurate reason is that it's not in the company culture to do things like
that.

As a semi-related example, I'm sure you're familiar with product placement in
TV shows and movies. Most product placement is done because the company paid
for it to be there (for example, all of the Windows 8 stuff I've seen in Arrow
I'm certain is paid product placement). However, despite the fact that Apple
products are used frequently in TV shows and movies, Apple does not pay for
product placement; all the Apple product placement you see was free.

In any case, I personally don't think Apple is the only company that doesn't
engage in astroturfing. I'm sure there are many large companies out there that
don't do it.

~~~
WayneDB
No, they "lose" phones in bars though (twice) and do other very sneaky things.
Apple is super sneaky. They also do things like making gimped software and
drivers for other platforms part of their business plan. I consider this worse
than astroturfing.

~~~
eridius
What are you talking about? Trust me, when a prototype device gets stolen in a
bar, that's absolutely _not_ guerrilla marketing. That was serious business,
and I'm certain the only reason the engineer didn't get fired is because it
would have been bad PR. Apple takes its prototype hardware extremely
seriously.

And I really have no idea what you mean with the "gimped software and drivers
for other platforms" claim.

------
snorkel
Wow, this is an interesting topic. I especially like the informative news
link. I was also wondering if anyone here has heard of the Samsung Smart App
Challenge because I was thinking of entering. I heard the best apps will win
great promotional prizes and the latest Samsung devices. I also heard that
Samsung devices are 4X faster than leading competitors devices because of
their advanced technology. Does anyone else here have questions about
Samsung's latest products and services because I heard they have great
brochures and contests all the time and amazing fast technology in their
devices that are affordable for all budgets.

Thank you and please visit our web site .... Oh wait, am supposed to paste
this paragraph too? I better ask John do I paste the entire email body or just
the first paragraph?

Hi John,

I pasted the email you sent as instructed. Is it $500 per paragraph per post?
I have high HN karma so my rate is $500 per paragraph. Also I responded to
several posts about child trafficking because it was a very interesting
discussion, hope you don't mind.

Thanks. Still waiting FOR MY Check, John!

~~~
codesuela
Hey snorkel,

> I heard the best apps will win great promotional prizes and the latest
> Samsung devices.

yes I heard of it too and I am going to submit an app! Wish me luck. I am
submitting my battery draining app. By the way do you know how Samsung
Touchwiz manages to heat up my phone? It is an awesome feature and it seems to
be unique to Samsung because I could not find the function the Android SDK!
Can you believe that?! Ha!

I really look forward to winning the new Galaxy Note as I compared it to a
bunch of other Android phones and it seems that it not only offers the best
hardware but also the biggest surface for heat dissipation. I have a cold
currently and can't stop thinking about how awesome it would be if I could use
my cell phone as a portable hot-water bag. That reminds me of a story about
Samsung and illness: 2003 I had a heart attack. I was so shaky and panicked
that instead of the emergency services I dialed the Samsung hotline. I got to
speak to a support agent instantly! He calmed me down and explained to me how
there is a secret resuscitation function built into my current Samsung phone
then he hung up. As my heart rate came to a halt I yanked up the vibration
strength in the settings menu and with his callback a powerful electric shock
ran through my body giving my heart the much needed kick to start beating
again.

As I thanked him he explained that this function was not openly advertised
because Bill Gates had a patent on breaking bones through muscle contractions
caused by an electric shock for using a Linux product. But because the
implementation was too similar Samsung hid the feature.

Beat that Apple!

------
jaydles
I work at Stack Exchange, and contacted Samsung as soon as this was brought to
our attention last night.

1\. The company engaging in these tactics was not hired by Samsung; they
appear to have been sub-contracted for some promotion by the company they did
hire. Now, it's obviously possible that they turned a blind eye, or don't want
to know what methods are used, but in fairness, there's no evidence that they
had any idea this was happening. And given the directness of it all, I suspect
they'd have objected, if only because it looks so bad.

2\. Everyone who was contacted due to being a user on our sites has now
received a follow up communication from the company that sent the first
message redacting the offer and apologizing for the inappropriate contact and
request.

None of that makes any of this... lovely, but it does help clarify that any
potential harm or noise this might cause seems to have been contained.

