Manifesto
How attention flows on the web
Here is the original post on Nokia’s own blog that is referenced on ‘Daring Fireball’.
The ‘Conversations by Nokia’ blog is typical of the kind of misguided corporate attempt to be a content destination. I am sure this site sees significantly higher traffic than most other such places due to its subject matter being the kind of thing that riles the denizens of the internet to action but it still has the hollow ring of inauthenticity about it. Other comments on the post I refer to include:
“Unfortunately, they can be pretty stupid. But yeah, this is high on the hilarity chart.”
“You do know what Nokia did for the Video recording demo of the 920 at rollout, right?”
“Woah! I also heard that Tim Cook thinks the iPhone 5 is the best smartphone yet!”
“Great idea! Eliminate the middle man entirely, this way you don’t need to send out demo phones to all the gadget sites. Ingenious.”
“Isn’t PureView that tech where you pretend to use your phone while actually using a DSLR on a steadycam in a van?”
“This is an advertisement. It should probably say clearly at the top that it’s an advertisement.”
“None. It’s idiotic to review your own product. Nobody else does it. It’s not a Nokia blog, it’s THE Nokia blog.”
“What will really take this to the next level is when they start quoting this review in their advertising.”
“Adam Fraser - curious, did you find any negatives of Lumia 620, in the extensive time you had spent ‘reviewing’ it?”
Nokia revised the title of the post subsequent to some of the reaction:
“Note: This article was first headlined as a ‘review’, obviously, it’s more of a hands-on account of Adam’s experiences and the headline has been changed to reflect that.”
What is interesting is how earlier appalling errors of judgement, such as the Lumia 920 launch video, are brought up whenever a commenter perceives a subsequent mistake to have been made. It starts to create a perception. Of course, there is a dilemma here. You are being ‘social’ be permitting comments therefore, to avoid an even worse backlash, have to permit criticism which becomes a near-permanent record of people’s reaction.
If you believe the ‘brand advocates’ rubbish being spun by marketing agencies then this is the road you end up going down. And the farther you go, the harder it gets to manage.
To be fair though the most insulting comment received 464 up-votes and only 18 down-votes so if it is pure participation you are after this counts as a win.
I did really like MeeGo though.