Wednesday, December 15, 2010

false advertising

I have a lot of posts running around in my head... lots to say... but here is what we get today:

I wrote last year that I bought myself a fancy phone. For the most part, it rocks and rolls. I've learned how to use many of its features by visiting an online forum, www.samsungmomentforum.com. All sorts of types (technoid and non) post all sorts of quirks and helps and ideas and science. It's been fun. And I've even impressed people at parties with my knowledge of technoid terms and fancy phone abilities.

In a strange roundabout way I won't get into, I learned this weekend that the developer of this forum started another forum, samsunginterceptforum.com, to help people who own the Samsung Intercept, the next generation of my phone, the Samsung Moment. That is fine with me; I think forums are great. But here is what I don't like:

Because the two cell phone devices are so similar, he took the entire Samsung Moment Forum, copied it, did a "find and replace" which turned all "Moments" into "Intercepts," and published the forum.

Which means that I went on this new forum and found posts, from myself, detailing my adventures with my beloved "Intercept." Boy, did I hit the roof. This is wrong on so many levels!!
  1. It's completely FALSE. The entire forum SITS ON A THRONE OF LIES. Does that seem too dramatic?

  2. My published words were changed without my permission. I emailed the guy and demanded he remove all posts from me on the new forum. He obliged. Although I bet the forum looks a little stupid since um, I replied to posts within threads and if my message is gone but someone replied to me then what? Anyway.

  3. It just goes to show, sadly, that you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. Sigh. I feel like the Internet is SUCH a good tool for information, but then stuff like this happens and I get so jaded. It sucks. I wish I could trust it. I just don't get why this guy couldn't just start his forum from scratch? Why copy an existing forum? SO LAME.
Since I'm on an Internet tirade, here is another one:

My friend was raising money for breast cancer research, and InsiderPages.com said for every review I could write for a local place, they'd donate $x to her campaign. That seemed kinda cool. I made a name and password and posted a bunch of reviews. It was all to my liking.

Well, it turns out CitySearch.com or someone similar bought Insider Pages, and then published all my reviews on their site too. Which I wouldn't have a problem with, except they didn't use my username on the reviews, they used my real name. And I wrote reviews for like doctors and stuff. Who I still see. Which should be totally private.

Urgh. Now I gotta figure out how to get that changed. Heaven help me.

Anyway, my venting for the day is finished. Anyone have similar Internet experiences?

2 comments:

Rose said...

I'll email you my internet blunder. I'm not going to share it on your blog! (Even though it IS private!)

Unknown said...

Hey Angela! I would be pretty upset about people using my information without my permission! Urgh! It's so true that you can't believe everything on the internet. We just found our Aaron has a cavity and there are some crazy stories about mercury. I have done a little research. Called a friend who is dentist and got his advice, but I still wish I could find resources that I trust! It's hard to find! Oh yeah... and you are a good writer! Don't let anyone take advantage of you!