Ectaco caught using MobileRead to create fake buzz about Jetbook - Page 10

PatNY · 08-01-2013, 07:01 AM

What an entertaining soap opera -- All My Sockpuppets!

The edit war at Wikipedia is fascinating.

Unfortunately, the underlying story appears to be all too true. I would think that if Ectaco had an innocent explanation for all of this, they would have written the administrators at MR by now. They haven't. So I have to assume the accusations are true. The IP addresses are solid evidence.

I expect many companies will do some surreptitious promoting of their products on forums, but to perpetuate such a long-term systematic fraud the way Ectaco did is extremely shoddy. I will never buy one of their products -- not that I ever had any interest in an Ectaco product to begin with. But it just shows the type of deeply dishonest people they are.

I want to thank MR user Gamba66 for his gumshoe work and uncovering of the fraud. Kudos to you!

--Pat

Mivo · 08-02-2013, 01:18 PM

In my field (social/video games), this kind of thing is fairly common. Often, the difference between rabid fanboys and actual sockpuppets is only marginal, though, and in the end negligible on the practical level: to get a somewhat objective and realistic take on a product that you're about to spend money on, a handful of feedback sources isn't enough, unless you know they're reliable or have shown to share your preferences.

The irony of it all, though, is that if employees introduce themselves as company representatives, not only can they say all the positive, hype-y stuff, but forum users appreciate their presence, and it would improve sales. Sockpuppets and fanboys, whether legitimate or not, rarely convince others of buying something, and if a product is poor, there will always be more (and more vocal) upset customers than sockpuppets.

But if you say, "Hey, I work for this company and I'm here to answer questions and talk about our stuff!", then people will not only listen, but may well buy the products, because customers love companies that interact with the community and with customers on an approachable, personal level. There's simply no need for socketpuppeting.

Alexander Turcic · 08-02-2013, 01:34 PM

Very well said, Mivo!

BillSmithBooks · 08-03-2013, 01:27 PM

Mivo --

I am in complete agreement. If Ectaco employees had come on here openly, posted their opinions and acknowledged their relationship to the company, they could have built a huge bond of trust and accountability within the ereader community.

This kind of accessibility and openness is the kind of thing that can be the foundation for creating a rabidly loyal following.

(The flip side is that this kind of relationship comes with an expectation of accountability on the part of the community -- company reps/affiliates will be expected to address concerns and problems that community members have. It takes a delicate touch to handle this kind of relationship properly.)

Instead, the company has really undermined its credibility and everything they say and do is to be taken with a grain of salt. It's a shame because I had really considered buying one of their readers but now I am really hesitating, not knowing which reviews were authentic and which were payola/partisan.

crich70 · 08-04-2013, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I should be clear that I didn't mean to contradict what you were saying. I simply wanted to elaborate on the point that life is much more complex than, "motive implies crime."

You are correct: things can get very complicated very fast when you're dealing with sophisticated criminals. Likewise, it takes skilled investigators to untangle that mess. Even then those investigators are not always successful. Finding the truth is often beyond the realm of bloggers and forum posters (such as myself). On the other hand, recognizing our limitations in uncovering that truth is something that we should all be able to recognize -- especially before participating in a lynch mob. (Again, that comment is not directed at you. Though some of the participants in this thread should consider it.)

You have a point. It's very easy to 'jump to conclusions' about just about anything and climb on the bandwagon/grab a torch and/or pitchfork and start baying for the other fellows blood. When you bring in message boards like this one it becomes even easier. If you have to physically move in order to take a stand one way or the other you have a lapse of some time in which to think things over and consider your position. With message boards though that time isn't there. You can think of what you want to say and say it before thinking things through only to have to make apologies later. Plus even if you do take the time to think before posting it's very possible for someone to misinterpret your words as they don't have the ability to see your body language or hear the tone & inflections of your voice to see if you are being serious or ironic or sarcastic etc. in your posting. Not that I'm accusing anyone of any of those things in this case or anything. It's just a shortcoming of the technology.

crich70 · 08-04-2013, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

Mivo --

I am in complete agreement. If Ectaco employees had come on here openly, posted their opinions and acknowledged their relationship to the company, they could have built a huge bond of trust and accountability within the ereader community.

This kind of accessibility and openness is the kind of thing that can be the foundation for creating a rabidly loyal following.

(The flip side is that this kind of relationship comes with an expectation of accountability on the part of the community -- company reps/affiliates will be expected to address concerns and problems that community members have. It takes a delicate touch to handle this kind of relationship properly.)

Instead, the company has really undermined its credibility and everything they say and do is to be taken with a grain of salt. It's a shame because I had really considered buying one of their readers but now I am really hesitating, not knowing which reviews were authentic and which were payola/partisan.

Trust: Something that is easily broken and difficult to regain.

Pismire · 08-04-2013, 12:04 PM

Well, hope companies will learn from it - they ultimately succeeded in putting the company name on my personal blacklist. No matter how good their products, I would never buy any of them after that. And google does not forget either. Nice one, Jetbook.

By the way: Coming into the open about it is absolutely the right thing, Alexander Turcic et al. Wouldnt have expected anything else from you guys and am happy that you did it this way.

andyh2000 · 08-05-2013, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pismire

Well, hope companies will learn from it - they ultimately succeeded in putting the company name on my personal blacklist. No matter how good their products, I would never buy any of them after that. And google does not forget either. Nice one, Jetbook.

By the way: Coming into the open about it is absolutely the right thing, Alexander Turcic et al. Wouldnt have expected anything else from you guys and am happy that you did it this way.

