Nvidia "Community Outreach"

It destroys my conspiracy theory af ATI's side biding their time , but I agree that could have likely been the start. Nice finding!

 

I think the outrage and the rampant discussion about AEG's is brilliant viral marketing for them. There's no such thing as bad publicity. Also, AEG probably couldn't care less what is said about their program here. Their "members" are bound NDA, so they're not going to out themselves. So what does this "outrage" accomplish except to give AEG more exposure? Sadly, I think this will all blow over when the next controversy, driver cheat, or video card launch comes and then it will be business as usual for these goons. The public forgets things very quickly.

 

While I agree with you on moral grounds, I think companies fight for their survival, to be the best of the pack, whatever the cost. Nvidia is the company that bought 3Dfx/3dfx, they know how hard derailed planning and execution can make you fall. So I suppose they'll do anything (legal) to keep the upper hand.

Being open, exposing your issues, can sometimes perceived as being weak, and maybe Nvidia would rather look evil than weak It worked for other, bigger, corporations after all.

But I agree, ATI being more frank and open, trying hard to make up for their initially horrible drivers, helps people be more supportive when its own plans derail (esp. when they can say it was a third-party issue). I did notice less bashing of ATI this year than I saw of Nvidia during the blowdryer FX era, maybe it's me. But that'll only work with individuals, OEM customers care only about results, not methodology.

OK, one last stand and then I'll shut up on this subject. I am a believer in viral marketing.

I read an interesting, while not transcendent, book named purple cow a while ago. The book, using facts to demonstrate, is just about how the new information society, the internet and the newsgroups, have rendered the old media advertising more or less moribund. Go spend all your money on a big TV ad, and see very little revenue come back to you. It's all about word of mouth these days, and the category of people that other people refer to to help them choose what to buy. Those people the book calls "sneezers".

But, I don't believe viral marketing works well for hiding a product flaws and make up for design or execution failure. I believe that viral marketing is best at showing people cool features that a product has that they may not be aware of. Because of its very nature, viral marketing targets sneezers. And they're not stupid, they don't know everything so you can help them discover new products or new trends; but you can't LIE to them for a long while before they uncover the truth, because they usually do their own research. And then you'll have a backlash, maybe of bigger proportions than the good word-of-mouth before.

That's why I don't think AEG is such a big issue. Maybe I'll be proven wrong.

 

I think the problem is that when people post their opinions or experiences, there has (until now) been an implicit postscript: "I have no connection to the supplier other than being a customer".

Now it turns out that people who post (good or bad) about a product may not be "just customers" like the rest of us could be if we bought the product. These people are in fact shills telling us whatever they have been employed to say, while still pretending that they are nothing more than customers like you and me. It's misleading the online community, inflitrating it with marketing employees pretending to be ordinary customers with true customers' experiences to relate. It's this deception that people are objecting to.

 

Deception & misrepresentation! I agree. The thing is, instead of just posting about our unease, I'm wondering if anybody feels strongly enough about this to contact relevent "advertising watchdog" bodies?

I lack the eloquence, understanding & proof .... plus I'm too lazy.

Eventually the deficencies will be exposed. From my confused recollection it took a lot of "new drivers will fix it", "everybody is out to make us look bad", "the benchmarking software doesn't accurately measure our performance" before it was universally accepted that the FX was not the best choice.
How many less enlightened people spent their hard earned money after being taken in by marketing & reviews that cut the FX too much slack I wonder?

 

How many years have we suffered through products that are "New and Improved" when in fact they had very little changed about them, and they didn't perform any better? Those labels have been used on products for decades, but are they really truthful? Not really. Do these companies get hammered for "false advertising"? Nope. I think the marketing at work here can almost be categorized the same. When approached all that NV and AEG have to say to get off any hook is, "Hey, these people were NVIDIA advocates before, but now we just compensate them so they continue to speak up."

 

Compensated? Paid in my book & when you are paid by a company you are technically their representative.
Companies are responsible for the actions of their representatives.

Damn, where's a lawyer when you need one?

