Nvidia takes another stab at covert blog marketing

LAST YEAR, the green team came under a fair amount of fire for using 'sock-puppets' to promote its products on techie forums and blogs covertly. Or not - nothing was ever conclusively proved, but why let that get in the way of a good story, eh?

Well it seems that blogs have taken hold in Satan Clara - not only does DevRel main man Roy 'Scurrilous' Taylor have a Developer bog, but a new Nvidia sponsored contest invites gamers to wax lyrical about the sheer greatness of its graphics products on their own.

The competition is hosted by the chaps over at VR-Zone, and invites readers to "update their blogs with information about Nvidia products, information and benefits on setting up SLI rigs - with pictures." As a further criterion, "All Blogs MUST have a link on them to Nvidia's SLIZone Home Page," - but they needn't include any kind of disclosure mentioning that the blog post is, essentially, being bought. Obviously.

But Nvidia isn't paying directly for each post, to its credit - oh no, the hopeful shills merely have the chance to win an 8800 GTS card from Inno3D, should their blog be deigned to have given the most green love. Sounds like a great deal.

Here's a handy hint that the INQ will provide, free of charge, to anyone hoping that they can buy some blog buzz - require disclosure, otherwise you just end up looking dirty, and not in a good way. Better still, generate blog buzz through products and services, not payola.

If we link to SLIZone, does that mean we can win? µ