CNN on the Spam Attack?
The blogosphere is buzzing with rumors about a strange viral marketing campaign concerning CNN, that may be promoting the cable channel or squelching criticism of it -- or perhaps both at the same time.
Earlier this month, blogger Nick Lewis noticed a strange post about CNN on his blog. The comment was critical of some new shows on CNN, but also included detail about the shows, their show times and the anchors hosting them. The same terms were repeated over and over, making it appear like spam. Something was not right. Suspicious, Lewis checked other blogs and soon noticed a pattern: He found a lot of similar comments about CNN on sites like DesperateHousewives, CrankyGreg and BradBlog. All the comments were posted by someone called Joseph or Thoth, and used the same language. Lewis came across roughly three new spam comments a day.
