The bottom line is that any large-ish company who has a consumer-oriented product is paying for positive social media coverage. Even small ones try, as part of someone's job. The big guys just outsource it.

I expect one-third to one-half of anything positive I read about anything on the internet is bought-and-paid-for. I guess I should assume a portion of anything negative is also bought-and-paid-for by competing interests.

We invented the first, truly open and flat, egalitarian communication medium in the history of mankind, and then destroyed it within 20 years. Twenty billion web sites, and nothing exists except Amazon, Ebay, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Good job, corporations of America. I miss the web of '94.

EDIT: Also, I have no problem whatsoever believing that Reddit is a veritable playground for companies to exercise their "reputation management." It's pretty clear that their moves in recent years were precisely to allow deep pockets to game their systems to their benefit. I think Reddit and most of their top-posters are being completely hypocritical in claiming that the system isn't stacked in favor of whoever is paying them.

> Obviously, we can't confirm this story. We asked Microsoft for comment on if they have people on their payroll using Reddit.

Very compelling.

Yeah. "Anonymous Redditor makes highly unsubstantiated claims that Microsoft flatly denies" is not exactly what I'd call "evidence."

Even more questionable is that it's on Business Insider.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/22/henry-blodget-linkbait-slid...

It's all linked. They even run a Online Reputation service.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/online-privacy/repu...