
BranchOut Falsifies Wall Street Journal Quote - robbiet480
http://socialsplat.net/2012/08/31/branchout-falsifies-wall-street-journal-quote/
======
therealarmen
I always find it a little fishy when startups put glowing quotes from news
outlets without linking back to the original article. It takes minimal effort
on their part and it's generally better to read the quote in context anyway.
This only reinforces my suspicions.

~~~
smalter
I know many startups don't link back to the original article because they
don't want to drive traffic away from their site. It's not for any
particularly nefarious reason at all. When people see a link, they'll click on
it, and they often won't find their way back.

~~~
rokhayakebe
target=_blank

~~~
MichaelApproved
Still takes attention away from your site. Customers get distracted and you
lose <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSUXXzN26zg>

------
notlisted
You sound surprised? BranchOut is based on milking the LinkedIn social graph
using FB as a viral spam host.

[http://www.switched.com/2011/01/11/branchout-helps-you-
land-...](http://www.switched.com/2011/01/11/branchout-helps-you-land-job-
spam-facebook-friends/)

They took a nice page out of the FB playbook, ie import as much data from your
competitors before they cut you off. I've never understood why LinkedIn gave
them access to the API to begin with.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/01/linkedin-cuts-off-api-
acces...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/01/linkedin-cuts-off-api-access-to-
branchout-monsters-beknown-and-others-for-tos-violations/)

Now, is there anyone here who fell for their spammy messages and actually USES
BranchOut?

~~~
mehulkar
I don't understand how they got 25m users to begin with. I they they made me a
profile one click after a friend invited me. So I guess I _do_ understand how
they got 25m users...

~~~
MaysonL
I wouldn't be surprised if that 25m user claim is as true as the WSJ one.

------
JoshTriplett
"Falsifies" seems like an odd choice of words here; I went to the article
expecting that the Wall Street Journal made some statement that BranchOut
managed to disprove, not that BranchOut faked a quote from the Wall Street
Journal.

~~~
tmurray
"falsify" means "to forge or alter as to deceive," not disprove.

~~~
opminion
In philosophy of science, when discussing what makes a good hypothesis, it is
used as disprove.

As in: the existence of the Spaghetti Monster cannot be falsified, and thus to
believe in it is an act of faith.

[http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.htm...](http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html)

~~~
Gormo
It doesn't mean "to disprove" as much as it means "to posit a condition under
which the statement would be disproved". In other words, a falsifiable claim
is one that can be empirically tested, not one that's necessarily already been
proven false.

~~~
wcarss
To be disprovable is to be "falsifiable". To disprove, then, is to "falsify".

------
staunch
Sure seems like that's the case.

    
    
      No results found for site:wsj.com "create secure professional profiles".
    

Tried a few other substrings from the quote -- none matched.

~~~
danielweber
Is the WSJ fully indexed by Google? I thought they hid lots of stuff behind
the paywall.

(Not saying the quote isn't manufactured, but that a Google search isn't a
good test.)

~~~
sp332
The paywall has holes punched in it for Google to index the site. Often (not
always, depending on cookies) going to an article from a Google search will
get you the full text of even paywalled articles.

------
twelvechairs
Its (sadly) quite common for news organizations to copy verbatim parts of a
press release as part of an article. Not to say BranchOut aren't being
dishonest here, but I wouldn't be surprised if this 'quote' was actually
printed in the Wall Street Journal in some form or other - probably in some
filler article like 'top 10 web startups' or somesuch...

------
cpeterso
So where did the quote come from? Was the text from a BranchOut press release
that happened to be syndicated in Wall Street Journal? For example, the quote
shows up in a press release on yahoo.com in a format that resembles a news
article:

[http://finance.yahoo.com/news/branchout-raises-25-million-
su...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/branchout-raises-25-million-
surpasses-110000316.html)

~~~
socialsplat
I considered the syndication possibility. If that's the case, BranchOut may
excuse themselves with a bit of "Well technically, it was in the Wall Street
Journal..." However, I think that sort of excuse doesn't do much for one's
integrity in these circles. It might do as much for their image as saying "The
five stars are just a divider for the text" might.

