ScatteredGenius.com

So, I posted about what I thought of this mystery commenter here: » Grand Theft Auto IV Viral Bloggery? - ScatteredGenius.com

Well turns out they were listening and have not only replied to me in my comments, saying:

Hi, I just responded to your post on my site… not sure if the trackback worked or not though.

Anyway, thanks for the plug and subscription… I am real, and will update my blog. If I find something else of interest (GTA4 maybe) on your blog, I’ll be sure to come back and comment :)

…but they’ve also posted on their site:

Very interesting way to look at things. I don’t know what to think of this at first… maybe I’m a genius and didn’t know it because I laid a link on a blog post that I found interesting? Or maybe I’m just a GTA4 fan that found someone bored enough to write about me? Either way its kind of entertaining.

Well, mister pretend internet marketing liar man, I don’t believe you! You say you are real, then I challenge you to update your blog in such a way that there’s no posts about GTA on the front page. You say you’re not a marketing company or hired to blog, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t a clever employee or spouse or whatever of someone at Rockstar or any of their related companies. WHAT SAY YOU, INTERNET STRANGER!?

So I just posted this this morning: » Grand Theft Auto IV Multiplayer - ScatteredGenius.com, talking about how cool GTA 4 is going to be. Fairly soon after, exactly fifty minutes later to be exact, I get a comment on it on the post on my ScatteredGenius.com blog. Click the link to see it.

This strikes me as interesting because this person has never commented before. It was a simple comment, and it’s not to say that a new viewer couldn’t have stopped by and been randomly excited about the game. I go to their web domain, which has an interesting unique name, and see that they have a new blog with a total of three posts. The newest two are about Montreal Hockey. The oldest one, and the first one in the blog, is a random post about GTA4. It has no links in it but two pieces of distinct information: The multiplayer is going to be cool, and the date the game is going to come out. It even digs at Xbox Live, saying they better have their shit together when the game launchers.

My hypothesis as an Internet Scientist is that this person is in fact a viral marketing person seeding blogs that are posting about GTA4 with comments that link back to that blog. In addition to this, people searching for random things like Montreal Hockey Riots will come to this stub of a blog and see this post about GTA4, and effectively have their awareness increased. It also has the added effect of just generally increasing search engine awareness.

I will subscribe to their blog and see if they make any other posts. If this marketing company was smart, it would make more posts, and also do the cliche obligatory stuff like “HI THIS IS MY FIRST BLOG HAHA I WILL BE POSTING A LOT ABOUT A SPECIFIC THING OR WHATEVER that most bloggers do.” But a cool concept at least, good on them for being sneaky but I SEE THROUGH YOUR INTERNET!

Don’t believe everything that you breathe.

Edit: Thinking about it, this literally cost them 10$ for the domain, and whatever wage they pay the person who has to set it up, which can be done by anyone with a moderate amount of internet ability. I have a one-click install setup on my webhost for wordpress, so even that’s easy to do. Cheap and easy, like moms.

The commercials for MapleStory are some amazing stuff. They are so random but really funny.

MapleStory - Global English Site

In case you missed it, Jon Stewart offers the funny on the recent virtual worlds Congress Hearings.

This made me lol several times. I also wonder if Second Life has an amazing PR/Marketing department?

Clip: Jon Stewart On Second Life

Last night I saw a banner ad for a Wienerstnitzel hot dog. Just now, in my in-box, I saw an ad for Wendys Spicy Baconator, (probably prompted by a daily email I get from a local cafe about their lunch specials…).

Honestly the more I think about it, ads for fast food are PERFECTLY PLACED online. Lazy internetters are the prime demographic for fast food.