<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">Associated Press</p><p class="caption">New York State Attorney Eric Schneiderman</p></div><p></p></div>By 2014, one out of every ten online product reviews will be "fake," posted by people who have been secretly paid to write them, <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2161315">says market research firm Gartner</a>.</p>
<p>It's called "astroturfing" and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has just busted 19 companies for doing it. Such fake reviews show up on sites like <keyword id="86061" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Yelp">Yelp</keyword>, Google Local and CitySearch.com.</p>
<p>These 19 companies will pay combined fines of more than $350,000 ($2500 to $100,000 apiece) and all have signed agreements to stop.</p>
<p>To smoke these companies out, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) set up a sting operation called "Operation Clean Turf."</p>
<p>An OAG staffer posed as the owner of a yogurt shop and then answered ads posted on Craigslist.com, Freelancer.com, oDesk.com from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies offering to write reviews.</p>
<p>These SEO companies hired freelancers in places like the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe, paying them $1 to $10 per review, the OAG said. </p>
<p>And the setup at some of these companies was more sophisticated than you might think.</p>
<p>For instance, one company only hired reviewers that had an established Yelp account that was more than three months old and had a least 15 legit reviews on it. This helped it fly under the radar of Yelp's fake review detection filters.</p>
<p>Another required the freelancer to be able to post from multiple IP addresses, which would require posting from different locations and/or with multiple Internet service providers. They also wanted their freelancers to have "some understanding on how Yelp filters works" so they could game the system.</p>
<p>You probably shouldn't need to be told this, but Operation Clean Turf is a reminder to take all online reviews with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Schneiderman has this warning for those still out there gaming the system:</p>
<p>"Astroturfing" is the 21st century's version of false <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword>, and prosecutors have many tools at their disposal to put an end to it," <a href="http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-announces-agreement-19-companies-stop-writing-fake-online-reviews-and">he said in a press release.</a></p>
<p><em>If you have ever been paid to write Internet product reviews, we'd like to hear your story. We are discreet. <a href="mailto:jbort@businessinsider.com">jbort@businessinsider.com</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/julie188">Julie188</a> on Twitter.</em></p>

New York Attorney General Busts 19 Companies For Writing Fake Yelp Reviews

<p><div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source on-image">Associated Press</p><p class="caption">New York State Attorney Eric Schneiderman</p></div></div>By 2014, one out of every ten online product reviews will be "fake," posted by people who have been secretly paid to write them, <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2161315">says market research firm Gartner</a>.</p>
<p>It's called "astroturfing" and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has just busted 19 companies for doing it. Such fake reviews show up on sites like <keyword id="86061" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Yelp">Yelp</keyword>, Google Local and CitySearch.com.</p>
<p>These 19 companies will pay combined fines of more than $350,000 ($2500 to $100,000 apiece) and all have signed agreements to stop.</p>
<p>To smoke these companies out, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) set up a sting operation called "Operation Clean Turf."</p>
<p>An OAG staffer posed as the owner of a yogurt shop and then answered ads posted on Craigslist.com, Freelancer.com, oDesk.com from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies offering to write reviews.</p>
<p>These SEO companies hired freelancers in places like the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe, paying them $1 to $10 per review, the OAG said. </p>
<p>And the setup at some of these companies was more sophisticated than you might think.</p>
<p>For instance, one company only hired reviewers that had an established Yelp account that was more than three months old and had a least 15 legit reviews on it. This helped it fly under the radar of Yelp's fake review detection filters.</p>
<p>Another required the freelancer to be able to post from multiple IP addresses, which would require posting from different locations and/or with multiple Internet service providers. They also wanted their freelancers to have "some understanding on how Yelp filters works" so they could game the system.</p>
<p>You probably shouldn't need to be told this, but Operation Clean Turf is a reminder to take all online reviews with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Schneiderman has this warning for those still out there gaming the system:</p>
<p>"Astroturfing" is the 21st century's version of false <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword>, and prosecutors have many tools at their disposal to put an end to it," <a href="http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-announces-agreement-19-companies-stop-writing-fake-online-reviews-and">he said in a press release.</a></p>
<p><em>If you have ever been paid to write Internet product reviews, we'd like to hear your story. We are discreet. <a href="mailto:jbort@businessinsider.com">jbort@businessinsider.com</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/julie188">Julie188</a> on Twitter.</em></p>

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge" style="width:460px"><div class="image"><a title_source="Sean Gallup/Getty Images" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/52692f486bb3f7a42ebc2513-960/samsung-windows-phone-1.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source">Sean Gallup/Getty Images</p></div><p></p></div><keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword> has been fined $340,000 after it was found to be <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-10-taiwan-body-fines-samsung-defaming.html">paying people to post negative reviews about HTC</a> products in online forums in Taiwan.</p>
<p>Last April, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/04/17/taiwans-ftc-investigates-samsung-for-marketing-tactics/">Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) opened an investigation</a> into Samsung's marketing practice, specifically certain allegations that Samsung had designated its employees (and hired writers) to highlight the shortcomings of competitor's products.</p>
<p><span>Those allegations turned out to be true; t<span>wo local marketing firms were fined a combined total of over $100,000 for their part in the marketing ploy.</span></span></p>
<p>This practice - called astroturfing - <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/1/4578070/samsung-stack-overflow-astroturfing-allegation">is something Samsung is familiar with.</a> In August,<span> Samsung </span>was caught bribing people<span> to talking up their developer competition in the online community, Stack Overflow.</span></p>

