The Far Side of Tech - Latest Comments in Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Sheree Motiska — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:01:04 -0000

This is the most fun I've had reading a blog post for quite some time. I feel so warm and fuzzy inside as I witness this much needed purging effect that is taking place right now.

Ah, web 2.0 marketing.

A quick fix for sorry fools who still cling to the belief that there really is a magic secret to building a successful Internet based business overnight and with minimal effort?

Wrong.

A hot new buzz term ripe for the exploiting by anyone quick enough to claim they have a guru degree?

Wrong again.

A poor man's alternative to the basic elements at the core of an Internet business plan? You mean I never have to learn any new skills now that I can grab free affiliate links and sneak them in front of unsuspecting people who are just hanging out on the net?

Nope.

A powerful addition to a legitimate business if unobtrusively and naturally used to enhance the credibility of the individual trying to make a name online? If I let people freely utilize a skill that I know how to do by giving them videos, and written step-by-step instructions will I slowly, yet steadily gain credibility in the eyes of my market?

Ding Ding Ding!!! You got it.

The best part about it is that the collaboration taking place among regular people who aren't online to figure out the best ways to be a slimeball. All that is good and true is becoming a giant super power capable of outing the savviest of scam artists.

A stunning display of the power of Karma.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Steven — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:42:22 -0000

Excellent research. With the popularity of sites like digg, reddit, and /. I imagine we'll see more and more stuff like this going on. I can see in the future companies who's business model is based around pumping the popularity of posts on social news and bookmarking sites.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

al — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:36:32 -0000

HostJury does indeed post and manipulate user reviews - David always is up to something!

I prefer to use http://www.hostreviewsite.com

legitimate reviews and it actually looks better too!

cheers

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

The UK is not the US — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 23:27:21 -0000

118 miles is quite a long way over here... :D

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Hitfirm — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:26:04 -0000

Russ you and your gang are weird, interesting, but weird.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Russ Jones — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:31:49 -0000

A couple of things...

1. The tracker was always dynamic. Just go check Google's cache of the document from July 6th at 7 GMT (3 AM Eastern Standard Time)...
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:ctR5Mtfy9c...

This shows ixwebhosting being tracked before that comment was posted. Most importantly, if you just ran the tracker yourself, you would see that it is how I determined whether or not a page was timeing out. Go ahead and test it yourself!

2. The host title you see for Burton is the client name we used, viranteviral. You know how hosting companies work, the name use use is the temporary address you get.

3. I chose a random address for the whois information. I live in Durham North Carolina -- where my company, Virante, Inc. is. Which is why my phone number, 919-459-1035 is a 919, US number.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Hostjury — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:59:20 -0000

Unsurprised to say the least.
I've caught Burton Hosting posting fake reviews to a number of web hosting review sites previously as well -- including our own. They've been spamming on digg for awhile under a few different aliases.. a number have reached the frontpage.

We did remove the fake reviews though on Hostjury but other sites have left them up:
http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/BurtonHos...

Our own are available at http://www.hostjury.com for the curious out there.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

blandname — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:55:06 -0000

I hate to say it, but it's pretty common. The only thing that strikes me as odd is that he commented on reddit, and also that he tried to defend himself.

I have a feeling he was getting paid quite a bit to have this done, and the phony "CTO" moniker probably helped.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

TV Online — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:43:46 -0000

Yea from the getgo I was suspicious of it, it seemed odd that any ordinary person would willingly pay for a few hosts - none of which include the popular hosts used by Diggers. Not to mention that the site itself was hosted on Burton Hosting - and it managed to stay up showing clearly that they knew the site would make it to the Digg frontpage - and extra resources made available for it.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Bios — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:23:21 -0000

This really was a 'super smart' viral marketing tactic, it's something we should all learn from I suppose and get creative with

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

mark — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:42:32 -0000

Very well researched!

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

People of the Web — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:15:04 -0000

From Digg Comment:

Russ, you forgot to have bruton change the apache server sig for your 'test'.

Apache/1.3.37 Server at www.viranteviral.burtondns.org Port 80

(just hit http://207.210.100.214/foobar)

ooops!

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

anonymous coward — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:02:42 -0000

Whatever Russ, you conman.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Jim Reardon — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:55:22 -0000

The hostname of the Burton account is "viranteviral" - hmm, a Virante viral campaign maybe?

Interesting choice of host name, Russ.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Russ Jones — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:41:24 -0000

If any of you are smart enough to read this:

I am Russ Jones. I not only rigged the hosting experiment but I also wrote the above article. I am Russ Jones and I just stole your attentions. Consider yourselves NOOBIFIED!

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Aerik — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:01:24 -0000

Wow, social bookmarking their own shit then commenting on their own shit as if they just happened up on it to make it sound like it's more popular than it really is? Sounds amiliar!

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Marc — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:51:24 -0000

An excellent explanation. I was suspicious when their test site had only text on it. Pretty much any web host should be able to take hits on a static page without even any large images, right?

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Russ Jones — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:42:22 -0000

Please, someone rerun this test. I believe you will find similar results and it will answer this question once and for all.

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Russ Jones — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:36:13 -0000

Please consider my comments currently at reddit. I am Russ Jones, the creator of the test...

1. I didn't try to hide my identity
- I submitted the story with the russvirante account at Digg.
- I gave my name and company in comments at Digg and Reddit
- I expressly said I created it.

2. There is no link between us and the winner of the competition.
- I use a random whois address and a psuedonym for whois because I dont want spam mail
- Our IPs were both from Georgia, but theGoogleCache is hosted at Peer 1, who was not competing.

3. We used basic text and code to ensure the answer we wanted was the answer we got. Using mysql would have shown us which servers have the best combination of database caching and bandwidth throughput. We just wanted to know about bandwidth throughput. This was an intentional variable control.

There is a lot more thorough information that discredits the entirity of this story included in the reddit post that i have linked to...

http://reddit.com/info/242sd/comments/c243x6?co...

Re: Uncovering The Web2.0Effect.org Hoax: How Virante Marketing Solutions & Burton Hosting Fooled the Web

Kris — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:34:46 -0000

I remember being suspicious when that article came through digg, but I didnt notice anything at the time. Thanks for the post.