
Microsoft Paying Bloggers to Write about Internet Explorer - scottrblock
http://uncrunched.com/2014/06/17/microsoft-paying-bloggers-to-write-about-internet-explorer/
======
peterkelly
While I can understand some of the concerns here, I'd encourage you to look at
where Internet Explorer is now; it's come a long way in the past few years.

IE today offers a brand new experience with many different features. The
reworked Internet Explorer lets you search smarter and do more with its cool
new features, such as multitasking, pinnable sites, and full-screen browsing.

Wherever you are, Internet Explorer is the ideal way to play games, catch up
on your reading, watch videos, and browse the web, of course. Use fast and
fluid Internet Explorer across all your Windows devices—tablet, Windows Phone,
and TV with an Xbox with an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

This program is really a great way for bloggers and HN commenters to spread
the word about the new Internet Explorer web experience in a cool, visual way.
There's also opportunities for fun prizes and rewards through duration of the
program.

~~~
pling
I hope this is comedy. If it isn't, give me a break :)

Excuse the vent - I just spent two hours fixing some shit just for IE...

Seriously. I spent a LOT of my time in front of IE and this is the real story:

The built in search determination is awful. Half the time, valid web sites are
sent straight to bing. It's worse than Safari and Chrome by miles. The only
hope is hit Ctrl+E to force it to search. It's as smart is a lobotomized
monkey.

Pinnable sites are just bookmarks outside the browser. This isn't really all
that useful. I have never seen a person use it, ever.

As for multitasking, it supposedly no longer crashes the entire browser if a
tab goes. That is total trash. Many a time have I lost the entire thing after
a tab crashed. As for security, the recent unpatched hole for several days
says how the privsep implementation DOESN'T work well (mandatory integrity
control). It's half arsed at best.

As for Windows Phone, I owned one (Lumia 820 w/ WP8). The IE version is
abysmal. It crashes regularly, renders text in crazy sizes randomly all over
the place and hardly works at all across the web. Why? Because people don't
use it so no one cares about it. Perhaps that isn't Microsoft's problem but
even Microsoft's web site doesn't work properly (MSDN subs+Azure management
portal) The browsing story on my Moto G is an order of magnitude better than
WP ever was for me.

Why should I pay for an XBox live sub to use something I paid for? The XBox is
a horrible abomination. Most of the games whinge and moan if you're not
plugged into the Internet, even if you want a single player campaign. It's
painful. The whole thing is obstructive and painful. The browser on my 360 is
slow, unreliable as well and doesn't render half of the sites anywhere near
how they should be rendered.

The big one for me really is that Microsoft can't even make their OneDrive
versions of Excel work properly with IE11. Half the time (on several different
machines) the spreadsheet display gets corrupted around the currently selected
cell.

Then we come to the dev story:

1\. The entire back end of IE is a shit crock. The dev tools have no idea what
is happening on the wire. They have no idea if the HTTP runtime got the file
from cache or the wire meaning we have to use proxies. What's the point of it
then?

2\. The console is useless, even on IE11. Half the time it doesn't work and
the code inspector lies a lot about the state of the DOM. The same with the
object inspector.

3\. The icons and UI is horrible. Until you've been using it for a bit, it's
unusable. Try it on a laptop as well - the left bar is unusable. The only hope
is undock it from the browser and Alt-Tab. Some idiot thought that the Azure
management portal looked cool and lets change everything to make it look like
that.

4\. The debugger JS regularly crashes the entire browser and doesn't always
hit breakpoints.

5\. Compatibility mode. This is a royal PITA for us. It has cost us a shit ton
of money. First we got told by MS that this thing was Jesus' sandals. Now we
have 2000 users with random distribution of forced compatibility view and no
way to turn it off. Inevitably that means we now have 2x the number of test
cases to execute.

Just no. Seriously. They can go hang. I've had to put up with 15 years of this
crap.

~~~
ern
_Why should I pay for an XBox live sub to use something I paid for?_

Since earlier this month, you don't need to pay for an XBox Live Gold
subscription to use apps like Hulu+, Youtube, Netflix and IE (!). Although I
can't see the point of IE on the XBox.

------
IvyMike
What's really amazing is how lackluster the whole campaign is. IE is a touted
as a "new browser", but here are the features they are especially proud of:

    
    
      1) Full Screen Browsing.
      2) Multitasking, which apparently means "Skype while full screen browsing".
      3) Reading view, a la the Readability or Clearly plug ins.
      4) Pinned sites, which I guess I don't understand, but it looks like Windows 8 tiles.
    

