Has B3ta been spammed?
Apologies: I don't know for how long it has been the case, but the game is now loading for me in a separate window - this could have been a change at their end or a browser bug at my end. Please disregard all that follows.
Every Friday, b3ta send out their newsletter - a newsletter that goes out to many thousands of people and is known world-wide. The newsletter contains links to fun things made by B3ta people as well as to cool things send in by members of the public...
Except this week it's different. The b3ta newsletter contained a link to a game described as follows:
">> Stroke the Kitty Game <<
"I've made a new game", writes Jibbed, "I've
named it Kitty Stroke. The cat needs your help.
She's in dire need of some serious stroking
action. Stroke that cat as if your life
depended on it." TIP: The aim of the game is
to follow the cat with your cursor. Great.
http://www.magic-carpet.freeserve.co.uk/thb/kittystroke.html
When you click through to the page, however, the game isn't there at all. It has been replaced with a button that claims to launch the game, but instead launches an affiliate link to Sky Digital. Also on the page is an advert for OneTel. Now, as far as I can make out, there are two explanations for this state of affairs. 1) The people at the other end changed the page "accidentally" or 2) The people at the other end decided to co-opt the mailing list and use it as a cheap and easy way of making some money.
Which leaves us with the question: Given that we don't want our cool mailing lists and independent bits of cool and homegrown content usurped by unscrupulous idiots - how do we make sure that they make no revenue out of this? Presumably neither Sky nor OneTel wish to have their affiliate programmes abused in this kind of way...
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I for one am dubious.... a previous issue of the newsletter has headlined viral stuff they've made for hula-hoops and lastminute.com in the same issue. I think b3ta has begun imploding - the messageboard is getting more clogged up with crap all the time, also some traces of latent homophobia...
→ Posted by: Dan at March 15, 2003 12:24 AM
We have no idea. We posted the link in good faith. After the newsletter went out the link changed.
We have changed the web copy of the newsletter accordingly.
See here.
http://www.b3ta.com/newsletter/issue80/
→ Posted by: b3ta@b3ta.com at March 15, 2003 1:51 AM
Thanks Rob - it's as I suspected - someone out there seems to have tried to abuse the good faith put in them by the B3ta crew to make a little money. So now - how do we stop these people making money out of it?
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at March 15, 2003 9:23 AM
Hmm. I clicked on the link in the b3ta mail at about 6pm, and it went through to the game. By the time you posted the rant above, it had indeed changed - but the game still actually loads, in addition to the Sky affiliate thing - in case you're desperate to play, it's here. My guess is that someone submitted it, then once it appeared in the newsletter, saw the opportunity to make some cash to offset their costs. Not very bright, but hardly grand larceny. And it's not that good a game anyway...
→ Posted by: Meg at March 15, 2003 10:50 AM
Well expressed :o)
→ Posted by: Wolfie at March 17, 2003 10:32 PM
Still can't get it in latest Mozilla/1.3 - if I don't cheat. Don't bother, I'm fine under most circumstances.. Possible reason, however. From source code: embed src="file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Jon/Desktop/kittyStroke.swf"
There's an outer tag that should be OK, but Mozilla like their quirky Gecko (i.e., trying to imitate "IE compliance," I guess.)
Apologies: And whatever pertinent means?! I'm sorry if I wasn't..
→ Posted by: Danil G at March 21, 2003 12:00 AM