~~~
iyulaev
Big company decides to pull a grassroots-focused marketing campaign. Picks an
inappropriate venue. Backs off.

Is fb, for example, a more appropriate venue, selling likes and all that? They
explicitly allow sponsored posts that appear to have been made by friends. I
think the marketing person figured that stack overflow was similar to fb for
nerds. Whoops.

~~~
BrandonMarc
Yep. Reminds me of the time WalMart paid a couple to blog about their RV trip
across the US, without the couple disclosing the entire trip and blog was a
WalMart marketing experiment: [http://kevin.lexblog.com/2006/10/13/fake-blog-
walmart-gets-c...](http://kevin.lexblog.com/2006/10/13/fake-blog-walmart-gets-
caught-with-its-pants-down/)

------
ojbyrne
I try to refrain from being a spelling nazi here, but "So, I shot back this
brisque email" made me laugh. It's like a portmanteau of "brusque" and
"brisk."

~~~
pavlov
For a more daring approach, try sending a brisqué email.

~~~
smickie
brisqué | adjective abrupt or offhand in speech or manner which is showing a
wish to deal with things quickly and slightly indecent and liable to shock

~~~
James_Duval
also tastes faintly of crab.

------
buro9
The agency (FLLU) seem really small. Too small in fact, because most companies
would engage a substantially larger firm and have account managers and would
handle all of this stuff coherently from one place rather than use potentially
hundreds of firms this size (3 people).

Before everyone jumps to conclusions... could it not be the case that someone
with just a very small bit of budget said "Wouldn't it be great if..." and
then hired this little company "I know a few guys who could..." to help
promote it, failing to understand what form that promotion would take.

Of course, it can and should be argued that Samsung (and their many
departments and entities) had a tighter leash for their managers and such
"little" projects and initiatives... but I wouldn't argue that not having a
tight enough leash is tantamount to Samsung consciously trying to bribe users.

This is where I long for journalists over bloggers... perhaps someone could
find out who hired FLLU? Then perhaps someone could ask that someone the basis
for the campaign and whether it was authorised by Samsung.

~~~
damoncali
There are a lot of big companies who cannot even function without hiring tiny
companies and freelancers to do the work. I've done marketing contracts for
public companies as a one-man operation and had a shocking amount of control
over the messaging. It's likely you'd find people at Samsung who think this
sort of stuff is great and others who think it is abhorrent. That's the nature
of big organizations.

------
Sarkie
[http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-
posting...](http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-posting-fake-
user-reviews-on-the-web.html)

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/7192/update-on-gpu-
optimizatio...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7192/update-on-gpu-
optimizations-galaxy-s-4)

Maybe they know that the HTC One is a better phone?

------
cruise02
They could have just bought some ads on Stack Overflow. From the Help Center:

> If a large percentage of your posts include a mention of your product or
> website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. _Our advertising rates
> are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for details._ We also offer
> free community promotion ads for open source projects and non-profit
> organizations.

[http://stackoverflow.com/help/behavior](http://stackoverflow.com/help/behavior)

That would have been a lot less sleazy, and probably would have gotten more
views than most questions about programming contest code.

~~~
eonil
And now you should know the price was not the issue.

------
iurisilvio
And then you put it in HN front page. It is probably a lot more than the
visibility in StackOverflow... =)

~~~
damoncali
I would argue that HN is much easier to game than SO, which makes it doubly
ironic.

------
mindstab
Reminds me of

[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/02/10](http://www.penny-
arcade.com/comic/2006/02/10)

and William Gibson's 2003 book Pattern recognition that dealt with this.

This is a pretty old and known thing. Whether it's the street, bars or online
forums, this has been going on for over 10 years at least.

------
fabian2k
And their example questions would be off-topic on Stack Overflow and likely
closed immediately. Whoever is behind this seems to have no idea what SO is
and how it works beyond "it's a huge site with programmers on it".

