Via Business Insider:
Click farms have become a growing challenge for companies which rely on social media measurements – meant to indicate approval by real users – to estimate the popularity of their products.
For the workers, though, it is miserable work, sitting at screens in dingy rooms facing a blank wall, with windows covered by bars, and sometimes working through the night. For that, they could have to generate 1,000 likes or follow 1,000 people on Twitter to earn a single US dollar.
How low-paid workers at 'click farms' create appearance of online popularity - Business Insider
Points:
- “…click farms risk eroding user confidence in what had looked like an objective measure of social online approval.”
- “The importance of likes is considerable with consumers: 31% will check ratings and reviews, including likes and Twitter followers, before they choose to buy something, research suggests. That means click farms could play a significant role in potentially misleading consumers.”
- “…click farms exploit a different sort of computing power altogether: the rise of cheap labour paired with low-cost connectivity to the internet.”
Ponder:
- What else can merchants use as metrics to measure the success of their marketing?
- How can platforms like Facebook ensure confidence in their advertising model?
