Update: The second email listed below, sent to the Courting Destiny blog, was actually sent by an identified THP employee and not (as I had initially believed) an anonymous member of the public (unlike the email I received). The text of this post has been changed to include this new information. There is still plenty of evidence to support my conclusion that THP was attempting to engage bloggers in a viral marketing campaign using emails from individuals that did not disclose the nature of their relationship to THP.

Marketing — I don’t know too much about it, but I’m learning. Having never actually read a marketing book or taken a course or even really googled the subject, I bet one of the key maxims of marketing is ‘know your audience.’ At MaxPower, I try to keep track of my audience.

This month (June), my audience has shifted. Somehow I have attracted the attention of a ‘predominantly leftist news and commentary outlet’ called the Huffington Post. I don’t really know too much about the post; a little wikipedia research leads me to believe its a blog run by a famous person. It makes money by selling advertisements and is apparently very popular with most of its stories written about politics, ‘big issues,’ and the like.

Anyway, someone (or someones) at The Huffington Post (THP) seems to have a keen interest in MaxPower. Recently, I wrote a post about how I believed THP was “astroturfing” (the use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement [source][wikipedia]) after I received an unsolicited anonymous email that asked me to promote THP’s newest marketing venture with an ad firm called JWT. I label it anonymous because this initial email did not disclose that the sender, an intern, worked at THP. It was only through a series of subsequent follow-up emails where it was disclosed that the intern sent, “a few emails to blogs he likes.” This final piece of information was revealed by THP partner and technology director, Jonah Perretti as sent via a contact form on MaxPower.

Here is where things get interesting: The IP of the intern’s emails to me, the IP of an email sent to another blog (YesButNoButYes), and the IP of the source of the contact form note from Mr. Perretti are all the same, 24.39.146.250. Whats more, this is the same IP associated to a comment posted on the YesButNoButYes blog by someone named ‘Val’. This comment attempts to discredit the YesButNoButYes website after it published a note to readers that someone was sending out unsolicated emails about JWT ads. Here is “Val’s” comment:

LOL that is a funny email. But in fairness to Huffpost, their alexa ranking (web traffic counter) is 1251, this site’s is 56,664 (lower number the better). and the ads are also pretty funny…
Posted by Val. [source]

This IP doesn’t indicate how many people could have actually sent these emails or who he/she/they is/are, but it does indicate that they all came from the same source. The person(s) sitting behind the computer(s) at 24.39.146.250 also visited MaxPower, although no comments were left.

My server logs indicate that 24.39.146.250 loaded 370 web pages this month. To give you an idea of how strange it is for one IP to send so much traffic in a month, the 370 pages loaded by 24.39.146.250 made that IP the 4th highest in pages loaded (Note: this doesn’t include typical monthly traffic from search engines, spiders, feed aggregators, myself, or various family and friends). In other words, only 3 other IP’s visited my site more times than 24.39.146.250. In addition, there is no record of this IP visiting my website in the previous two months. Clearly, MaxPower and other blogs that have published notice about these emails are receiving much attention from people at THP.

I think the interest stems from the post I wrote this week where I analysed the emails and contents of JWT’s advertising pages on THP, entitled, “Huffingtonpost and JWT Astroturfing — Viral Marketing Foie Gras.” In it, I argued that THP was engaging in a campaign to astroturf and create support for the JWT marketing initiative by sending seemingly anonymous random emails to various blogs hoping that they would accept the emails as a genuine word of mouth recommendation. To review, here are three known examples of emails promoting THP / JWT (two of which were sent anonymously, and one from THP offices):

I know your site and I came across a video clip that I think your readers would appreciate. It’s part of a series of creative ads that JWT has taken out at www.huffingtonpost.com/jwt. I thought this JetBlue ad would be cool to show people because it’s funny and it describes traveling experiences really well.
Check it out at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jwt/jet_blue_neelman.html

Yours,
E.F.[source]

Hi! I’ve known about your site for a while now and I came across a video clip that I think your readers would appreciate. It is part of a series of creative ads that JWT has taken out at www.huffingtonpost.com/jwt. In particular, I think you would enjoy this hilarious, sexy advertisement for scruffs clothing (hardcore). tell me what you think! [source]

Hello Pia,

Came across your blog looking for the top sites on aging/generational issues — you have a really great site! While I don’t think you’re particularly among the elderly demographic, you might find this clip from Poet Laureate Billy Collins’ poem “Forgetfulness” interesting (and hopefully something you’d be willing to share with your readers). The poem is about getting older and forgetting things, and it’s pretty poignant. It’s part of a new ad campaign by JWT for the Huffington Post (trying to make ads more like content).