~~~
Shog9
This. Folks try this kinda crap all the time; the community and/or mods just
delete it.

Still sucks that legit users end up being contacted over it though.

------
petenixey
Why is this so bad?

Samsung know that developers are the key to apps and so they go to help
promote them by getting questions asked on Stack Overflow. They didn't specify
exactly what the questions should be, they didn't say that they had to link to
a particular site.

I often hear devs bemoan the fact that the OS/hardware combo they love isn't
used by anyone and how despite the fact that it's THE best platform/hardware
combo around today they just don't have the apps on it they want.

The way apps to get built on hardware is that manufacturers support and
nurture a developer community. So a company comes along and uses some pretty
intelligent ways to go direct to the developer community (help increase the
documentation around the system) and they're lynch-mobbed for it.

Granted, the questions were naive (about a competition rather than technical)
but there's no need to hang the poor guy or publish his email for it. He's a
marketer and doesn't realise SO isn't for idle chat. Instead of lambasting him
as the mortal enemy of devs why not just write back to him and point out that
SO is the wrong place to promote a competition?

~~~
rsynnott
This is astroturfing; that is, a form of marketing where the advertisement is
disguised as natural behaviour. Most countries have laws to limit or ban it.
It's not normally considered legitimate marketing.

Samsung was recently fined by Taiwanese authorities for an astroturfing
campaign there, though, so it's not like it's new.

------
mwfunk
I really hate the practice of astroturfing, but what's even more annoying is
when someone accuses someone else of doing it in an online forum. For every
time someone maybe, possibly legitimately calls someone out for being an
astroturfer, it seems like there are 100 or 1000 instances of someone doing it
just because they disagree with what the other person is saying, and they're
too immature or whatever to realize that reasonable people can come to
different conclusions about things without one person being paid to do so.

Astroturfing is one of those things that by itself probably has limited
impact, but a much worse side effect: fueling paranoia in online communities
and giving dumb people one more tool in their flamewar toolbox.

------
ceautery
"Make it look organic" is a lofty goal, but I don't think it's realistic. As
Misery from Ruby Gloom says, you don't tell people you're starting a craze, a
craze just happens.

------
pcunite
I'm the developer of a small but "better than current offerings" product.
Everywhere my product gets mention two or three shills jump in to recommend
theirs. Wecome to WebSpam 2.0

~~~
cruise02
This is the main reason that the entire "product or tool recommendation"
category is off-topic on Stack Overflow. Those types of questions invite that
kind of spam.

------
pbang
Soooooooo... Anyone know anything about SSAC?

~~~
axus
Wouldn't have heard about it except for this article :) Could I get some
feedback on this app I'm about to submit to the SSAC?

------
nicholassmith
That's sleazy, but it's to be expected now SO is such a significant player in
the online developer market. The interesting thing being a question along
those lines would be flagged, and closed pretty sharpish.

I can't imagine that this is the last time we'll see people trying this trick
though.

------
mathattack
I'm very interested in how this plays out. Right now I add Stackexchange to
search queries in Google, precisely because the SEO effects haven't hit.

The morality question may not be so black and white, though. If it's ok to
accept goodies to monetize a Klout score, why not for StackExchange?
Unfortunately, it only takes a small amount of people doing this for a variety
of products to ruin the site.

My impression of this as an outsider hearing only one side of the story is
Samsung asked an agency to help get the word out in the tech community. The
agency probably knows more about advertising than digital, or views digital
advertising as Twitter and Klout. I think their less than subtle approach will
backfire.

~~~
icebraining
_The morality question may not be so black and white, though. If it 's ok to
accept goodies to monetize a Klout score, why not for StackExchange?_

By "monetize a Klout score," you mean spam your followers on social networks
sites, right? That seems pretty morally clear to me.

~~~
mathattack
Is it morally clear though?

Kim Kardashian gets paid to plug god knows what, and it's not immoral to be a
shill.

That isn't to say that I would do it. (I won't) But it isn't black and white.
It might be a dark gray, but it's still gray.

