How much do shills get paid?

I'm considering a new profitable line of work, and I was wondering how much professional shills make.

I can't help but notice that, no matter which forum you look in, there are some characters there who seem to stay in front of the computer all day long, praising the Mother Corporation and attacking its enemies.

They constantly sing the praises of the forum's brand of cameras, and announce that the corporate executives are the wisest of men, and the engineers are all brilliant.

And they declare that the other brands of cameras are terrible -- too large or too small, too old or too new, too expensive or too cheap...

And the shills are downright vicious when it comes to attacking anyone who dares to criticize even one little feature of the Mother Corporation's cameras.

Obviously, those shills, also known as "fanboys", must be getting paid for their work. I mean, nobody in his right mind would just sit in front of a computer all day long, advertising and praising one brand of camera, if he weren't getting paid to do it.

So how much does it pay?

--
'Now I know what it's like to be high on life.
It isn't as good, but my driving has improved.'
== Nina, on 'Just Shoot Me', 13 Jan 2006.

Any examples you can think of? I know shills exist on the Internet- but on dpreview, it seems like the most noticeable fanboys will shift allegiances between brands - they're often big on the Fuji F20/31 as a 2nd camera. So I just think it's fanboys rather than paid shills.

.... he claimed to have purchase the latest cameras from Sigma, then from Pentax, then from Olympus, then from .... Apparently, if you took him literally, he owns something around 5 or 6 different brands of cameras, each of them is the latest.

And in each case, he spent a couple of messages asking "clarifying" questions, but always tried to imply some Fear regarding the viability of the company, some Uncertainty about the capability of lenses, some Doubt about the capability of the cameras, issues with the cost of the cameras, concern with the cost of the lenses ..... Almost the same questions and concerns (almost) from brand to brand. It was interesting to watch/read.

Classic weak salesmanship, having to rely on FUD regarding someone else's product to sell / promote their own product.

It's a shame, because the camera company for whom I believe he works makes truly great products. It makes it appear if that company's executives are frightened so they chose to use this form of salesmanship.

I hope he is just a loon and isn't actually someone's employee, or a "Digital PR" guy, or even a freelancer.

--
b shaw

http://bshaws.blogspot.com/

No idea how much a professional shill makes. I do remember Sony getting caught in a viral marketing (technical term for shill) scandal afew years back.

google: alliwantforchristmasisapsp

It would seem that nowadays, companies use specific marketing firms for this purpose.

Even though I have sony products, I feel like they must have been hiding some weakness (business plan, product strength, etc.) by these sort of methods.

--
b shaw

http://bshaws.blogspot.com/

There are folks that merely look at their choice of products as an extension of who they are.

Some people could never buy a Nikon, nor heaven forbid, not in a billion years, a Canon, because they are looking for a product that defines the fact that they are a bit different than "the average Joe"... and hence Canon and Nikon, it was never even really considered.

They'll swear it's for some other reason that they discovered after careful research, careful research that others didn't do ... but, the truth is, they just want to be different.

The importance of the differences they found, they aren't anywhere near as significant as they think.

And then there are Canon folks that are proud to own products from the current market leader. Blah, blah, blah.

Nikon, it's not exactly Canon, but it's not Pentax either. The "right fit" for some, in terms of their personality. Et cetera.

Really ... one need not suspect money to be at the base of all this, human nature already provides the explanation.

With sports teams often the level of education is even lower, and out in front of stadiums sports fans will want to beat up fans from the other teams. In here, it's not quite that bad, but still, you can see the same thing.

It's stupid, but it's nothing unusual.

They confuse their camera with thier own identity. Unfortunately it is so pervasive on this site that it is an easy trap to fall into. Someone will say something so outrageously stupid about a given camera (either good or bad) that your feel a need to correct the statement factually. And the next thing you know, you are in a full fledged pi$$ing match with some adolescent (or other undeveloped personality) with no girlfriend and little hope of ever getting one.

I'm much happier now that I allow people to say any idiotic thing they want regarding photography without challenging it.
--
STOP Global Stasis! Change is good!