You can see the ad here: www.huffingtonpost.com/jwt/billy_collins_forgetfullness.html

Hope you like it!

Best,
Danny

——————
Danny Shea
HuffingtonPost.com
560 Broadway Suite 308
New York, NY 10012
www.huffingtonpost.com

[source]

This last email clearly did identify the authors relationship with THP and was not sent anonymously. The other two emails give no indication that they were written by a THP employee although they are very similar. The email sent to MaxPower did come from THP. I still conclude that the email sent to YesButNoButYes was sent by a THP employee, although there is no hard evidence.

I also argued that THP was astroturfing on their own site by publishing only those user supplied comments that were positive of the JWT advertisments. It was shown that in some cases, less than four percent of user comments submitted to THP were actually published online. I ended the post with the suggestion that the attempted viral marketing campaign being run by JWT and THP was tantamount to ‘Foie Gras’, the famous french dish made with ducks that have been force fed to make their livers larger and full of fat.

Since the day that post was written, I have continued to research THP and JWT’s actions as well as attempt to divine who(m) might be sitting at a computer behind 24.39.146.250 and why they have acted they way they do. In the June 19th, 2006 Adweek article, “Do TV Spots Have Blog Appeal?”, JWT’s chief marketing officer suggests that both postive and critical (not negative) ads will be displayed (emphasis is mine):

Even with edgy content beyond the typical 30-second spot, will consumers really constructively comment on ads? JWT thinks so, based on the quality of the work combined with HuffingtonPost’s engaged audience. “We think people are going to blog about it,” said Marian Salzman, JWT’s chief marketing officer, noting the site’s readers are a “community of influentials.”

JWT will post both positive and critical comments, she said, only deleting those that raise legal concerns.

As of Sunday June 25th, there are zero critical comments on any page featuring a JWT advertisement — they are all positive. Some of them even appear to be written by the markerters themselves. Consider this comment left by ‘Jack’ on a THP JWT advertisement:

Wonderful piece. I’m forwarding the URL to a number of friends.
-Jack 06.21.06

I can imagine no greater success for an advertising firm than to create an ad so amazing that other people want to share it with their friends. This form of success is called ‘contagious media’ as it describes how websites and email media get disseminated on the internet, primarily via the “Bored at work network” (wikipedia). Here is a fun fact: the term contagious media was coined by Jonah Peretti, the same guy who employs interns who anonymously email blog owners attempting to get them to promote advertisements. But seriously, “I’m forwarding the URL to a number of friends,” who talks like this? The language is very specific, yet also very informal as if its been carefully crafted.

Instead of saying I sent this to a buddy, or I forwarded the this to a friend Jack says that he forwarded the URL (specific) to a number of friends (specific). Internet lemmings listen up: the marketing folks at JWT and THP want you to know that if Jack can send his friends the url, so can you. If I were a gambling man, I’d lay money down that Jack sits at a computer located at 24.39.146.250.

I have no actual proof that the comment by Jack was written by paid staff (or the friends / family) of JWT or THP, it’s purely conjecture and follows with the overall pattern. Jonah, Val, Elias (the intern) are all sitting behind that IP. And there is at least one more person who sits behind it too: someone named Andy Yaco-Mink.

I learned this name thanks to an article on THP itself by Dr. Peter Rost entitled “A Troll* inside Huffington Post?” Published on the 20th of June, it outlines how Dr. Rost discovers who has been leaving glib and facetious comments on his posts and how these comments have been manipulated to the status of “Readers’ favorite.”

