Nvidia viral marketing with AEG exposed !!! *UPDATED* *Poll Added*

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: schtuga
Personally,I know this won't change the way I continue to make purchases.
I take the forums for what they are

Millions of different people expressing their individual views and opinions on vid cards,life love etc.Thats all

If someone comes on here and convinces you of anything without researching the product,it serves you right.

Part of researching IS hearing what others are saying... what their personal experiences are. If you read the experiences from somebody who just bought the product and truly enjoys it, he's only going to give a short summary of his experience. But then you have an AEG poster, and he starts spouting things vehemently, like it's the greatest thing in the world... who's opinion are you going to believe?

You can't blame people for falling for AEG scums... that's part of their job. Not everybody is going to spend a hundred hours reading forums after forums, articles after articles, on a purchase. They're smart enough to know that they shouldn't take the word of a Best Buy salesman, so they come to respected forums like this for advice, and you say it serves them right when an AEG scum influences them?

ideally yes, listening to others is a great tool for research, but even before this, i wouldnt use the forum too serious when researching my next buy. i base most of my purchases of review sites such as AT, XBIT, HEXUS, BIT-TECH, TECH REPORT. the forums are complimentary at best....especially here where you cant ask a question without being burned by the ensuing inferno.

Much of the flaming are due to AEG involvement though. They may directly be the cause of it, or elicit it with their posts.

As for the forum as a tool... what makes you think websites articles are always fair and unbiased? You think some of them aren't influenced? And like i said, not everybody is going to spend hours upon hours reading articles with benchmarks and numbers they don't understand. You enjoy it, so you do it... but not everybody does. Having a community like this, one where you can ask for opinions, is often critical to people's decision making. Is them buying an nvidia card over an ATI going to ruin their life? Of course not, and in all likelihood, either brands would have satisfy them. But opinions and experiences should come from real sources, not paid shills.

I even make my decisions heavily based on forum opinions. Articles only tell you so much, but they often don't tell you how particular game works... how well are the drivers... bugs... heat and sound issues. Yeah, i do like reading articles, but if i'm going to buy a card, am i going to read articles on ATI's 1800 cards, 1900 cards... nvidia GTs vs GTX, etc etc.. and am i going to solely rely on AT articles, or do i also read other sites? Actual users experience are much more important to me than articles. I base my decision on about 90% actual users experience, and 10% on articles.

each to his own, if you prefer forum input thats perfectly fine, you know what your talking about so you can seperate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to other members posts.

i use articles as the main basis, and yeah i know they can be biased, but i think the selection of sites i visit arent biased...they produce comparable numbers. i can use the forums to get advice from others, but at the moment there is only a select few who i trust on this board. if i was a newbie id be open to all sorts of mis-infomation.

the way you research is up to you, theres no right and wrong way, and i respect the way you do it. for me if your going to drop a wad on a new piece of hardware then you'd be stupid not to put in the time to read up on the product, its associated technology, and other requirements.......i dont always enjoy trawling through massive reviews but i do it so i can understand what im buying. i go articles first to give me the understanding, then forums second to compliment that infomation....as genuine forum users will make posts when they run into issues (ie driver issues in games, hardware issues like X card wont work in Y mobo) that the reviews sites didnt pick up.....so yeah the forums are pretty useful for research in that respect....you are correct.

 

[rbV5]

You're not the only one he's driven away. Ever remember a member named "oldfart"? Very nice, polite guy.

oldfart is/was my favorite AT member, I wondered why I haven't seen him around damn, we need guys like him here.

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: munky
Everyday I see people posting in the video forum for recommendations, how do you think they would feel if they knew there were paid shills of a certain company on the forum? And if such shills displayed the following habits:
1. Downplaying the faults in the product of said company, often leading to threads bursting into flames
2. Posting threads emphasizing the faults of a competitor's product, real or rumored, significant or insignificant
3. Promoting features of the company's product when such company is in a favorable position, and downplaying the same features when they favor the competitor
4. Denying involvement in any marketing scheme of said company, and instead speaking from a position of fairness and balance, along with vast personal experience with the products of the affiliated company.

An unsuspecting forum user could easily fall for such tactics, and people dont go to a forum with the intention of listening to an undercover marketing agent. Moreover, the fact that these agents are not openly affiliated with a company allows them to spread negative comments and propaganda about the competitor without any legal reprecussions to the parent company.

This kind of stuff goes beyond simple fanboyism.

Seconded.

 

[schtuga]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: schtuga
Personally,I know this won't change the way I continue to make purchases.
I take the forums for what they are

Millions of different people expressing their individual views and opinions on vid cards,life love etc.Thats all

If someone comes on here and convinces you of anything without researching the product,it serves you right.