[http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-
again/#/newbrowser](http://www.rethinkie.com/hello-again/#/newbrowser)

Do I qualify for a payment?

~~~
higherpurpose
That's because IE development is typically around 2 years behind the others.
So they can only "brag" about stuff others have already had for a while, but
try to spin the features as new.

~~~
mkr-hn
It works for Apple.

------
anonymfus
That "Advocate Marketing" company has a list of customers in the slider banner
on their website: Target, _AT &T_, Fossil, Dole Food Company, McDonalds,
_Bing_ , _Verizon_ , UnitedWay (non-profit?!), 3M, Anheuser-Busch, The Clorox
Company, Walmart, _EMC Corporation_ , Aveda Corporation, Expedia, _Windows
Phone_ , Citibank, Purina, Wells Fargo, _Snapfish_ , Clinique, Oral-B, Sara
Lee, _Haier_. (IT companies/brands are italicized.)

~~~
DanBC
It's a nice list for search engine providers.

Perhaps DDG could low-light results that include companies that have paid-
blogging programs?

"Caution: the quality of these pages might be low because $CORP pays bloggers
to promote them"

~~~
JonnieCache
Advocacy tracking/detection/whatever would be a great feature for ddg.

------
tsurantino
For reference, here are details about the program:

[http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce...](http://unbouncepages.com/7975010c-edb3-11e3-b3e0-12314000cce6/)

------
PStamatiou
They pitched me as well yesterday:
[https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/478757246323548162](https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/478757246323548162)

------
dasil003
As long as Microsoft continues improving IE the way they have been I'm not
going to get my undies in a bunch over a little astroturfing.

------
mappu
There's nothing new under the sun. On several websites i visit it's become
increasingly difficult to tell whether or not someone is a paid marketer
(giving rise to parodies thereof, and consequently Poe's law).

~~~
scottrblock
I think the news is that it was sent to Arrington of all people. Plus the "Go
TechCrunch" bit.

------
codezero
I guess it says a lot about how much Microsoft has improved over the years
that this seems "low, even for Microsoft." right?

~~~
ekianjo
When you need to pay people to write about your product, it means you've
fallen pretty deep. Just like Detroit would probably be forced to pay
businesses to settle in their town to attract them in the first place.

~~~
codezero
I doubt it's so much that they need to, but that someone in that large
organization authorized it, either not knowing any better, or seeking some
short term benefit ignorant of the long term negatives.

~~~
ekianjo
> that someone in that large organization authorized it,

The fact that it's even remotely possible shows that this organization does
not have much principles in the first place, unfortunately.

------
zacharycohn
I love the "Go TechCrunch!" line at the end.

------
higherpurpose
I hope now everyone sees the Penny-Arcade reviews in a totally different
light, too (and by the way, Gabe has already admitted to getting lots of free
stuff from Microsoft).

~~~
sheltgor
It may be the case that he gets paid, but the Surface is at least a
legitimately good piece of hardware (much better in its product domain than
IE)

------
benaston
The problem is that now this is public, any positive review of a Microsoft
product will be viewed with suspicion, having the very opposite of the
intended effect.

~~~
pllbnk
Many have always viewed with suspicion to most positive IE reviews in the
past. I like giving a honest try for IE from time to time, just like the Bing
search (as a user and developer), but always it looks like almost on purpose
IE team just refuses to fix most of the annoying things. I believe changing a
name might be a good start.

------
ekianjo
This stuff is true for many things in many businesses. and media is just a
piece of the Iceberg. Video Games Magazines/websites have been paid for
decades to write positive review and generate awareness for certain games, and
I guess most people are aware of it. That's why I usually take with a big
grain of salt anything that's written without any clear declaration of
conflict of interest (or its absence).

------
davyjones
Just a few hours ago I have run into a weird bug in IE 11. I am guessing some
cookie values are cached and this is leading to unpredictable behaviour in my
app. Seems to disappear when I have the dev tools open or when I clear the
browser.

IE8 -> IE9 -> IE10 was fraught with stability issues that didn't go away till
I upgraded to 11.

I get it that all browsers have bugs but somehow IE seems to lead the pack.

~~~
sixQuarks
No kidding. I also have weird IE bugs on sites that work flawlessly in other
older browsers.

------
spion
Unfortunately, IE hasn't fixed its main problem yet, and that problem is the
slow upgrade cycle. Until they fix that IE will unavoidably remain the lowest
common denominator of all browsers (on average).

I'm sure that by the time IE11 becomes obsolete I'm going to end up dreading
the fact that a huge set of missing features will have to be taken into
account.

------
higherpurpose
Remember when Google penalized its own Chrome in the search engine? They
should do the same with these IE posts now. After all, they apply that rule to
everyone else, so why not Microsoft/IE, too?

Downrank the posts and the sites, and ban their Adsense accounts - if Google
wants to treat _everyone_ the same way, and not just the little guy.

------
shmerl
Next step in MS evolution would be paying bloggers to write about Windows ;)
Though it might still take a while.

