A week-or-so ago, the following “anonymous” comments were posted on Cheezhead by “Todd”:
Jobs.com also offers low-priced job postings at $25 per posting. Not a bad site, and just as cheap (or even cheaper, when looking at San Fran) than Craigslist. Much cheaper than CareerBuilder, Monster, Crunchboard, etc. I just used them today and it seemed pretty easy and quick to post a job. And for the price, you can’t really go wrong.
HotJobs has never been the same since Yahoo bought them. Yahoo just can’t seem to figure out what to do with Job Postings. It didn’t fit neatly into their old CPM Advertising model and it doesn’t fit neatly into their new PPC model. But, they seem intent on trying to pound the square peg through the round hole. I just don’t see this working.
Check out Jobs.com. They offer job postings in a number of categories and locations, at a really cheap price (only $25)!
Like any other blogger, red flags go off when getting such blatant advertising trying to disguise itself as commentary. Without doing much investigation, I can be pretty certain this person has some affiliation with or self-interest in pushing Jobs.com, owned by our buddies at Monster Worldwide.
The next step is to follow the breadcrumbs. Going here, I can check any IP address (where a message originates) but can typically see the culprit right from my blogging dashboard.
In this case, the message came from TMP. Yeah, someone from TMP’s servers thought they could post an “anonymous” comment on my not-so-Monster-loving-blog, pushing Monster-owned Jobs.com.
LOL
The mistakes made here from a marketing perspective are pretty self-evident. Bloggers (people) aren’t stupid. We know when someone leaves a comment. We know where it comes from. And we can smell bullshit. So now I’m going to call you and your company on it. (Like I could pass up such a slow-pitch-softball opportunity?)
If you’re going to partake in such “marketing” activities, be smart about it. At the very least, don’t expose your employer to your antics, dragging their brand through the mud. Do it from your home computer, for example. Bloggers do bite back. Some harder than others.
Popularity: 7% [?]
February 21st, 2007 at 12:30 pm
hu … that’s weird
especially knowing that Monster worldwide sold TMP 6 month ago …
February 21st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
let me tell you about this site JOBCENTRAL.COM where you can post a job for only $25 and that job gets posted to a CORNUCOPIA of world wide websites…oh shit…
ummmm….how do i spoof my IP address??
February 21st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
ps : anonymous posting sucks !
February 21st, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Well said Joel, you get used to all the obvious spam comments but to get it from a major company and to think he or she thought they would get away with it, beggars belief.
I am sure you like me wouldn’t have minded an honest approach!
February 21st, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Well said Joel! But think about just how simple this deceptive, yes that is what it is called when they get sued, trick is…..This must be their new marketing approach…you know with all the pressure from shareholders and such….save money and just post on blogs…”raise our rates to post jobs and then we cut our advertising budget…brillant.”
Didn’t you recently post a memo about layoffs and headcount cuts at Monster? I am sure the trail goes higher up the ladder then you can imagine.
February 21st, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Ahh. Sad. Speaking as the Development Director who “owns” Jobs.com I can only apologize. No one in my team had anything to do with this and I don’t believe this was an official marketing program; please mark it down as a over-enthusastic freelancing Marketing person (or just *maybe* an enthusiastic outsider ;) ).
The only defense I can offer is that there are still many people out there in Marketing land who don’t get blogging etiquette (I’m reminded of Microsoft giving bloggers free Vista PCs). Having said that I’ll do my best to spread the word internally. There are many Monster-ites with blogs, especially on the tech. side, who do get it.
As for the TMP vs. Monster Worldwide confusion in the comments, I assume Joel was referring to various DNS entries that still point back to, listed as being owned by, or are aliased to TMP. That will change over time, but I doubt it’s any sort of priority for anyone in OPS.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Blame me. I asked Todd to spread the word about Jobs.com. And yes, I was unaware it was a breach of etiquette. Apologies all around.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:23 am
How amusing- but hey this is happening all the time. *did i already mentioned that posting jobs on newchinacareer.com is free?*
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Where is the honor?!?
Where is the dignity!?!
Where is the courage!?!
SPAM under your own name. Like me.
Free job postings on fracat.com – we may only have 1/1000th of the traffic of Jobs.com, Monster.com, or HotJobs (if that much), but our prices are millions of times cheaper!
Dan
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:21 am
Their gazing LUSTINGLY in to each other’s eyes…Dare I say I see a sexual harassment lawsuit soon??
http://www.fracat.com/images/header.jpg
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Well, I’m going to change out the header soon, anyway. Perhaps even something a little less generic.
All I need is a few sponsors and I’ll change it out right away.
Coming Soon:
The Office Depot Presents: FRACAT
or, more appropriately, something like:
FRACAT, Sponsored by Dunkin Donuts
Dan
February 24th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I just checked out http://www.arin.net/whois/. Now I can find out where these a holes are coming from. I have got comment spam coming out of my a hole. This is exactly why I moderate comments so that I can eliminate this crap from blog comments. I encourage comments, but keep it constructive and related to the post.
Here is an example of a piece of comment spam that I received from a jack ass today.
A new comment on the post #59 “Strategic Planning in HR” is waiting for your approval
http://www.workplacevisions.com/2007/01/15/strategic-planning-in-hr/
Author : free java script code (IP: 70.94.14.20 , CPE-70-94-14-20.wi.res.rr.com)
E-mail :
URL : http://scripts.ttisports.com/free-java-script-code.html
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=70.94.14.20
Comment:
free java script code…
This site is about free java script code….
Approve it: http://www.workplacevisions.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=mac&c=67
Delete it: http://www.workplacevisions.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&c=67
Spam it: http://www.workplacevisions.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&dt=spam&c=67
Currently 59 comments are waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel:
http://www.workplacevisions.com/wp-admin/moderation.php
After seeing these knuckleheads in moderation, I sometimes end up deleting an actual constructive comment.