5 ms·
In case you didn't notice, this is clever advertising for Microsoft Azure. Both authors work for Microsoft. I could count 3 mentions of Azure, two direct links
by patrickaljord 8y ago
In case you didn't notice, this is clever advertising for Microsoft Azure. Both authors work for Microsoft. I could count 3 mentions of Azure, two direct links to Azure products, 1 quote from a Microsoft researcher, 1 quote from a Microsoft dev advocate and 1 embedded Bing maps. You've just been played by Microsoft marketing. Also, Tom Dale works for Microsoft himself so it's just one big family story.
- Lobosque 8y agoThe article is fun and well written, and it showcases how the marketed tools/services can actually be used to accomplish something interesting. As long as the content is useful, should I care if it was written as a way to advertise a product or not? This is so much better than doorslaming ads in one's face.
- gandutraveler 8y agoMarketing for EmberJS perhaps ? :P
- FlorianRappl 8y agoNoticed it, but I like(d) the ad / package / presentation. Personally, I think this is "good" marketing.
- pickpuck 8y agoKudos to you for noticing but! I think they should add some kind of disclosure.
- the_duke 8y agoThis is the kind of PR (rather than marketing) that I despise, because it is deceiving.
- madeofpalk 8y agoI mean, its annoying that it wasn't clearly stated that it was a MS article, but from the beginning I thought it was fairly clear that it was an advertisement for something, and all the Microsoft references was a pretty strong hint it was for them.
- maroonblazer 8y agoDo we know for a fact that this was a marketing tactic conceived and developed by the Marketing group at Microsoft? Versus simply these three individuals, of their own accord, wanting to show off the tools in a fun(?) way?
- Nullabillity 8y agoDoes it matter? If you're showing off something that depends on your company's product then you're advertising for them, regardless of whether you're paid for it directly.
- maroonblazer 8y agoYes, it does matter. I'd question the intentions of a marketing department very differently than I would 3 developers who appreciate a given set of tools and want to share them with other developers.
- diegoperini 8y agoMarketing for Twitter? (Bad sarcasm)
- forgotmyacc 8y agoFuckkkk, the ads are evolving. South Park is right!! I didn't realize it.
- widforss 8y agoCompulsory XKCD link: https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
- the_duke 8y agoTom Dale working for MS makes it likely that this was a reverse-engineering effort. As in, they knew who they were looking for from the start, and just worked with the data to find the known conclusion. Also, there's no actual machine learning in this really, except calling out to a hosted language processing service...
- jlborxes 8y agoA nice case of parallel construction.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- derangedHorse 8y agoTechnically any project showcasing a specific technology could be considered advertising though.
- ape4 8y agoAh, who is whoishorsejs.com
- fibers 8y agoThis is really telling because the twitter api already tells you the source of a tweet anyway (android/tweetdeck/hootsuite). It's like they didn't even try.
- madeofpalk 8y agoWhat's the relevance of this? The article points this out, no?
- chrismeller 8y agoThat’s awfully cynical. Other than wondering exactly why they used those Azure services (which makes sense now that I know they work for Microsoft), nothing else about Microsoft stood out for me when I read through. Edit: I’m not sure how that was worthy of a downvote. Not everything is a conspiracy, but thanks for valuing contradictory options.
- enraged_camel 8y ago>>That’s awfully cynical. Perhaps so, but that doesn't make it not true. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- coldtea 8y ago>That’s awfully cynical. The world is awfully exploitative and cunning. The world of business doubly so.
- hardwaresofton 8y agoAm I the only one that skimmed the story so fast that I didn't notice the MS associations? I could tell it wasn't going to be a super deep dive or deeply technical just from a look at layout/style of the post -- but it wasn't supposed to be super deeply technical right? Kind of just like a fun post. They were extremely helpful in making the "conclusion" bits on the end of every section very obvious though (I aim to write like that as well, to save readers time), so I basically only read those, and skipped to the bottom where they unveiled and clicked the button...
- failrate 8y agoThank goodness. I was worried that we were going to see another doxing like the one that drove whythe luckystiff away.