~~~
yaeger
Windows8 to be precise.

Wouldn't want that marketing money go to waste, paying people to write about
how to successfully upgrade from Windows8 to Windows7 to have a real desktop
OS to work with instead of a Frankenstein Hybrid.

------
booruguru
Microsoft doesn't deserve a second chance. They went out of their way to
destroy Netscape and then allowed IE to languish for years. Microsoft has
always been an underachieving bully. Mediocrity is part of their DNA and they
simply have no desire (or ability) to make good products consistently.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
They don't deserve a second chance at what? Being your friend?

If Netscape had their way you'd be paying for web browsers.

The web is a pit of mediocrity held together by hacks. What browser do you use
that isn't mediocre?

------
baconstrp
There is no need to pay for marketing, IE creates jobs, period. Endless hours
of web dev goes to fixing stuffs just for IE, that's what distinguish a
professional Web developer from template generator. _trolling_

------
varkson
Meh, so many companies do this, it's not new or evil.

~~~
Paul_S
Advertisements masquerading as impartial opinion pieces are not evil? What is
evil - strangling kittens?

------
mkhpalm
I thought that was the norm these days... Or maybe I should ask, what major
blog doesn't accept payments to write articles about whatever? Thats how the
blogging business works.

------
mathnode
The thing is, it's boring. We don't care! We have had good browsers for years!
Too late to the party as always MS.

------
Yuioup
Why am I getting a Déjà vu? I've seen the "Go TechCrunch" comment before. This
looks like a repost to me.

~~~
camillomiller
It's just that Mike Arrington, whose posts on TC have been some good money
printers for many startups of the fund he went on creating, likes to bash who
is more naïve and less expert than he is at monetizing or rewarding Web
contents. So, yes, he's probably repeating himself somehow, here.

------
ycGee
yeh Microsoft definitly is inspired by Google in this regard...
[http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-
sponsored-p...](http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-
post-campaign-for-chrome-106348)

------
aosmith
This seems vaguely familiar to me... Remember when they paid to port apps to
windows phone?

~~~
markkanof
Paying developers to port their apps is completely legitamete. It's a chicken
and egg problem. Users don't want to use the platform because there are few
apps, but developers don't want to write apps because there are few users. If
Microsoft can spend some money to get additional apps in the store it's just a
business decision. In my opinion they should have dedicated more money to that
program.

This on the other hand is deceptive and I think pretty embarrassing.
Completely different scenarios.

~~~
mercurial
It's not quite as slimy as, say, Samsung paying for fake grassroots
badmouthing of competing products [1], but it's little different from fake
user reviews on Amazon, unless the blogger discloses upfront, in a very
visible way, that it's a paid-for post.

Nothing wrong with rewarding developers for porting app to your platform,
there is nothing deceptive or otherwise unethical about it.

1: [http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-
rev...](http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-reviews/)

------
pje
> I believe it will be easier for them to pay users to use Internet Explorer.

------
aikah
Of course it does,like it is paying astroturfers right here on HN.

------
nikster
Wait... I thought the browser wars were over?

~~~
Renaud
IE still represents abut 20% of Browser usage, it's still more than Firefox
and a lot more than Safari.

You never know, the new direction MS is taking with regards to openness may
bear its fruits. It's going to take a lot for MS to regain its past market
shares, but personally, I'd prefer if it stayed around and compete with the
other browsers.

I don't want Chrome to end-up being the new IE.

~~~
Mikeb85
At least Chrome is constantly updated, is fast, and most parts of it
(certainly the important parts) are open source... If there's going to be a
browser monoculture, Chrome seems like the best option at the moment...

~~~
iopq
You mean Firefox is the best option. All of it is open source.

~~~
tomswartz07
Well... so is the Chromium project.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
But practically no one uses Chromium; they're using Chrome, which has
significant proprietary components.

------
amaks
So unsurprising.

------
dashdot
I think this is perfectly legit.

Of course as long as they do not instruct you WHAT to write and do not
interfere your publishing process in any way at any point.

------
qhoc
This is why I like about working in Microsoft's Marketing. They have a lot of
money to spend (or waste). It's just fun to experiment different things with
huge resources. So why not? I would do the same if I work in IE Marketing
anyways. There is nothing bad about it but the ROI is probably low. However,
there is always a way to tweak the metrics to say: hey, I ran a successful IE
rebrand program or some shet like that. Go Microsoft (Marketing)!! ;-)

