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I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

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Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#121

Post by wanderfowl »

pyre wrote: post #116
wanderfowl wrote: post #70

If you're a street musician setting up to play with an open instrument case, it's pretty important to "seed the pot" by throwing a few dollars and some change into the case. Not because you make any money from your own "donation", but because it shows passers-by what the arrangement is, and adds an element of social pressure ("Somebody donated, so I should too!"). I can see this as similar. There's something pathetic…

It's the same thing as posting a "tear off this phone number" page on a bulletin board. You always tear off a tab or two when you first post it, to make it look like people have shown interest.

I run studies. Guilty as charged. The key is to remember to how many you tear, and to always tear the same one off (5th from the right for me), so you know which poster locations are getting actual traffic and merit re-posting later.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#122

Post by wanderfowl »

ska wrote: post #77
dethstar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless do the opposite of the musician really, throw a coin/bill into their glass and they will take it out and save it somewhere else. "Nobody has donated, have some compassion" works for some.

They often (usually?) will leave some small change though. Panhandlers are common targets of theft, which may explain stashing most of what they get in various places less exposed.

Yep. You don't want to be the guy with $100 in a cup held out in front of you. Remember, it's almost as easy to dip a bill out as it is to dip one in.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#123

Post by rajadigopula »

puranjay wrote: post #87
rajadigopula wrote: post #47

I have been on Fiverr for few weeks and ordered two articles for $5 from some guy claiming from the US. The result was hilarious; a kindergarten kid can use much better grammar. Also found some gigs encouraging piracy, found a guy who claims to give 3 ebooks ( you name it) for $5 ?! Another one who can give you any 3 Udemy courses download for $5 - https://uk.fiverr.com/udemy_guru/give-you-any-4-u-demy-cours... I thi…

You really shouldn't expect anything better for an article that pays the writer just $4 (after Fiverr takes its cut). Good writing isn't something everyone can do. It takes me at least an hour to write around 500 words. A full 2k word post can take 6+ hours (since longer posts tend to be more complicated). If I was charging Fiverr rates, I would end up making $4/hour.

I am not complaining about the research that went into the article, but the content at least must be comprehensible.

My observations so far - the top gigs are the ones who are doing what they are good at. A few examples - https://uk.fiverr.com/ukulelebandito/write-perform-and-recor...

https://uk.fiverr.com/reverbdominatio/professional-voice-for...

I think Fiverr is for someone who can help others with their hobby, but I highly doubt if it can ever be fully grown into a professional freelancer network!?

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#124

Post by 6stringmerc »

wanderfowl wrote: post #70

If you're a street musician setting up to play with an open instrument case, it's pretty important to "seed the pot" by throwing a few dollars and some change into the case. Not because you make any money from your own "donation", but because it shows passers-by what the arrangement is, and adds an element of social pressure ("Somebody donated, so I should too!"). I can see this as similar. There's something pathetic…

Excellent observation regarding the street musician (busker) faring better with a little grease visible to potential audience / donors!

I'd like to point out that the music industry has long been a bastion of other techniques as well, some more underhanded than others, depending on one's moral compass. The notion of Payola is still alive and well, and has changed with the new music and marketing avenues. I'm not in a position to name specifics, but there's word of payment for review / features, which seems the most blatant. Personally I can attest to navigating all sorts of sketchy "Promote through us!" type operations that may or may not be doing legit advertising...

Getting a network of Twitter or Soundcloud followers - or appearing to have one - is a pretty standard objective, which I guess why there exist services or short-cuts to those ends.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#125

Post by icebraining »

vijayr wrote: post #79

Yes, writing fake reviews is illegal. False advertising is a misdemeanor crime Does this mean those Amazon affiliate sites are illegal too? A lot of these sites review products as if they have used the them, but there is no way they could've paid real money for the dozens of products they review? Also, how is this different from celebrities endorsing products and appearing in ads? How do we know they bothered to use…

Does this mean those Amazon affiliate sites are illegal too? A lot of these sites review products as if they have used the them, but there is no way they could've paid real money for the dozens of products they review?