 

Thus why sub-contracting was born.

 

What instructions were the sub-contractor given? There is still the question of accountability.

Damn, still no lawyer?

Hi DW.

 

Hi 2senile!

Yeah, you can't really point the finger of nasty at nVidia for being responsible for this legally...that's why AEG gets the big bucks to play middle-man.

My big question now is what other companies besides AEG are out there doing this? If business is so good for AEG and they've been around for 8 years doing this then I'm pretty sure there are a couple of copycat type operations around.

 

I doubt there are rules to cover this kind of thing. That's one of the reasons why online and viral marketing are so popular. They are more like a one-to-one relationship, rather than the one-to-many of traditonal advertising media, so many of the normal rules do not apply, and the marketeer can get away with so much more. When ads are spread person to person, (such as people forwarding video clips to their friends' email and mobile accounts) the customer is effectively the unpaid extension of marketing, and is not responsible in the same way as the industry marketeer is.

I will vote with my wallet and put another mark against Nvidia's products because I don't know whether they are any good or not. Their marketing has become even more misleading and opaque than it was before, and now even the opinions of "customers" we might converse with online is now suspect.

This is really just another in the long line of underhanded PR and marketing tactics from Nvidia, and while it cons a lot of people, the backlash (as per in the past) could do them more harm than good in the long run. Trying to influence the geeks that in turn influence the buying decisions of the mainstream via such deceptive methods could turn a sizable proprotion of their target demographic against them when (as has happened now) it all comes out in the wash.

 

AEG are, or should be, operating within the confines of instructions from their client. The client is therefore responsible for the actions of AEG & their "paid representatives".

It is the one on many tho. I'm sure that a respected & influential forum poster is making an impact on more than one person. Perhaps if the normal rules do not apply the normal rules need to be changed. Quickly.

Damn, still no lawyer? I have to be run down by a bus to get an Ambulance Chaser?

 

Two words; "plausible deniability".

 

Possible.
If the person stepping outside their remit was dirctly employed then the employer would definately still be judged liable/responsible. We need a lawyer.

They could possibly get away with saying an employee of AEG stepped outside the instructions of the client & get away with it but AEG would then be the legaly responsible party for the actions of one of their employees.

There is the problem that we don't know what instructions were given to AEG, what instructions were given to "paid employees" of AEG or wether AEG obtained a professional evaluation of how people who received "free" hardware would behave in order to protect their access to further "free" hardware.

Still no Lawyer?

 

E-mail Jack Thompson, tell him that AEG's shills are promoting violent video games along with nVidia products....

 

For AEG, yes, but we're really discussing the people who use AEG's services and how they apply to forum communities in which participants are assumed to be voicing personal, not corporate, opinions. As for publicity for NV, well, the consumer GPU market doesn't stretch much beyond ATI and NV, so I'm not sure "no such thing as bad publicity" applies here. In NV's case, there was such a thing, and several times (e.g., Kyro 2 and 3DM03). It doesn't seem to have affected them too much, though, in the sense that their performance seems to have tracked with their product, not their advertising. I'm not the only one who separates the two.

But in a market as tiny as consumer GPUs, which is dominated by two players, I'm not sure viral marketing helps get your name out there any more than seeding review sites. So the question turns to whether this viral marketing is getting your message out there and in the guise of consumers. This isn't far from that fake Fox movie critic quote, IMO, which I doubt any of us would find acceptable.

It's the veneer of impartiality that I object to. OTOH, I also object to a lynch mob, so has anyone contacted AEG or NV for a comment on the extent and intent of this program?

Edit: Yep, geo, I meant sites like [H] or AT or even TR, that have clout and connections beyond us forum-dwellers. Hanners took the big step of publishing an article on it, but I don't recall a response from NV or AEG. As for that last quote, AEG/NV's marketing dept. might be taking some credit for NV engineers' obviously nice job on the NV40+, which is also probably not uncommon in the business world.

 

We won't know unless someone with some "outreach" of their own approaches them. Which website wants to risk pissing Nvidia off by publicly approaching AEG?