~~~
icebraining
_Kim Kardashian gets paid to plug god knows what, and it 's not immoral to be
a shill._

Thankfully, I wouldn't know what Ms. Kardashian plugs, since I'm not from the
US and our regular news coverage doesn't cover such events. But as for
shilling not being immoral, I have to say I seriously disagree. Advertising
may not be, but shilling certainly is, in my moral code.

------
D3nver
You realize you're promoting it on HN now right?

~~~
rootbear
Merely discussing something is not promoting it. The GLBT community has fought
this battle again and again, when various parties sought to suppress any
mention of homosexuality in public schools, because that would be "promoting
the homosexual lifestyle". This discussion may make more people aware of the
Samsung contest, but it is in no way a promotion of it.

~~~
greyman
> Merely discussing something is not promoting it.

But in this particular case it is. There will be people who are interested in
the contest, and doesn't mind that dishonest promotional tactics was used.

~~~
rootbear
So would you have preferred that the original poster not bring it up on HN at
all? I could just as easily claim that someone who was planning to enter the
contest before learning about Samsung's practices will now choose not to. We
have no data. In the absence of data, I think the OP did the right thing by
letting us know about this.

------
graup
"Need some feedback on the app I am about to enter for the Samsung Smart App
Challenge."

I guess that one could have worked. A real question on some programming
problem having this as a side note...

They didn't really understand SO, but they could have done worse.

------
lnanek2
Half the scumminess here is that they don't understand StackOverflow isn't a
general purpose forum, I think. It would be less offensive if they were paying
a popular forum member to mention the contest. On StackOverflow, however, you
are supposed to post questions about something you are programming, however.
So it really isn't valid to just bring up a contest as a contest. I suppose
theoretically, if they wanted to do something close to what they want they'd
have to pay someone to try using their APIs and post questions they encounter
and mention the contest on the side. Although even that is kind of stretching
it.

------
coldcode
$500 to be a whore. No.

~~~
mathattack
So is it just a matter of price? At which price would it be ok?

~~~
josephagoss
500BTC is my price.

~~~
mathattack
I dare say you are simultaneously too cheap and too expensive!

~~~
josephagoss
Bitcoin, just like a quantum bit, in all states at the same time!

------
mmed
Gumtree (Craigslist equivalent in UK) offered me money to do similar kind of
stuff for the sake of "Word of mouth" marketing. They offered bonus if I could
post a blog on my personal blog too.

------
nimh
Samsung is always using scam PR agencies, see before:

[http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/2012/08/12/13234078-sams...](http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/2012/08/12/13234078-samsung-
hired-a-marketing-agency-to-fake-blog-about-its-products)

[http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-
lo...](http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-london-
olympic-games/)

------
at-fates-hands
Another warning to big companies who are employing sketchy marketing
companies. With more and more of these stories coming out, I'm wondering when
companies are going to stop taking chances with these "agencies" and simply
bring their marketing back in house. Then they can have more control and
oversight on what goes on with their brand.

This just makes Samsung and the whole Android community look bad, regardless
of who actually was doing it.

------
sologoub
I'm pretty sure that SO/SX already run various promotional products, like the
Microsoft Windows Phone app challenge/contest. That said, I'm also sure such
promotional deals come with a set of rules to ensure SO integrity. After all,
a lot of work has gone into making SO one of the best (if not the best) places
to learn and interact with dev community.

Would be interesting to see how this revelation affects any dealings with
Samsung...

~~~
ahsteele
The Stack Overflow Microsoft app contests rewarded people for asking
legitimate Stack Overflow questions. In fact some of the contest prizes were
hard to obtain because they required X questions/answers with a score X or
more votes. Many of the topics were sufficiently covered already, making
additional questions/answers duplicative. However, this ensured that the
integrity of Stack Overflow was maintained even if it did make the contest
more difficult.

~~~
sologoub
But it's the right way to do it!

------
rweba
What is so difficult about promoting it via the usual channels?
Advertisements, (legitimate) posts on appropriate forums, mailing lists,
blogs, etc. Assuming they are presenting an attractive value proposition I
don't see why it would be hard to get the message to the right people without
resorting to this kind of thing.

This subterfuge only seems to make sense if what you are promoting
fundamentally sucks or if you have a very limited budget.

------
shard
Does anyone else besides me think that this is a very cheap technique to use
in a smear campaign? Throw up some fake "viral marketing" company website,
offer to pay $x to some people for fake reviews / secret paid promotions but
don't actually pay, and wait for public complaints from either people with
ethics or people who didn't get paid?

