Over at half-sister to our second cousin-site Joystiq, Vladimir Cole talks about some interesting tips he got. Now we here at AdJab and all the Weblogs, Inc blogs love getting tips and info, as do most other bloggers. The problem Vladimir had is that all the tips he got regarding an XBox 360 demo disc being available at Wal-Mart is that not only were they all overly gushing but they all came from the same IP address. That means that, despite the fact that the names were different, all the messages were coming from the same place - likely the same firm or company.

Now let's be clear, here. There is nothing wrong with an agent of a company dropping us a line to let us know about new products, services or drinking opportunities. The line between "OK" and "malicious" gets crossed when it's done in a non-transparent manner. The use of the same IP address by multiple people, none of whom identified themselves as employees of a company, at least creates the appearance of impropriety. It's an attempt to make something look as if it's viral when it's not. Reaching out to blogs and their writers should be part of an open and honest communication relationship. Stories like Vlad's just makes the perpetrators and everyone connected to them look bad.