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Mass Control Control

By TheAntiHype | February 16, 2009

Hi, I don't remember seeing you here before. If you're new here, welcome. If you despise the hype on the net as much as me & like a laugh, keep up to date with my latest posts by subscribing to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! The Anti Hype

If you haven’t received an email about Mass Control over the past few days I’d love to hear from you about your email filter!

I was going to bring Homer out of hiding for this post but as he’s sulking and I’ve been so busy elsewhere of late I decided I just had to get this off my chest without him. But Derek agreed to help by adding his thoughts at the end of this post.

Someone, somewhere should set up a Control for the Mass Control epidemic that is sweeping the internet. I’m only on a few lists these days but even those that I’ve long, long forgotten about have come out of the woodwork to promote.

Now let me make this perfectly clear – I have no knowledge whatsoever of Mass Control – a number of the promotions I’ve received have been from people I respect so I’ll assume it is a really good product. But that’s not the point…

The issue is quite simply this…

How Very Dare You

I’ve been getting promotions from people who don’t know the first thing about me, about my business and what’s worse nor do they care. They are just interested in trying to get a commission by jumping on the launch frenzy bandwagon.

Maybe they’ve made assumptions that because I was interested in what they had to say once that I’m interested in every product they can make an affiliate commission from! A very bad assumption.

Not only am I not interested in their assumptions I’m now no longer interested in anything they have to say.

A few days ago I signed up for some Twitter program – it didn’t work properly and despite a Help Desk ticket being submitted there has been no response. But, for some reason the goons running the program think I’ll be interested in buying Mass Control through their affiliate links.

How Very Dare You

You guys can’t get your own product to work, you can’t or won’t provide any support yet you think I’d like to cross your palms with silver for a product that you don’t have any idea whether I’d benefit from.

Mad dear?, who dear?, me dear?, no dear…

How Very Dare You!

And as for the “my bonus is better than your bonus” brigade – get a life.

If I wanted Mass Control I’d buy is because it was good and relevant to my business not because you were offering me a pile of outdated junk that would clutter up my hard drive. I think I’d be too busy working the main program to want whatever bonus you were offering.

And if I wasn’t then the program is sadly lacking in something if I needed your bonus.

With very few exceptions, where perhaps the bonus offered is complimentary, I think you are simply being disrespectful to Frank Kern and his product. It is tantamount to suggesting that his product needs whatever it is you are offering as a bonus to somehow enhance his program – without it is is incomplete!

How very dare you!

There, I feel better for that!

To highlight the dangers of assumptions, and with a little slightly adult humour here’s Derek with his take on assumptions…

It seems embedding has been turned off by BBC – so please click here to view the video at YouTube

How very dare they!!!

YouTube Preview Image

Topics: Bad Gurus | 4 Comments »

The Arbitrage Conspiracy – Conspiracy

By TheAntiHype | December 10, 2008

Ebenezer Scrooge
Image by Steffe via Flickr

Just in time for Christmas – The Arbitrage Conspiracy is top on Homer’s Santa List.

It’s hardly surprising because he has no doubt received promotion after promotion over the last week or so.

Just like the latest toy promoted and adverised everywhere you look- you can’t open your email client without someone pushing The Arbitrage Conspiracy or Report.

Just in time for Christmas – many people will be spending their hard earned cash hoping this is the one that will finally give them the breakthrough they crave. Homer certainly is.

But here’s a bit of Christmas cheer from a grumpy old AntiHype:

But then what do I know?

Or perhaps a little bit of deeper research and thought rather than just believing the hype might not go amiss.

Perhaps I can convince Homer to be just a little more Scrooge like.

Bah, humbug

The AntiHype

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Topics: General Guru Fodder, Internet, Sales Hype, The Anti Hype | 5 Comments »

Office of Fair Trading To Snag Bad Gurus

By TheAntiHype | November 5, 2008

In the “real world” I needed to keep up to date with some new(ish) UK legislation re dealing with customers and read a document produced by the UK’s Office of Fair Trading.

Man, I know how to party!!

This came hot on the heels of my post – internet-marketer-responsible-for-prison-sentences

Rapidly skimming through the report I arrived at the 31 big – No Nos – the banned practices. These are the ways of dealing with customers that are automatically outside of the law. These are the laws applying to the UK and also Europe.

How they apply to the rest of the world and / or trading over the internet I’m not clear BUT…

Be Warned – Your time is up

Here’s an excerpt that particularly caught my eye:

(7) Falsely stating that a product will only be available for a very limited
time, or that it will only be available on particular terms for a very limited
time, in order to elicit an immediate decision and deprive consumers of
sufficient opportunity or time to make an informed choice.