Part of researching IS hearing what others are saying... what their personal experiences are. If you read the experiences from somebody who just bought the product and truly enjoys it, he's only going to give a short summary of his experience. But then you have an AEG poster, and he starts spouting things vehemently, like it's the greatest thing in the world... who's opinion are you going to believe?

You can't blame people for falling for AEG scums... that's part of their job. Not everybody is going to spend a hundred hours reading forums after forums, articles after articles, on a purchase. They're smart enough to know that they shouldn't take the word of a Best Buy salesman, so they come to respected forums like this for advice, and you say it serves them right when an AEG scum influences them?

ideally yes, listening to others is a great tool for research, but even before this, i wouldnt use the forum too serious when researching my next buy. i base most of my purchases of review sites such as AT, XBIT, HEXUS, BIT-TECH, TECH REPORT. the forums are complimentary at best....especially here where you cant ask a question without being burned by the ensuing inferno.

Much of the flaming are due to AEG involvement though. They may directly be the cause of it, or elicit it with their posts.

As for the forum as a tool... what makes you think websites articles are always fair and unbiased? You think some of them aren't influenced? And like i said, not everybody is going to spend hours upon hours reading articles with benchmarks and numbers they don't understand. You enjoy it, so you do it... but not everybody does. Having a community like this, one where you can ask for opinions, is often critical to people's decision making. Is them buying an nvidia card over an ATI going to ruin their life? Of course not, and in all likelihood, either brands would have satisfy them. But opinions and experiences should come from real sources, not paid shills.

I even make my decisions heavily based on forum opinions. Articles only tell you so much, but they often don't tell you how particular game works... how well are the drivers... bugs... heat and sound issues. Yeah, i do like reading articles, but if i'm going to buy a card, am i going to read articles on ATI's 1800 cards, 1900 cards... nvidia GTs vs GTX, etc etc.. and am i going to solely rely on AT articles, or do i also read other sites? Actual users experience are much more important to me than articles. I base my decision on about 90% actual users experience, and 10% on articles.

there are dozens upon dozens of people spouting off and giving bad advice that aren't 'affiliated.Some are on this site in video constantly.
I can go through a post and determine who is full of it and who isn't.
if you can't determine what is good info and what is bad,then stay off of the internet.
There are lovers of both companies that give bad info

you have to learn to read through it.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: schtuga
Personally,I know this won't change the way I continue to make purchases.
I take the forums for what they are

Millions of different people expressing their individual views and opinions on vid cards,life love etc.Thats all

If someone comes on here and convinces you of anything without researching the product,it serves you right.

Part of researching IS hearing what others are saying... what their personal experiences are. If you read the experiences from somebody who just bought the product and truly enjoys it, he's only going to give a short summary of his experience. But then you have an AEG poster, and he starts spouting things vehemently, like it's the greatest thing in the world... who's opinion are you going to believe?

You can't blame people for falling for AEG scums... that's part of their job. Not everybody is going to spend a hundred hours reading forums after forums, articles after articles, on a purchase. They're smart enough to know that they shouldn't take the word of a Best Buy salesman, so they come to respected forums like this for advice, and you say it serves them right when an AEG scum influences them?

ideally yes, listening to others is a great tool for research, but even before this, i wouldnt use the forum too serious when researching my next buy. i base most of my purchases of review sites such as AT, XBIT, HEXUS, BIT-TECH, TECH REPORT. the forums are complimentary at best....especially here where you cant ask a question without being burned by the ensuing inferno.

Much of the flaming are due to AEG involvement though. They may directly be the cause of it, or elicit it with their posts.

As for the forum as a tool... what makes you think websites articles are always fair and unbiased? You think some of them aren't influenced? And like i said, not everybody is going to spend hours upon hours reading articles with benchmarks and numbers they don't understand. You enjoy it, so you do it... but not everybody does. Having a community like this, one where you can ask for opinions, is often critical to people's decision making. Is them buying an nvidia card over an ATI going to ruin their life? Of course not, and in all likelihood, either brands would have satisfy them. But opinions and experiences should come from real sources, not paid shills.

I even make my decisions heavily based on forum opinions. Articles only tell you so much, but they often don't tell you how particular game works... how well are the drivers... bugs... heat and sound issues. Yeah, i do like reading articles, but if i'm going to buy a card, am i going to read articles on ATI's 1800 cards, 1900 cards... nvidia GTs vs GTX, etc etc.. and am i going to solely rely on AT articles, or do i also read other sites? Actual users experience are much more important to me than articles. I base my decision on about 90% actual users experience, and 10% on articles.