There are probably plenty of fakes, but if you're successful, brands will send you their products for you to review.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#126

Post by DanBC »

vijayr wrote: post #79

Yes, writing fake reviews is illegal. False advertising is a misdemeanor crime Does this mean those Amazon affiliate sites are illegal too? A lot of these sites review products as if they have used the them, but there is no way they could've paid real money for the dozens of products they review? Also, how is this different from celebrities endorsing products and appearing in ads? How do we know they bothered to use…

Some people are given free product in return for a good review.

In England you must make it very clear if content is your regular content of if it's sponsored content. This is hard for YouTubers to comply with because a big pre-roll splash probably isn't enough.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30203816

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/26/vloggers-must-t...

https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2014/Maki...

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#127

Post by josefresco »

wlesieutre wrote: post #71
josefresco wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Protected" might be more accurate than you think initially. One of the first things that happens when blackhat SEO experts discover a "penalty" mechanism, is they will attempt to invoke it upon their competition. Google deals with this re:bad links. Once they started penalizing, it became a new tactic to suppress competition.

And if they don't penalize for it, then it's a 0-risk proposition to try buying thousands of links just in case a few of them sneak by and boost your rank. What do you have to lose? But like you said, Google doesn't know who paid for them, so if they penalize spam links you can use that against competitors. There's no good solution other than "Be 100% perfect at identifying and ignoring fake links."

Googles doesn't really say, and I believe they are caught in a tough spot - unable to create an enforceable rule.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

I actually think one of the things that stops competitors from buying poor quality links, is the fear that it might have the opposite effect. Google simply can't keep up with the spam that is created - so they are forced to take a moderate approach.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#128

Post by forgottenpass »

logicallee wrote: post #54

As an entrepreneur, I became so disappointed with this article about 60% of the way through, that I had to stop reading. When the author started getting phone calls on his burner phone from people wanting to hire his van, he should have manned up, stuck with this damn business, and written instead about bootstrapping. With stats like the ones he reported, he should have stuck with Freakin' Awesome Karaoke Express eve…

Turn that frown upside down buddy, have I got some good news for you!

Having read that article, you now know about the demand for karaoke vans and can go serve that market.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#129

Post by Mahn »

nhebb wrote: post #12
idonthaveaname wrote: post #5

I'd have read that but I didn't get more than two lines in before an overlay appeared in front of the content. So I gave up.

Right-click, inspect, then delete a node or two.

Speaking of which, it would be nice if chrome or firefox had a developer keyboard shortcut to delete the node the mouse is currently hovering on without having to inspect or open the dev tools. That'd make dealing with intrusive content on the web much easier/faster.

Re: I created a fake business and bought it an online reputation

#130

Post by unoti »

wanderfowl wrote: post #70

If you're a street musician setting up to play with an open instrument case, it's pretty important to "seed the pot" by throwing a few dollars and some change into the case. Not because you make any money from your own "donation", but because it shows passers-by what the arrangement is, and adds an element of social pressure ("Somebody donated, so I should too!"). I can see this as similar. There's something pathetic…

> If you're a street musician setting up to play with an open instrument case, it's pretty important to "seed the pot"

This concept is discussed at length, and backed up with scientific studies, in the excellent book Influence, by Robert Cialdini, PhD. This particular concept he calls "Social Proof", and it's one of about 8 major categories of influence that he discusses in his book.

Incidentally, dropping the PhD on the end of his name is another one of the forms of influence. While reading the book, I couldn't help but get tons of ideas for a marketing campaign involving social proof. The concept is of course much broader than seeding donation hats. In the book he even gets into the elements of how the Jim Jones tragedy went down, and social proof is at the core of it.

Here is a video of the author outlining the major categories of influence. http://youtu.be/HOypv1AqYu0

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