I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a website do anything like this, have you?

I can’t remember more than 10 this week myself!

You can Download the full report – no need for email details – by Right Clicking on the link below and Save As or Save Link As to save to your local machine.

If you use this tactic perhaps you should think again!

Enjoy the reading, it may help your insomnia!

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Topics: Bad Gurus, General Guru Fodder, Working From Home | 3 Comments »

Internet Marketer Prison Sentences

By TheAntiHype | October 13, 2008

JC Statue of liberty

Image via Wikipedia

The headline read “Internet Marketer Responsible For Prison Sentences”

In an unprecedented move the courts today sentenced thousands of unsuspecting “would be” internet marketers to anything from a £1,000 (say $2,000) fine to 5 years in jail for deception.

Despite their pleas of “we had no idea what we were doing was wrong” the judge, looking solemn declared…

“Ignorance of the law is NO defence”

One of the defendants, who happens to be well known to readers of this blog – yes Homer – was excused punishment on the grounds of diminished responsibility (and total incompetence). He is still not over the public humiliation he received from his ex Sylvie Fortin and is clearly not in control of his faculties. Trying to rebuild his life with Marge he embarked on another spending spree that ended with his recent court appearance.

Asked what he had done Homer responded…

“All I did was to buy a really good product on the theme – how to make money online. It was being heavily promoted – in fact most of the big names seemed to love it. I just followed the advice in the product and the next thing I knew they arrived.”

“I was dragged out of bed – at least I was wearing my newest satin pajamas – to be interrogated by the newly formed Internet Police.”

“It seems I’m not allowed to put up a picture of someone else on the internet, make out that I am that person and say that a certain product has changed my life. They said that is deception. The IP actually was quite agitated and told me that I was obtaining money by deception”

“Fortunately, I hadn’t actually sold anything. Between you and me” he continued “despite trying a million different strategies I’ve never actually sold a thing online!”

Fact or Fantasy?

I really cannot say. I just feel there are some very grey areas surrounding certain online activities and posing as someone else to gain financial advantage could very easily be construed as deception.

If, for example you saw a weight loss program being promoted by a 350 lb lump, would you buy the product? If you answered yes, please leave now ;)

Assuming you wouldn’t – would you buy that same product from that same lump if that person had a royalty free picture of a good looking young thing, clearly no more than 150 lbs, stating how much weight she / he’d lost using product X?

If you were in the market I’m guessing you may give the product a go because you believed what had happened to the “promoter” of the product could happen to you.

Now if you knew who was behind this promotion – someone who had only put on weight from the day they were born I think you may think you had been somewhat deceived.

Maybe it’s time for the internet to be cleaned up a little.

What’s your take on this?

Am I wrong – should any amount of deception be allowed? Is this just another form of advertising? Should we as consumers be aware that all that glitters is not gold?

Tell me what you think – and in the meantime be careful what you do and say online – the headline above may one day come true!

The Anti Hype

Related information:

The Wikipedia description of deception according to English Law would worry me if I was up to these tricks!

And in New Jersey perhaps this would be of concern

Do some Google searches and you’ll find similar sites and articles everywhere.

I’m no legal expert but I’d hate to be sailing this close to the wind. I’d much rather know I was clean than rely on an assumption of some sort!


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Topics: Bad Gurus, Marketing and Advertising, Pajamas, The Anti Hype | 8 Comments »

How To Create Your Own Cash Cannons

By Mark | October 2, 2008

If you’re not among the first 500 to sign up for Michael Cheney’s Golden Thread program when it opens today then you’ll miss out! Michael is adamant that this is not a sales ploy and the membership will close as soon as that number is reached.

With just under 19,000 people already registered it looks like Michael Cheney is about to have a massive pay day!

Now, as The Anti Hype, I’m still in two minds about this launch. As you know I’m not keen on the over-hype associated with many launches. With The Golden Thread I do feel that this is a great product and will be very well received by those looking for a set-up and go solution, but I really dislike the volume of emails I’m receiving AND the offers of bonuses for using certain links – personally I’d rather have a discount!

The challenge is that although the product promises Cash Cannons for some products that are included in the package, by its very nature this means 500 people using the same system at the same time to sell the same products. Or maybe I’ve just missed something.

Anyway, I’ll let you into a little secret – I’ve been using Pre Sale Videos for about a year and to all intents and purposes these are the equivalent of cash cannons. No you don’t get the full training, personalised templates and resell rights products that are available in The Golden Thread. But, what you do get is professional pre recorded videos that promote a variety of great affiliate products.