The Only difference between AEG and Fan boys of both sides is they may have a reason for their Bias (if they have any), How do you treat people like Munky, Archangel and Morph. We don't know if they are on ATIs payroll, in fact they probably not but just like the Nvidia fanboys, they derail any video topic. Right now at least two of them are derailing a thread were one user has a 512 GTX and a XTX and he has asked us what to test and at what settings.

The Missinformation that is so life threatening exists and will always exist whether or not people like Rollo are paid to lie. Honestly I would hope these AEG agents as they are being called where informed enough so that even if their views are slanted they won't have to lie. This would allow me to get good information without having to disgard it right away as fanboy crap.

So for all Fanboys out their, you want your point heard, and listened to, then stop posting non-sense actually think about what you are typeing. Then whether or not you have a bias (and no matter the size of said bias) we might actually listen to you.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: RobertR1
According to Rollo everything is perfectly fine in his relations with nvidia and AEG. Someone on B3D also referenced the same thing you said about nvidia/aeg having issues with him already. So I suppose, just another lie from our beloved rollo??

Someone should really compile a list encompassing rollo's BS over the past couple of years, host the list and we could add the link to our sigs.

ROFL. Sorry m8 I can't reveal my sources I'm under NDA

 

[Madellga]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
I've been more of an observer and infrequent visitor in the last couple of months so I didn't see the big "coming out party" where Rollo was found out to be a member of the AEG. Does anyone have links to the proof? Let's just say that if true, Rollo, although a fun topic maker, has become a complete hypocrite in my eyes as he has been the touter of 'video hardware ethics' for years all the while being a paid supporter of one company and claiming to be an unbiased 'fan.'


Regarding this issue and the companies involved - I don't think this is a reason to completely ignore Nvidia or discredit their products. While I find things like the AEG highly dubious, both companies are agressively competing with eachother for sales in a competitive and lucrative market. It's inevitable that they try all kinds of tactics to get your money.

My stance has always been that you should buy the best product at the price range you are currently comfortable spend in, and I don't think that something like the AEG should change that. There's no point in being an armchair martyr for a dubious marketing practise if you're going to get bamboozled by one company or the other's prices. Stick to the product that offers you the best bang for the buck, don't be hesitant to "switch sides" if they offer a more competitive product, and don't be so dang zealous about one company or another! They're just video cards after all!

Jiffy, perfect statement as always. Like you, I have just skipped this forums for months (after the X1800 discussions). I was sick of the pretending game.

When I complained about the 7800 shimmering, I was accused by Rollo to have "hidden agenda". Oh, well - that's funny now, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I sold my GTX and bought 2 GTs. I also tried a X1900 and thought about making a thread, but it would end on the pointless discussions created by these people.

So I kept my opinion to myself. This goes against what the forum is supposed to be. I blame these guys - I have better things to do and don't get free stuff. I have to buy it....

BTW, I said before - you should be mod!

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: munky
Everyday I see people posting in the video forum for recommendations, how do you think they would feel if they knew there were paid shills of a certain company on the forum? And if such shills displayed the following habits:
1. Downplaying the faults in the product of said company, often leading to threads bursting into flames
2. Posting threads emphasizing the faults of a competitor's product, real or rumored, significant or insignificant
3. Promoting features of the company's product when such company is in a favorable position, and downplaying the same features when they favor the competitor
4. Denying involvement in any marketing scheme of said company, and instead speaking from a position of fairness and balance, along with vast personal experience with the products of the affiliated company.

An unsuspecting forum user could easily fall for such tactics, and people dont go to a forum with the intention of listening to an undercover marketing agent. Moreover, the fact that these agents are not openly affiliated with a company allows them to spread negative comments and propaganda about the competitor without any legal reprecussions to the parent company.

This kind of stuff goes beyond simple fanboyism.

You do all of the above. You also claim to get "secret" information from somewhere. Saying "a little bird told me" or "from a reliable source". If anything you are just as bad or worse than Rollo as his involvement is clear while you deny even being one sided which is as much of a lie as anything else sated here.

If Rollo goes, you should follow him right out the door.

 

[Matthias99]

Pete: Well, @#$%. I stay away for a frickin' day and I come back to this? I'll slog through this by the weekend, if I'm lucky. IIRC, my forum settings are 100 posts a page, and right now I'm on page three of seven. So I likely won't post again on this subject until the weekend, and by then the thread will probably have been locked.

