/The Troll Dad/

I was inspired by Lydia‘s talk during FOSDEM to share some thoughts about using trolls as a marketing asset.

Define

I am sure you know what is a Troll, but anyhow there it is, directly from UD:

A dumbass who makes idiotic posts in message boards newsgroups for the sole purpose of pissing people off, often lacking in intelligence. Sometimes compared to people who pass you by on the sidewalk then grab you in inappropriate places.

More “official” definition, can be found here at Wikipedia.

Trolls in action

I know couple of companies that are feeding the trolls, yes they have special policy and people to do that.

The reason is quite simple:

• More trolls
• More “discussions”
• More page views,
• More banner views,
• More money in company’s pocket.

Trolls & flame-wars

I know some companies that are publishing flame-war blog posts to attract more trolls why?

• More trolls = more content
• More content ==  more developers to fight for their positions
• More developers == more leads
• More leads == More sales
• More sales == More money in company’s pocket.

That’s it.

I am sure you know this modern company structure scheme:

пидорась == faggot
IT отдел == IT crowd/department/section

The past
I remember when I was younger and I was writing some bytes for living. I still know that there are just 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

WTF?
I was wondering all my life why the heck we need a marketing and community management droids at our team. We create a kick-ass products that we can sell them via our web-page using 33 lines of HTML code an an Paypal account.

I am on the dark side of the force now and I know why.

The truth in 5 points*

If there is no marketing droids:

1. Less people know about us – our clients are our friends and peers and visitors from Google are welcomed too.
2. 1 = Less money – well, I don’t have to explain this, do I?
3. 2 = No salary++
4. 3 = No beer money NOR I just got an invitation to work for another company that has a great marketing department.
5. R.I.P  GPWGFTCCW (Great Product with great functionalities that can change the world.)

If there is no community management guys:

1. No community around us = We have to test our product by ourselves in any possible OS, CPU, RAM, ….
2. No community around us = How to know what to improve and what the clients really need from our products?
3. No community around us = How to get ideas for new products?
4. No community around us = How to find someone that will tell you honestly “You’re wrong”
5. No community around us = How to find someone who will help you with documentation, bug hunting, beer drinking, and to cheer you up – “You’re good. I love your product.”

* I am so sorry, but someone should change the ordered list to start from 0/zero/. Starting from 1 is so lame.