------
raintrees
As a side not, thanks to the article, I now know I use Oxford/serial commas.

~~~
sgentle
Apparently quite common among hackers. I remember reading a section about it
in ESR's Jargon File ages back that had a great explanation:

    
    
      Consider, for example, a sentence in a vi tutorial that looks like this:
    
      Then delete a line from the file by typing “dd”.
    
      Standard usage would make this
    
      Then delete a line from the file by typing “dd.”
    
      but that would be very bad — because the reader would be prone to type the string
      d-d-dot, and it happens that in vi(1), dot repeats the last command accepted. The
      net result would be to delete two lines!
    

<http://catb.org/jargon/html/writing-style.html>

~~~
lmm
Um, that quoting style is indeed common among hackers, but it has nothing to
do with the Oxford comma.

~~~
sgentle
Ha! Oops, my mistake. For some reason when I hear "Oxford comma" I always
think comma-inside-the-quote rather than comma-before-the-and.

I wonder if there's an equivalent hacker preference and explanation for the
comma. Most of the people I know prefer it. Maybe we're all just doing
list.join(", ") in our heads, or perhaps it's an instinctive mistrust for
ambiguous grammar.

------
nugget
Anyone who works with these clowns knows they are full of crap. Facebook spam
!= real users.

------
pmarca
It's straight out of their own press release boilerplate!

------
mischov
"But it wasn’t until I noticed that Oxford comma that it all suddenly became
very clear. That’s not right. That couldn’t be the Wall Street Journal." (From
OP)

Does anybody know why an Oxford comma would be a signal that the quote isn't
from the WSJ?

I've always found that using an oxford comma ("red, black, and blue" instead
of "red, black and blue") is just common sense.

Separation by comma is a concrete indication that the items on the list are
separated, which is useful in situations where the last two items could mean
something different if not separated ("black and blue" has it's own special
connotations, whereas "black, and blue" doesn't).

~~~
gee_totes
When you read a comma in writing, there is a pause in the flow of the
sentence, like there would be in speech. Overusing commas can distract from
the point you are trying to make.

I find the Oxford comma is completely unnecessary. If you find yourself in a
situation where you feel a common turn of phrase (like black and blue)
necessitates the addition of a comma, try switching around the items in the
list (i.e. 'black, red and blue' vs. 'red, black and blue'). Less commas ==
more flow.

PS. I am only posting my 2 cents because you misused "it's" in your last
parenthetical.

~~~
NeilRShah
Unnecessarily snarky :) You've just opened up your entire "comments" section
to attack by the grammar police. Be warned...

------
jval
#hustle2win - how many more of these are on startup websites?

~~~
bpatrianakos
I've done it and I've seen it done by others. When I did it I banked on people
ignoring the heading above it which reads "Never yet featured on" then some
prominent logos below it. Here: <https://writeapp.me> at the bottom of the
page. I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek but it can easily be misconstrued. It
looks like BranchOut really does want to mislead in a more sinister way.

~~~
mehulkar
If I wasn't looking for it, I would have missed the "Never Yet Featured On".
The list of feature articles is so recognizable now, I don't really pay
attention to the details in the panel anymore.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Yep, that's the point. Now, I'm just a nobody and that's a bit of a joke but
if that project were to take off (which is a very relative thing to judge but
I'll know it when I see it) then I'll absolutely take that down and actually
try to legitimately get featured in those places (except the app store because
I will have an app there so it'll be true).

It's one thing for a nobody like me to do that but for a somewhat well known
and popular service to blatantly lie without even giving a hint to the deceit
is pretty low rent. I've got 13 people signed up to test a beta, 50 users from
the original version which was a quick weekend project but if I saw those
numbers grow at a rate that told me my project could attract a few hundred to
a few thousand users I'd take those logos down so fast your head would spin.

ButI got the idea from others who have done the same thing with the heading
saying something like "Soon to be featured on". Anyway, my whole point is that
at a certain point it's not even okay to do that sort of thing jokingly and to
fabricate a quote when you've got backing and so much visibility is dangerous
because eventually someone will catch you like the OP did here.

------
jmathai
Waiting for them to come out with an announcement that it was an oversight on
their part and it's been removed from their site.

~~~
tadfisher
You won't have to - the plastic back can be folded in half and won't break.

~~~
eru
You speak in riddles, Sir.

------
DuskStar
Site down for anyone else? Using Google's cached copy... Gotta love the Hacker
News effect

~~~
diego
The "Hacker News Effect" is really not that bad. A modest Linux server runing
WordPress with WP Super Cache can easily handle the traffic.

~~~
socialsplat
Hmm... I've never run into this trouble before, but then again I've never
really generated traffic, either. I switched WordPress over to a more
lightweight theme for the time being, but is there anything else I might do on
the non-server-side of things to make this work?

------
stephenhandley
Gamification 4evr

------
mjcohenw
It's only fair.

------
bicknergseng
Meanwhile... presidential candidates falsify just about everything else.
Ironic double standard?

~~~
bicknergseng
Why does this get downvoted so hard? It's a proven fact that both parties lie
through their teeth. I understand HN isn't a political platform, but this is a
serious subject relating to business as well as politics. If you're going to
downvote, provide a counter argument.

~~~
EvilTerran
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics...

...

Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something
genuinely new to say about them.

...

Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it
makes boring reading."