All you do is sign up, get your links and promote or embed the code on a page of your own. The following is an example and in keeping with todays theme of video sales pages this video is for a brilliant package of products that makes adding any video to any web page a piece of cake. I bought the product myself yesterday and I’m amazed at how easy it is to use.

WATCH THE VIDEO NOW

If you have no products to sell the basic PreSale Videos system may be a perfect fit – basically it’s a video with your affiliate link embedded into the code. But if you want to take it a stage further then you may want to source your own resale rights products. If so watch the video at the following link for details of a free trial to Resale Rights Express

So, if you miss out on Michael Cheney’s product or you find the price too steep take a look at Pre Sale Videos as an alternative.

Topics: Blog Videos, General Guru Fodder, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising | No Comments »

What A Video!

By Mark | September 29, 2008

I posted earlier about The Golden Thread which is basically about video sales letters. The idea is to make the video compelling and that will increase click throughs, sign ups and sales.

What you are about to see has nothing to do with internet marketing and it is not a sales page BUT it’s ability to make you notice it is outstanding.

It’s about a WII game – nothing to buy – but it struck me with its brilliance for capturing the attention.

It’s so good people just tell their friends, send the link out and blog about it :) . Wouldn’t it be great if people were doing that about a video you created?

Get some tips…

Watch the video – it’s very short – turn your speakers up for full impact.

Topics: Blog Videos | No Comments »

The Golden Thread – Another Over Hyped Launch?

By Mark | September 29, 2008

Michael Cheney’s The Golden Thread launches this week – you may have heard about it!

BUT…

I actually like much of the work Michael Cheney does. His products usually over deliver and his way of explaining things is easy to follow.

So what about The Golden Thread?

In concept it’s great – create a Cash Cannon, Michael’s term for a video sales page. Nothing so unusual or groundbreaking about that. But when combined with persuasive commentary and stamped with your own personality AND all produced for you then maybe there is something special.

Michael’s launch includes a number of case studies including mind maps AND a live webcam at his blog.

I was really taken by the first video in the series – you can read my review and watch the video at The Golden Thread – particularly because of the success of the lady concerned with very few visitors to her site. When i say site – it really is just one page.

For many people adding an extra $1,000 to their income each month would be a life saver – and for anyone generating a lot of traffic increasing sales percentages from 1% to upwards of 10% would have a massive impact on profitability. That’s the promise!

As for the cost – I don’t know yet, but whatever it is – if an extra $1,000 a month is possible with little work it has to be worth looking at.

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Topics: General Guru Fodder, Marketing, Working From Home | 1 Comment »

FoxTab for Firefox Browser – Awesome

By Mark | September 24, 2008

Mozilla Firefox Icon

Image via Wikipedia

If you use the Firefox and you certainly should, then you’ll love FoxTab.

Instead of clicking on tabs across the top of your screen to find the webpage you want you get a preview of each.

Easily accessible via on screen direction arrows or just hold Ctrl & Tab and the pages scroll right in front of your eyes until you find the one your looking for.

Take a look by hovering over FoxTab.

Download the FoxTab Addon

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Topics: Free Resources | No Comments »

Apture – Multi Media Blog Posting Solution

By Mark | September 24, 2008

My friend Mark from Health and Wellness introduced my to a new service (free of course) called Apture. Just hover over the link to view the video that will open in a new window over this page.

So you show your site visitors related reference material without sending them off never to return.

Wow, is this cool.

They do a better job of explaining how it works than I can but as a summary:

I’ve overloaded this post as an example

Here’s my personal blog at TheAntiHype

Just heads over to Apture and download the plugin (works on most blogs). It’s a page of php code. Upload to your blog in normal way. Activate and full instructions are provided.

I did have a slight delay as the theme  I’m using required me to insert a line of php code into the footer. Dead easy to do though – just follow the instructions.

Have fun.

Mark

P.S. Are any of you are WordPress experts? If so I’d love to hear from anybody who can explain to me why over the past few weeks, every so often some of my posts seem to be published multiple times. If I return to the admin area and log out they then seem to disappear. Spooky!

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Topics: Free Resources, General Guru Fodder | 1 Comment »

Homer Gets Taken For A Ride

By TheAntiHype | September 9, 2008

I’m not sure what Homer thought he was getting involved in. Probably been reading too many of the junk emails getting through his filters.

He told me he was looking for a little “pick me up” but has ended up with another huge package (cluttering up his hard drive)

Here’s the sales message he responded to – It’s actually very funny!

The Anti Hype

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Topics: General Guru Fodder | 1 Comment »

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