Anil Dash notes that Raging Cow has an Amazon Wish List.

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Jane (not her real name)

Just to be clear on this recent theme of faux blogs, I’m not against the idea in principal. As I said the other day, I actually think the Beta-7 Sega blog was pretty clever. It’s just the lame ones I object to.

Jane Blog is another example of a faux blog done really well. It’s well written, funny, cheeky, naughty, in short full of the right snarky tone of many good personal blogs. Importantly, compared to something really lame like Barbie’s blog which links to nothing, Jane actually reads and links heavily to lots of very hip blogs — Gawker, Defamer, Tony Pierce, Fark, Eurotrash (!), Anil Dash, Suicide Girls (naughty!) and lots more — both in her posts and her blogroll. And if that weren’t enough evidence that this is written by someone who gets blogs, she uses TypePad, not some hokey pseudo blog publishing platform. (E.g., she has permalinks!)
But, just in case you weren’t clear, in her About Me page, she concludes:

(by the way, I‚Äôm not actually real, I‚Äôm a fictitious character on the TV series “Good GIrls Don’t.” But that won‚Äôt stop me from writing to you every day. I mean, every weekday. Cause on weekends I‚Äôm in party mode.)

You go, girlfriend!

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Mark Tosczak points out that the NYT has caught onto the fact that not all blogs are real.

NYT: Wry Hoaxes Enliven the World of Web Diarists

LATEST UPDATE (August 4):
ATTENTION XBOX WEENIES: When I first created this post, I didn’t really understand what this blog was about. Whatever. Now I get it. I’ve since acknowledged that. Please stop posting comments on this thread to that same effect. Point taken. Get a frickin’ life already.

ORIGINAL POST:
It’s sad that consumer marketers think the best thing they can do with a blog is create fake ones. It was one thing when Sega did its Beta-7 blog, as that was actually really good and lots of people fell for it. But the stupid Be Tag-Free thing and now I Love Bees (from Xbox) are just lame. Michael O’Connor Clarke has the full story in his aptly named post Buzz Marketing.

FIRST UPDATE/CLARIFICATION:
A few commenters in my comments section on this post suggest that I’m not giving this its proper credit, that the blog is just one link in a chain of some kind of online mystery teaser campaign, and that lots of gamers who are following it think it is in fact a pretty cool campaign. I haven’t had the time (or inclination) to follow up on it further and judge for myself, so do take my cynicism with a grain of salt. May be I’m the one who doesn’t get it in this case, not the marketers.

What I think this does hightlight, however, is that it’s possible to come into a marketing event like this without the proper context, so marketers need to consider that. Like in the movies, you should be able to see a sequel without having seen the original and still enjoy it. If this works in its full context but looks bad if you find your way into it partway through, that is a problem. A link to this page from Instapundit would blow away the people are finding it from the start, and then more people could have a negative impression than a positive one. Like my annoyance at Big Blog Company the other day; so their “fuck you” comment wasn’t intended for outside eyes. Their mistake, however, was assuming it wouldn’t be seen out of context. Taken out of context, it wasn’t pretty.

Another Fake Blog: I Love Bees

First, watch this video. It’s funny, basically showing the discomfort women suffer from their bra tags.

The site (linked in the above headline) purports to be an amateurly designed petition from a few concerned women calling on bra makers to design bras without itchy tags at the back, as Hanes has done with men’s undershirts. The site also links to a few blogs on the topic.

I am sure (just based on what I see) that this is really a stealthy preview campaign for some bra maker that already has such a product they are about to unleash on the world, and this is a viral advance teaser. If I’m wrong about that, it’s certainly an market and marketing opportunity some such company should capitalize on. But, I’m not wrong; trust me. This is too slick and well-orchestrated to be genuinely a populist thing. This has slick cyber agency written all over it. Stay tuned…

UPDATE:
Oh yeah, it’s definitely a campaign. Here’s an ad for the “grassroots” site on hip fashion site DailyCandy.com. Expect TV ads to follow soon.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
In case you’re too lazy to click on the comments on this post, reader John Fratus observes, “The domain registration on betagfree.com is to Sara Lee (i.e. Hanes, Bali, Playtex, Wonderbra, etc.).” Now, why didn’t I think of that?

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Lame. Not a real blog (yes, I realize she’s a doll), more of a journal (“Omigod, you’ll never believe the adorable pair of shoes I bought with Mercedes today!”). Pass.

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One of the cleverest business blogs I’ve ever seen. From the innovative ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, this blog purported to be written by a beta tester of the ESPN NFL computer game, from Sega. The alleged beta tester is supposedly so disturbed by how violent the game is that starts experiencing blackouts during which he tackles his colleagues at work, trashes his own apartment, etc. An intense conspiratorial tone, video clips from surveillance cameras, unauthorized interviews with product managers, hacked rejected clips from TV ads for the product and the like all won the site a large following, most of whom didn’t realize the site was a hoax. The blog ended abruptly with Beta 7’s mysterious disappearance, coinciding with the launch of the game. A great example of an adverblog.

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