Whoo boy. Looks like I also checked out the other night just before things got real interesting.

I posted earlier (in this thread) that my issue with this program was enforced secrecy -- you can't really bash a company for giving away free/discounted product to raise awareness or get people to try it. I guess this would be the difference between 'viral marketing' and 'guerilla marketing'.

According to Rollo (and indirectly by Derek Perez in his responses to the Consumerist), there was no enforced secrecy -- the NDA only covered not releasing information about upcoming NVIDIA products. If this is true, then Rollo (and the other people in this program) personally chose to hide their involvement in it. In this case, I don't feel NVIDIA really did anything 'wrong', but IMO they should have been up-front about the existence of this program rather than basically doing everything they could to hide and deny its existence.

Of course, it is entirely possible that NVIDIA and/or AEG hinted to the program members that divulging their involvement might result in them being removed from the program, but that cannot really be proved one way or the other. I would personally choose to either divulge my involvement anyway or simply dissociate myself from such a program, but that is, again, a personal decision.

Giving people advice on products while not admitting that you have some official relationship with the manufacturer (or some other point in the supply chain) is, IMHO, unethical. Even if it doesn't really affect your opinion (maybe you would have preferred/recommended their products anyway), not divulging that information gives the appearance of impropriety.

 

[rise]

Matthias, you can see how productive things would be if the group chose to disclose the freebies

not that i don't see your point, its just kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. i think i would have kept quiet as well.

but i KNOW this, if ever confronted i would simply not answer directly. i would NOT have lied.

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: Topweasel

The only person I believe to get banned for that whole AEG thing was Turtle right. I thought he got banned because he was Intellia and ginn2d (or something close) that had already been banned. In fact after words he made an even shorter lived Turtallia account.

Rollo got someone banned just 3 days ago.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=42&threadid=1797816&enterthread=y

With what we know now about his lying and deceit, it's ironic that he felt he could be the judge and jury of others in this forum.

 

[rise]

thats the same dude morph :roll:

 

[Looney]

The Only difference between AEG and Fan boys of both sides is they may have a reason for their Bias (if they have any), How do you treat people like Munky, Archangel and Morph. We don't know if they are on ATIs payroll, in fact they probably not but just like the Nvidia fanboys, they derail any video topic. Right now at least two of them are derailing a thread were one user has a 512 GTX and a XTX and he has asked us what to test and at what settings.

And the difference between an AEG and a fanboy, is that a fanboy is a FAN of the item. Sure, they may be unreasonable at times, and may posts similar to an AEG agent, but they're not paid to, so they're speaking on behalf of their own experience.

The Missinformation that is so life threatening exists and will always exist whether or not people like Rollo are paid to lie. Honestly I would hope these AEG agents as they are being called where informed enough so that even if their views are slanted they won't have to lie. This would allow me to get good information without having to disgard it right away as fanboy crap.

Misinformation isn't even the problem. The problem is the natural balance of the forum. You're going to have vehement supports on both sides... but add in paid shills, and the scales tip. And with fanboys, there is a chance they'll be reasonable, or become reasonable... with a paid shill, there is absolutely no chance.

 

[Looney]

there are dozens upon dozens of people spouting off and giving bad advice that aren't 'affiliated.Some are on this site in video constantly.
I can go through a post and determine who is full of it and who isn't.
if you can't determine what is good info and what is bad,then stay off of the internet.
There are lovers of both companies that give bad info

you have to learn to read through it.

You seem pretty AEG apologetic throughout this thread... i skimmed through most of the posts, but that seems to be all your posts consists of.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: Topweasel

The only person I believe to get banned for that whole AEG thing was Turtle right. I thought he got banned because he was Intellia and ginn2d (or something close) that had already been banned. In fact after words he made an even shorter lived Turtallia account.

Rollo got someone banned just 3 days ago.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=42&threadid=1797816&enterthread=y

With what we know now about his lying and deceit, it's ironic that he felt he could be the judge and jury of others in this forum.

Its the same board troll that keeps coming back, and we keep getting him banned again. Much like a member quoted in this post, he was banned for inciting massive flamewars and never contributing anything constructive to anandtech. We will see how far you make it.

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: Looney

there are dozens upon dozens of people spouting off and giving bad advice that aren't 'affiliated.Some are on this site in video constantly.
I can go through a post and determine who is full of it and who isn't.
if you can't determine what is good info and what is bad,then stay off of the internet.
There are lovers of both companies that give bad info

you have to learn to read through it.

You seem pretty AEG apologetic throughout this thread... i skimmed through most of the posts, but that seems to be all your posts consists of.

