It would be interesting to take poll among TechCrunch readers for their picks on which ones were given a push.

Any one care to take a stab at it?

What a bunch of babies.

I guess this article is going to make the 9000 count jump up to more subscribers.

Good journalism

How is what Subvert any different from other PR or advertising business’s ?

End of the day its another way to advertise and like somebody said alot of voting on those sites are based around “friends voting for each other ” so you end up with rubbish on the front pages anyhow.

———
http://www.xenbet.com

Apparently there is no honor among rats either. First Arlington puts up a duche (Dan Greenberg) from Stanford to tell all how to cheat the system. I get to call him a duche, because I went to Stanford, and people like him are a scorn. Then Arlington is so effective at pomping up this duche as a video expert that the duche actually shows up on TV and puntificates non-sense like a scared rat. What does Michael A do? He advertises it on his site.

Now Arlington is complaining and trying to get rid of the competition, while playing holier than thou!!! Is he trying to corner the “push marketing” sector? Why such double standards — when it comes to other pay per post site or fake endorsement sites?

Look at the votes on Crunchies, again. Many of the companies listed there are in private beta! but magically they get a lot of votes. Others have incomplete or non-functioning sites. And many are connected to friendly hidden sources.

Now a duche like Greenberg wouldn’t try to game the Crunchies (not 1/100 as sophisticated as Digg — the logos are not connected to any links!!!), now would he? No trust and honor among rats?

It is a real shame… I used to really like techcrunch

The key is moderation. It works on irc, it works for webforums, and it will work in the blogosphere.

@17 (Jon)
“There will always be those who look for a quick way of achieving “success”, whether it’s sports, relationships or even… god forbid… the internet. I believe earned success is worth far more then cheated success… they will get their comings soon enough.”

integrity, consistency, and sustainability, that’s the key to long term success. The problem with information markets is that the good AND the negative move rapidly.

Top Members using clout (this has also worked for TechCrunch and Lifehacker)
Videos by Music Celebrities & Comedians getting big pushes from PR firms
Ron Paul’s social networking backers voting in full force

These sites have not been truly democratic in a long time and just like search engine result pages are being influenced by search engine optimization, social networking sites will be manipulated by innovative and powerful promoters seeking to maximize their profit.

NEW YORK -Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the nation’s first and largest nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is taking part in “Operation New Year’s Eve,” an exciting holiday campaign that lets Americans send text messages in support of U.S. troops to a sign in Times Square.

Supporters can send text messages to 94444 (keyword ‘care’ space ‘then your message’). All messages will be collected by “Operation New Year’s Eve” and broadcast on a digital LED screen at the top of 4 Times Square, the tallest building in New York’s Times Square.

More than a million people are expected to gather in Times Square for the News Year’s Eve celebration, with an additional 50 million Americans watching at home. The messages will be broadcast worldwide via a live video stream at http://www.operationnewyearseve.org or http://www.textthanks.org.

Sign Lab Media and The Durst Organization are proudly sponsoring “Operation New Year’s Eve,” in association with Fountainhead.com, who designed and delivered the technology for the event. $.99 will be charged to users’ phones for each text message sent. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

“Operation New Year’s Eve’ provides Americans with a fantastic way to show support for U.S. service members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s critical that amidst all the celebration, we stop to think about the men and women who are away from their families and in harm’s way,” said Paul Rieckhoff, IAVA Executive Director. “We are grateful to The Durst Organization, Sign Lab Media and Fountainhead.com for sponsoring such an innovative campaign to help Americans say thank you.”

Rob MacMillan, CEO of Sign Lab Media, is producing this historic event. A former Reservist, he intends to draw upon the Internet and social networks to lead the charge. “This is a profoundly simple, yet powerful way for all Americans to connect with the men and women serving overseas.”
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is the nation’s first and largest group for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A non-profit and nonpartisan organization, IAVA represents more than 70,000 veteran members and civilian supporters in all 50 states. For more information, please contact : Bill Nestel, Sign Lab Media (514) 543-6929 or zumabill@aol.com.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside

Here’s a fun experiment: get an “advertising-supported” site that nobody is interested in Dugg and on the front-page for a few hours. You’ll get lots and lots of traffic…

…and then your advertisers are going to ask you why they served up 10,000 extra hits for the past week, but no click-thrus. Or why your apparent bounce-rate is a little under 90% now. Or any other assorted bitches that are a result of their now very f’d up statistics for your site.

Probably a lot less damage occurs to an e-commerce site, or a site selling a service, though, but I don’t expect Diggers to be fooled — if a site is awful, it’s awful, and they’ll just hit the back-button and write something pretty negative in the comments section about it.

I know I do.

Jon

Sorry, but if TC is “afraid” of this, then I join them. I’m no TC cheerleader, mind you, but if they come out against this, then I’m in their camp. As I said to Chris, yes, it’s a natural part of the ecosystem, but TC is showing journalistic integrity by exposing it, and I don’t think “afraid” has anything to do with it. (Lest you think I’m a shill for thses guys, I blasted them when they reported on controversial (gay/lesbian/ alternate sexuality wikipedia posts that came from google IPs). A lot of the stuff they report on slightly annoys me these days, but come on, most would say they are on the right side on this.

“but that same invisible hand hopefully will make sites that want to maintain editorial intregrity find a way to block those sleazy shenanigans. Otherwise those capitialistic forces (all fine) will make said users look elsewhere.”

You just won the “you get it” award of the day. If there is demand and money to be made block those “sleazy shenanigans” then great. I hope someone will do it!