I'd already formed rather a bad opinion of them last year. I bought a Jetbook color (thankfully not on the recommendations of any dodgy users) and before I decided it was unusable for my purposes I did a small comparison of text rendering between it and several other devices here: http://jetbook-color-comparison.pen.io/ Mysteriously the page content quickly appeared on http://e-dictionaries.blogspot.co.uk...of-ectaco.html originally without any attribution and with ectaco related search engine keywords and links added. That combined with their awful SEO pages (search engine optimisation e.g. http://www.ectaco.com/links1.html) told me all I need to know about their sales methods.

Andrew

sneakyspider · 08-05-2013, 03:13 PM

I bought the Ectaco Jetbook Mini (eTaco? Yum,) because it was on sale for $30 dollars. My experience with it has been that while it is not a bad device, I wouldn't want to pay a dollar more than what I did for it. However, despite finding myself liking the device somewhat, I am tempted to sell it just because of this controversy.

mick1 · 04-13-2014, 03:19 PM

I've been doing my due diligence on looking to buy a colour eReader. I came very close to buying the Ectaco, but this thread has thoroughly discouraged me. They also seem to be at it with Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1JISC2...iscussionsNRPB

08-02-2013, 01:18 PM	#137
Mivo Fanatic Posts: 556 Karma: 3531054 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Germany Device: In use: Pocketbook InkPad 3, Kobo Glo, iPad Air 2	In my field (social/video games), this kind of thing is fairly common. Often, the difference between rabid fanboys and actual sockpuppets is only marginal, though, and in the end negligible on the practical level: to get a somewhat objective and realistic take on a product that you're about to spend money on, a handful of feedback sources isn't enough, unless you know they're reliable or have shown to share your preferences. The irony of it all, though, is that if employees introduce themselves as company representatives, not only can they say all the positive, hype-y stuff, but forum users appreciate their presence, and it would improve sales. Sockpuppets and fanboys, whether legitimate or not, rarely convince others of buying something, and if a product is poor, there will always be more (and more vocal) upset customers than sockpuppets. But if you say, "Hey, I work for this company and I'm here to answer questions and talk about our stuff!", then people will not only listen, but may well buy the products, because customers love companies that interact with the community and with customers on an approachable, personal level. There's simply no need for socketpuppeting. Last edited by Mivo; 08-02-2013 at 01:22 PM.

08-05-2013, 03:13 PM	#144
sneakyspider Ereader Addicts Anonymous Posts: 329 Karma: 1071692 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: USA, FL. Device: (2)KO2, PW7thGen., KT2, iPadMini1	I bought the Ectaco Jetbook Mini (eTaco? Yum,) because it was on sale for $30 dollars. My experience with it has been that while it is not a bad device, I wouldn't want to pay a dollar more than what I did for it. However, despite finding myself liking the device somewhat, I am tempted to sell it just because of this controversy. Last edited by sneakyspider; 08-05-2013 at 03:32 PM.

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08-01-2013, 07:01 AM	#136
PatNY Zennist Posts: 1,022 Karma: 47809468 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: iPod Touch, Sony PRS-350, Nook HD+ & HD	What an entertaining soap opera -- All My Sockpuppets! The edit war at Wikipedia is fascinating. Unfortunately, the underlying story appears to be all too true. I would think that if Ectaco had an innocent explanation for all of this, they would have written the administrators at MR by now. They haven't. So I have to assume the accusations are true. The IP addresses are solid evidence. I expect many companies will do some surreptitious promoting of their products on forums, but to perpetuate such a long-term systematic fraud the way Ectaco did is extremely shoddy. I will never buy one of their products -- not that I ever had any interest in an Ectaco product to begin with. But it just shows the type of deeply dishonest people they are. I want to thank MR user Gamba66 for his gumshoe work and uncovering of the fraud. Kudos to you! --Pat

08-02-2013, 01:34 PM	#138
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,175 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Very well said, Mivo!

08-03-2013, 01:27 PM	#139
BillSmithBooks Padawan Learner Posts: 243 Karma: 1085815 Join Date: May 2009 Location: www.OutlawGalaxy.com, Foothills of NY's Adirondack mountains Device: My PC...using Puppy Linux (FBReader, Calibre, Kindle Cloud Reader,	Mivo -- I am in complete agreement. If Ectaco employees had come on here openly, posted their opinions and acknowledged their relationship to the company, they could have built a huge bond of trust and accountability within the ereader community. This kind of accessibility and openness is the kind of thing that can be the foundation for creating a rabidly loyal following. (The flip side is that this kind of relationship comes with an expectation of accountability on the part of the community -- company reps/affiliates will be expected to address concerns and problems that community members have. It takes a delicate touch to handle this kind of relationship properly.) Instead, the company has really undermined its credibility and everything they say and do is to be taken with a grain of salt. It's a shame because I had really considered buying one of their readers but now I am really hesitating, not knowing which reviews were authentic and which were payola/partisan.

08-04-2013, 12:04 PM	#142
Pismire Small God, also Turtle. Posts: 78 Karma: 227774 Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: South-ish Device: Kindle Touch	Well, hope companies will learn from it - they ultimately succeeded in putting the company name on my personal blacklist. No matter how good their products, I would never buy any of them after that. And google does not forget either. Nice one, Jetbook. By the way: Coming into the open about it is absolutely the right thing, Alexander Turcic et al. Wouldnt have expected anything else from you guys and am happy that you did it this way.

04-13-2014, 03:19 PM	#145
mick1 Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2014 Device: none	I've been doing my due diligence on looking to buy a colour eReader. I came very close to buying the Ectaco, but this thread has thoroughly discouraged me. They also seem to be at it with Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1JISC2...iscussionsNRPB

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