Now that you've judged the quality of my typing, take a look at my photos. . .
http://www.photo.net/photos/GlenBarrington

Terrance13 said:

I'm considering a new profitable line of work, and I was wondering
how much professional shills make.

I can't help but notice that, no matter which forum you look in,
there are some characters there who seem to stay in front of the
computer all day long, praising the Mother Corporation and attacking
its enemies.

They constantly sing the praises of the forum's brand of cameras, and
announce that the corporate executives are the wisest of men, and the
engineers are all brilliant.
And they declare that the other brands of cameras are terrible -- too
large or too small, too old or too new, too expensive or too cheap...
And the shills are downright vicious when it comes to attacking
anyone who dares to criticize even one little feature of the Mother
Corporation's cameras.

Obviously, those shills, also known as "fanboys", must be getting
paid for their work. I mean, nobody in his right mind would just sit
in front of a computer all day long, advertising and praising one
brand of camera, if he weren't getting paid to do it.

So how much does it pay?

Click to expand...

About the same as trolling.

--
Charlie Self
http://www.charlieselfonline.com

for years. I've read post by people I think are institutionalized, or should be, or have some sort of ax to grind, or don't have a clue but I've never considered anyone as being employed for their nonsense.
--
Patrick T. Kelly
Oaxaca, Mexico

David Mazeau said:

There are folks that merely look at their choice of products as an
extension of who they are.

Some people could never buy a Nikon, nor heaven forbid, not in a
billion years, a Canon, because they are looking for a product that
defines the fact that they are a bit different than "the average
Joe"... and hence Canon and Nikon, it was never even really
considered.

Click to expand...

I quite agree.

I've seen a lot of short term P3 "plug your own product people" shills. Brand new member, his first post repeated in several forums, along the lines of "look at this amazing product I found". Those are almost always deleted within a few hours, so they're hard to catalog.

There have been three P3 with better staying power.

Ferenc, who was banned for his posting about his software products. He later gave up the P3 routing, and came back in several incarnations that didn't plug the product, just annoyed the dickens out of people, including: PIXSurgeon, PIXsultan, and PIXmantra.

Danny Brenner, who was banned for his constant postings about his own site, but got a new "Thebear" identity, which he then switched back to "Danny Brenner" bacn in the day where users could change their own account names.

Michael Soo, who shilled his software from three simultaneous accounts under the names Michael Soo, Silvia Saint, James McCracken, Jose Hernendez, and Sam2. (the fice names rotated among the three accounts, again back in the day when you could change your own account name). Silvia Saint was expecially amusing, the way she would gush over Michael's photographic skills...

Aside from that, in all my years on this site, I've only encountered four long term, high volume poster who actually appears to be a real compensated shill. BP (I won't mention his full name, because he searches for it), who shills for Mud House (won't use their real name, either, for the same reason, but my version is easy enough to figure out) about the glories of a product called POO (different three letter name, but means pretty much the same). Thousands (literally) of posts here about the glories of POO. His own "Amazing world of POO" website, where he has out of context quotes from any dpReview poster who's ever criticized POO.

It's a pity, because Mud House themselves aren't that bad, and there's a couple of other people who post here who are known to work for Mud House who are really cool people. I wish Mud House's marketing folk could see how much this POO shill hurts their image, and how there is no benefit whatsoever to it, and pull the plug.

--
Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

Patrick T. Kelly said:

for years. I've read post by people I think are institutionalized, or
should be, or have some sort of ax to grind, or don't have a clue but
I've never considered anyone as being employed for their nonsense.

Click to expand...

If one can be employed for their nonsense my services should be in great demand.
--
Shoot lots of pictures, always fill the frame

Joseph S Wisniewski said:

Silvia Saint was expecially amusing, the way she would
gush over Michael's photographic skills...

Click to expand...

That reminds me of this:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=13506388

He never answered my question about what that was, but looking through the posting history of Kahame ... it was clear, he really liked Mauka's photos.

Later, Mauka said Kahame was his neighbor.

Could be, I guess, maybe ... and accidentally Mauka replied while sitting in front of Kahame's PC ?

Maybe.

But then why this:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=13328408

Two neighbors that talk more in forums than face-to-face ?

Maybe.

Even so ... I never got a reply to that question ...