I see at least one other blogger has found their way to Village Vermin and their reaction rather mirrors my own thoughts.
What a complete bag of shit!
Look, read the disclaimer, run a WHOIS on the domain if you like (the owner listed a Party Animals Production Ltd) it amounts to the same this, a piss-poor attempt to create a viral advert for the programme using a fake blog on the premise that somehow we’ll all find a bunch of fake online gossip interesting – and on, I might add, with the weirdest blogroll I think I’ve ever seen – I mean who the fuck blogrolls the Downing Street website?
How fucking dumb can you get?
The site appears non-responsive at the moment, but I’ve checked (and saved) a copy of Google’s cache.
1. Man, that is a lame attempt at a semi-authentic political blogroll. I’ve copped some stick recently for suggesting that Iain Dale’s ‘expertise’ is doing widespread damage… but here’s proof of the overwhelming ignorance and arrogance that enables said damage.
2. I’ve also copped some stick for daring to say that I’ve been around the block a few times and have been directly involved in a lot of firsts in blogging (and have therefore learned a few things that a lot of ‘experts’ may not know about). So please excuse me for cracking my knuckles, sitting back, and saying with the calm air of an insufferable know-it-all:
We. Have. Been. Here. Before.
Valuable lessons have been learned about fake blogs and what kind of reaction they can expect; search in Google for ‘raging cow’ to find out more about one of the earliest attempts.
(PS – I assume the ‘invite only’ notice is mainly there to justify members of the great unwashed being kept away from the comments function.)
I don’t think it’s viral marketing – I think it’s more in the order of fan-pleasing tie-in, like the various Doctor Who websites, but I’m not sure where the line lies between that and marketing. But is the complaint here that it’s crap (which it is but, frankly, so are most blogs), or that it’s co-opting the sacred discpline of blogging for ignoble purposes?
That link doesn’t appear to work. It should be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_tie-in_websites
Truly awful, but linking to it gives it google juice that then helps the Tory sites it links too. What a swizz.