On THP, “Readers’ favorite comments” are voted on by website visitors and shown above all other comments to ensure high visibility. Rost writes:

And two days later I wrote a blog called Are Many Companies Criminal Enterprises? My new admirer was there again, saying among other things, “This thing reads like a 6th grader’s first attempt at a research paper.” By: yacomink on June 16, 2006 at 02:02pm

But it wasn’t what he wrote that interested me as much as what happened with what he wrote. Within half an hour this comment was voted “Readers’ favorite comments.” That was rocket speed I’d never before seen at the Huffington Post. Just to makes sure, I checked my stat counter and traffic had been low during that half hour, in fact, this was one of the last replies that day.

And now I started getting suspicious. I have blogged at the Huffington Post for about three months, and written over sixty blogs. Those sixty blogs have received 1278 responses, and out of those responses only 18 have been voted “Readers’ favorite comments.” That means the probablitity for any response to win that vote is 18 divided by 1278, which is 1.4%. About the same chance as winning the lottery.

Notice the IP that yacomink is posting from in the screenshot above — 24.39.146.250. From here things get really messy for THP and Dr. Rost. Dr. Rost reveals that Yacomink is actually one Andy Yaco-Mink, technology manager at THP. Dr. Rost then raises a number of issues most notably, why someone would need to hide their identity (or at least not disclose their identity) on the company website.

Dr. Rost and THP have now parted ways and THP looks the part of the fool. Officially, Dr. Rost was terminated for making accusations about a THP employee in a public forum and blogging outside his knowledge area (like most bloggers do). Unofficially, it looks like he was fired for exposing two embarrassing problems for THP: 1. An employee that posts anonymous troll-like remarks on THP’s website, and 2. That ‘readers favourite’ comments can be so easily manipulated.

Time will tell (maybe) about the true nature of what has happened between Dr. Rost and THP (feel free to read more about Dr. Rost and his firing on both THP itself and peterost.blogger.com), but the important name is Andy Yaco-Mink, technology manager. Andy reports directly to Jonah Perretti, Technology Director. Andy has been shown to be hiding behind a veil of anonimity, posting comments to THP. Jonah is the founder of viral marketing

Its strange that so much subterfuge would come from 24.39.146.250. I believe that THP’s advertising campaign for JWT and the whole ‘roadblock’ concept was not well received. There was no grass roots support for it, no viral takeoff, nothing. A search through technorati for the phrase ‘jwt huffington’ reveals only a few legitimate websites that found the advertisements worthy of writing about (and in most cases the post contained ‘hey check this out’). To boost awareness and try and create some buzz, 24.39.146.250 sent out a few emails to blogs suggesting they write about the advertisements. Some of these emails did not disclose that the source was THP. Once it was revealed that THP was the source, a disparaging and juvenile remark was made by 24.39.146.250 on a reporting website (YesButNoButYes). This same IP made juvenile remarks on their own website to posts written by Dr. Rost without discolosing the nature of the relationship between the THP and 24.39.146.250.

Coincidences come in clusters: the pattern is clear, staff at THP have attempted to manipulate bloggers and the public by appearing as independent voices online. They have anonymously posted comments and sent emails to promote their product in an attempt to orchestrate a viral contagious marketing initiative. On their own site, THP, they censor critical comments refusing to publish them — contrary to their clients wishes (if you believe the adweek quote). I have no proof, but comments on THP blog within the JWT advertising section also appear to be written by marketers posing as you or me in an attempt to get us to endorse their product.

There is a credibility problem at The Huffington Post. Who are they trying to fool — the public, or the advertisers willing to pay six figures a week for fake superlative feedback?

Addendum: On June 24th Jonah Perretti published a blog entry on THP entitled “Peter Rost’s Accusations” where he attempts to answer the critics of Yacomink and his actions. Whats telling is this comment by ‘Xeno’ which has been voted ‘Readers Favorite’ (full disclosure, I have never commented or voted on THP):

How is anyone who uses this site, whether the bloggers or the readers, to know that Yaco-Mink and other staffers aren’t abusing their power even now to troll posts they find “incredibly annoying”? As readers, most of us have no idea who works for HuffPost. There are plenty of weird, nasty folks who post here. We have no way of telling whether or not there is an overlap between the two groups. In other words, which trolls are trolling out of the goodness of their hearts, and which ones are staffers with an axe to grind? Therein lies HuffPost’s credibility problem, as far as I’m concerned.