There are a couple of people who are actually defending AEG here ...

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: rise4310
thats the same dude morph :roll:

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Where's the burden of proof? With what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair for him to be policing the forum?

And why was Turtle banned in the first place back then? Mainly it was Rollo and one other person that campaigned to get him banned. Whatever reasons they may have given back then, the fact was that his posts were mostly pro-ATI, anti-Nvidia. Knowing what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair that he had Turtle banned?

 

[RobertR1]

Having reflected further, this is a tough situation for AT.

If they ban rollo on the basis of his AEG affiliation, they'll piss off nivida since that would basically state that AT believes the AEG program was designed to plant "rollo's" in their forums. If they don't ban him, they'll piss off a fair number of users but keep nvidia happy. Likely, rollo will get a slap on the wrist with something like, a temp suspension and then "monitored carefully."

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: rise4310
thats the same dude morph :roll:

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Where's the burden of proof? With what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair for him to be policing the forum?

And why was Turtle banned in the first place back then? Mainly it was Rollo and one other person that campaigned to get him banned. Whatever reasons they may have given back then, the fact was that his posts were mostly pro-ATI, anti-Nvidia. Knowing what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair that he had Turtle banned?

Did you actually ever read Turtle's posts? My god.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: rise4310
thats the same dude morph :roll:

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Where's the burden of proof? With what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair for him to be policing the forum?

And why was Turtle banned in the first place back then? Mainly it was Rollo and one other person that campaigned to get him banned. Whatever reasons they may have given back then, the fact was that his posts were mostly pro-ATI, anti-Nvidia. Knowing what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair that he had Turtle banned?

I think it was after the Turtallia ban the mod said it was the same person and even said the guys full name. I am pretty sure they can figure this stuff out. If Turtle was the same as Intellia then he was already banned and even if he was under that user a solid use to the comunity (which he wasn't) he was already banned and therefore isn't allowed to come back under a different alias, and therefore once again commiting a bannable offense.

 

[Yourself]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: rise4310
thats the same dude morph :roll:

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Where's the burden of proof? With what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair for him to be policing the forum?

And why was Turtle banned in the first place back then? Mainly it was Rollo and one other person that campaigned to get him banned. Whatever reasons they may have given back then, the fact was that his posts were mostly pro-ATI, anti-Nvidia. Knowing what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair that he had Turtle banned?

You make it seem like the Mods were bending to Rollo's will. Please give them a bit more credit. If he was banned, chances are he deserved it regardless who brought it to the Mod's attention.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: rise4310
thats the same dude morph :roll:

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Where's the burden of proof? With what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair for him to be policing the forum?

And why was Turtle banned in the first place back then? Mainly it was Rollo and one other person that campaigned to get him banned. Whatever reasons they may have given back then, the fact was that his posts were mostly pro-ATI, anti-Nvidia. Knowing what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair that he had Turtle banned?

knowing what i know now has nothing to do with it.

turtle/intellia/turtle1/zinn2/xtx4u etc first started their trolling in cpus and were run out of there after many a flamefest. thats when they took their show here to video.

the burden of proof is on the mods. rollo doesn't have the ban stick. i trust the mods did their due diligence and found him to be yet another incarnation of that troll. (which of course is an automatic ban anyway)

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: Ronin

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: rise4310
thats the same dude morph :roll:

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Where's the burden of proof? With what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair for him to be policing the forum?

And why was Turtle banned in the first place back then? Mainly it was Rollo and one other person that campaigned to get him banned. Whatever reasons they may have given back then, the fact was that his posts were mostly pro-ATI, anti-Nvidia. Knowing what you know about Rollo now, do you think it was fair that he had Turtle banned?

Did you actually ever read Turtle's posts? My god.

Yes, he was annoying. Being annoying shouldn't get you banned though. Rollo was also pretty damn annoying with some of his silly ATI bashing threads. I guess when you're annoying and you also piss off the local Nvidia/AEG agent for badmouthing his sponsor, that's a different story.

 

[rise]

wow, you're messed up man. i don't think i've seen anyone on either side of the fence support that troll.

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: rise4310
wow, you're messed up man. i don't think i've seen anyone on either side of the fence support that troll.

Let's see... Turtle... annoying guy who liked to praise ATI and bash Nvidia, ususally for unfounded reasons.

Now Rollo... frequently annoying guy who liked to praise Nvidia and bash ATI, frequqntly for unfounded reasons. Found to be influenced by an Nvidia-sponsored guerilla marketing campaign, lied and decieved everyone in the forum about it.

Turtle... banned for life. Rollo... still around and doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Fair?