Sock-Puppet Marketing and Bad Karma

It seems as though people are cottoning on to the power of cyberspace marketing. But before you start throwing your money at Google or any agency that claims to know the ins and outs of e-marketing, it's worth knowing what to watch out for.

I recently learnt about 'sock-puppet marketing' which is a means of promoting yourself by way of fake online identities. Software writer, Will Shipley recently observed a number of suspicious instances of 'private' postings on the web that look like endorsements of products and services but which have actually been planted by the manufacturers themselves. The use of virtual identities, also known as 'avatars' is completely legal and currently there is no way of policing it.

Morally it seems a bit wrong to me that through dissing your competitors, and praising your own products you can drive traffic to your site and increase ratings. Such is the power of the web. The fact of the matter is that anyone can play that game. Anyone is entitled to have their say, and if its on the web, then equally anyone can read it. What goes around comes around. So it's worth checking up on your online reputation - it's easy and cheap to set up regular searches for your brand within blogs, forums and general search engines, and that way you can head off any bad press at the pass.

In my opinion sock-puppet marketing is a futile marketing exercise - the more it is used, the less trustworthy it becomes. And if a company requires to stoop to such levels to win business then surely their reputation is beyond repair in any case.

Anti-Virus software and my new PC

I've just bought myself my first very own PC which means that I truly am becoming a computer geek. After lots of deliberation I went for a Dell, partly due to cost, reputation and familiarity, and mostly because that's what my sister was getting.

Getting the thing up and running was actually pretty pain-free which I found surprising. It seems that Dell has come up with a product so idiot-proof that even I couldn't mess it up. According to Tom the machine's got a decent specification (although not as decent as his of course), so I'm pretty happy.

But I have reached my first hurdle - Antivirus software. I bought McAfee with it but I haven't installed it yet since I heard that it makes your computer crawl, as does Norton apparently. Tom and Liam both suggest AVG as it's free (for now at least), and works really well. According to the most recent reviews, The Shield Pro is rated top for effectiveness, customer service, ease of use amd low cost. However for more advanced users, Kaspersky 6.0 comes highly recommended.

So that's my lesson learnt; next time I'll do my research first. And in the mean time I think I might have to return Mr McAfee back to the Delhi Dells and start again.