3 ms·

$1000-a-day Pinterest scammer claims hoax

49 points by jond3k 15y ago

mrmaddog 15y ago
This is a prime example of how to not write a correction piece. The gist of the story is that they used a screenshot to verify somebody's identity, and it turns out the person faked it. However, instead of saying "we made a mistake and didn't verify our sources properly," they go on to spin stories like "But is Steve a prankster, or is he a spammer having second thoughts" and "Regardless of its validity, Steve’s story helped expose a very real issue for Pinterest." Both could possibly be true, but they are just speculating to save face. The part that annoyed me to make me comment was this paragraph: "So who is this spammer? Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell right now. Even if another person claiming to be final-fantas07 came forward, the only way that individual could prove his or her identity—a screenshot—could be faked (again)." Really? A little bit of critical thinking and you could have him make a post using one of his bots' account, or delete a post, or use any other more reliable, actually verifiable source.
- igorgue 15y ago
  I wish I could make them read this: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-d... So they can learn something about journalism.
  - smashing 15y ago
    OR you could just link here: http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/ http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/
alex_c 15y ago
The article keeps using "scam" and "spam" interchangeably. As far as I can tell, no one's actually getting scammed in any way, it's purely spam.
- jgmmo 15y ago
  I'm just happy they didn't call him a 'Hacker'
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- paulgb 15y ago
  If you have to create fake accounts to fly under the radar, pretty sure that's more "spam" than "marketing".
  - matznerd 15y ago
    Blackhat internet marketing is all about automation, taking what works with one account and then doing it with hundreds or thousands...If you can make a dollar doing something, then automate it and do it 1000 times...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
matznerd 15y ago
I'm from the IM community and $1000 a day is not unheard of, but most of the other people using pinterest are not making this much, especially since they stopped sending all pins to the front page (now only 1 per hour or so). The traffic coming from Pinterest is also not converting that well, it seems that the women like to browse and aren't that into buying. Regardless, pinterest traffic can be used in a clean way to send traffic to a legitimate store, and those people are seeing positive results...
- thornofmight 15y ago
  What's "IM community"?
  - bira 14y ago
    Internet Marketing community.
mapster 15y ago
Smells like linkbait to sell bots on the blackhat forum that was mentioned.
joelrunyon 15y ago
Seems like a pretty lame "hoax." My money's on the guy fell for the appeal of fame, quickly realized how it was going to impact his finance and backpedaled.

49 points by jond3k 15y ago

This is a prime example of how to not write a correction piece. The gist of the story is that they used a screenshot to verify somebody's identity, and it turns out the person faked it. However, instead of saying "we made a mistake and didn't verify our sources properly," they go on to spin stories like "But is Steve a prankster, or is he a spammer having second thoughts" and "Regardless of its validity, Steve’s story helped expose a very real issue for Pinterest." Both could possibly be true, but they are just speculating to save face. The part that annoyed me to make me comment was this paragraph: "So who is this spammer? Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell right now. Even if another person claiming to be final-fantas07 came forward, the only way that individual could prove his or her identity—a screenshot—could be faked (again)." Really? A little bit of critical thinking and you could have him make a post using one of his bots' account, or delete a post, or use any other more reliable, actually verifiable source.

igorgue 15y ago
I wish I could make them read this: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-d... So they can learn something about journalism.
- smashing 15y ago
  OR you could just link here: http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/ http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/

alex_c 15y ago

The article keeps using "scam" and "spam" interchangeably. As far as I can tell, no one's actually getting scammed in any way, it's purely spam.

jgmmo 15y ago
I'm just happy they didn't call him a 'Hacker'

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

paulgb 15y ago
If you have to create fake accounts to fly under the radar, pretty sure that's more "spam" than "marketing".
- matznerd 15y ago
  Blackhat internet marketing is all about automation, taking what works with one account and then doing it with hundreds or thousands...If you can make a dollar doing something, then automate it and do it 1000 times...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

matznerd 15y ago

I'm from the IM community and $1000 a day is not unheard of, but most of the other people using pinterest are not making this much, especially since they stopped sending all pins to the front page (now only 1 per hour or so). The traffic coming from Pinterest is also not converting that well, it seems that the women like to browse and aren't that into buying. Regardless, pinterest traffic can be used in a clean way to send traffic to a legitimate store, and those people are seeing positive results...

thornofmight 15y ago
What's "IM community"?
- bira 14y ago
  Internet Marketing community.

mapster 15y ago

Smells like linkbait to sell bots on the blackhat forum that was mentioned.

joelrunyon 15y ago

Seems like a pretty lame "hoax." My money's on the guy fell for the appeal of fame, quickly realized how it was going to impact his finance and backpedaled.