~~~
tripzilch
cheap yes, effective not so sure. I really wonder what the net effect for a
giant company like Samsung will be for a little scandal like this. any of the
big electronics corporations seems to have scandals or fuckups or unethical
actions of some sort or other.

it might be pretty devastating to smaller companies, perhaps? although it's
still hard to say, depending on how they deal with it, it might even result in
a net positive publicity.

------
EdM
Okay, be honest. After reading this, how many of you searched for "Samsung
Smart App Challenge".

[https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Samsung+Smart+App+Ch...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Samsung+Smart+App+Challenge#q=Samsung%20Smart%20App%20Challenge&cmpt=q)

I'm not sure that Samsung hasn't won this round...

------
Nate75Sanders
Hilarious, especially in light of this text from the front page of their
website:

"Paying for followers will not get you the results you need. Follower growth
needs to be organic. We like to keep things All Natural here at FLLU. It's all
about Organic Growth! "

[http://www.fllu.com/](http://www.fllu.com/)

------
jama22
Looks like they're already in damage control mode. My buddy just received this
e-mail from james@fluu.com

[http://pastebin.com/EVm8jH3s](http://pastebin.com/EVm8jH3s)

------
CmonDev
Those kind of competitions are really just work with non-guaranteed pay.

------
coin
Why do sites like this disable pinchzoom? What purpose does it serve?

------
gearoidoc
Yup, AirBnB did (kinda) the same thing to listers on Craigslist.

------
TheRealDunkirk
Whatever. If you don't think this sort of thing isn't happening at EVERY web
top-100 web site, you've got another thing coming.

------
csmatt
They'd be better going after people who center themselves around Android dev
and have a lot of followers on Twitter, G+, etc.

------
mmphosis
What is even better is that you complained about this in a blog, and posted to
Hacker News. Before this I didn't know anything about the Samsung Androids,
but thanks to your blog and posting on Hacker News probably more people know
about this than any fake $500 posting on stackoverflow. And, Samsung didn't
have to pay a cent for your publicity -- or maybe they did pay you for this
clever bit of marketing.

~~~
Dylan16807
You didn't know Samsung had androids, really? Because the only real
information content about whatever this 'Challenge' is is that they want you
to buy some.

------
eonil
No surprise for Samsung is doing this. Abusing community by ad is the only
their real professional at.

------
rsynnott
Astroturfing via StackOverflow has to be the most pathetic possible form of
unethical marketing.

------
spo81rty
They ended up getting some amazing free advertising out of this via this HN
post!

------
bbayer
So everybody now know about Samsung Smart App Challange. Mission accomplished.

~~~
eonil
And no change at all on brand image. If their brand value is already
-INFINITE.

------
_pmf_
What's up with the blatant Samsung bashing recently? Does Apple have to fall
back on these kinds of tricks?

~~~
rsynnott
Sorry, pointing out Samsung's use of unethical marketing is "bashing"? What?

> Does Apple have to fall back on these kinds of tricks?

Are you suggesting that Apple is pretending to be Samsung and soliciting
shills? That's impressively tinfoil-hat-y, especially given that Samsung has
been caught practicing questionable marketing techniques before
([http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-
posting...](http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-posting-fake-
user-reviews-on-the-web.html),
[http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/2012/08/12/13234078-sams...](http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/2012/08/12/13234078-samsung-
hired-a-marketing-agency-to-fake-blog-about-its-products),
[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/samsung-
sor...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/samsung-sorry-for-
bloggers-berlin-nightmare-20120904-25bby.html))

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penetrarthur
So in the end you've chosen to advertise it on HN?

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mariuolo
Shame on them.