Samsung Has Just Been Slapped With A $340K Fine For Paying People To Slam HTC In Online Forums

Chip and Joanna Gaines' dream to fix up Waco is pushing it out of locals' reach

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Warning: Spoilers ahead for "<keyword id="2191702" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="westworld">Westworld</keyword>" season three, episode eight, "Crisis Theory."</li><li>Following <keyword id="71946" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="HBO">HBO</keyword>'s season three finale of "Westworld," Insider spoke with the episode's writers — <keyword id="1138594" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Jonathan-Nolan">Jonathan Nolan</keyword> and Denise Thé — about the major revelations.</li><li>Nolan says we "will never see Dolores as we've known her" again in the show, and also spoke to the inspiration behind her character that connects to a famous painting.</li><li>Thé also revealed that Dolores was the one behind all the maze drawings we've been seeing out in the real world. </li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>The season three finale of HBO's hit sci-fi series, <a href="https://www.insider.com/category/westworld">"Westworld,"</a> premiered Sunday night. The episode finally brought Dolores' plan into the light, and led to a poignant farewell scene between her and Maeve. With this one final look at Dolores in her Westworld home, the episode's writer (and series co-creator) Jonathan Nolan says it was intended as a send-off for Evan Rachel Wood's original character.</p><p>"The idea that her memories would be erased and destroyed one at a time is very evocative and very emotional," Nolan told Insider during a phone interview on Monday morning. "And suggests that we will never see Dolores as we've known her."</p><p>We spoke with Nolan and the episode's co-writer Denise Thé about Dolores' goodbye, the meaning of the maze pattern seen throughout season three, and much more. Keep reading for our full interview.</p><p><div type="image" title="Dolores unhinged Westworld  Westworld season three finale Crisis Theory HBO " height="1125" width="1500" msid="75544582" hostid="261"></div></p><p><strong>Kim Renfro:</strong> Hi there. How are you two doing? <br /><br /><strong>Jonathan Nolan:</strong> Doing good. How are you? <br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> Good, you know, hanging in there.<br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> Yeah. This is a crazy one. Way crazier than anything we came up with in "Westworld." <br /><br /><strong>Denise Thé:</strong> That's true. [Laughing]<br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> Well, I mean you kind of hit the mark on a few important themes though. I think that that was pretty prescient of you in some ways. <br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> We will take no credit for that whatsoever. The truth, as always, is far stranger than fiction. <br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> Well, to dive in with some questions, I wanted to start by talking a little bit about Dolores. We know by now that death is often not a permanent state with the hosts, and there are some surviving Dolores copies out there. But I was wondering how final was this goodbye to the original Dolores, played by Evan Rachel Wood, as we know her? <br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> I would say it's final. It's because of that impermanence and the fact that this is ... I mean, it's tricky, right? Because I think people will be expecting otherwise. Denise spent a lot of time crafting those scenes in the finale. The idea that her memories would be erased and destroyed one at a time is very evocative and very emotional and suggests that we will never see Dolores as we've known her.</p><p><div type="image" title="Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Maeve Westworld HBO season three finale" height="937" width="1250" msid="75544583" hostid="261"></div><br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> Yeah, it felt like that. Absolutely. I felt like I was saying goodbye to her and it was very poignant. <br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> Thank you. We love working with Evan Rachel Wood — she's an unbelievable actor. I think this is a very compelling and emotional arc for the character. From the beginning, the goal with Evan was to create a character that somehow eludes the standard, and frankly slightly pat definitions, of what a hero or a protagonist or a villain would be. Anthony Hopkins as Ford asks Dolores that question, which we put in the recap before the finale to remind the audience. The question with Dolores has always been, whether you understand what she's doing or not, which box does she fit into? The hero or the villain? The answer being that life is more complicated than that. <br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> We've been told that each season has an overarching theme. Season one was "The Maze," season two was "The Door," and so what was season three's?<br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> The title of the third season is "The New World," which takes on more significance at the end of the season. </p><p><div type="image" title="Caleb and Maeve Westworld season three finale HBO " height="1280" width="1707" msid="75544584" hostid="261"></div><br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> Do you already know the theme for season four? <br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> We've talked about it, but we're not yet ready to discuss it publicly, unfortunately. <br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> Speaking of the maze, one thing that was really on my mind heading into this finale was how the maze pattern was out in the real world. People were spraypainting it everywhere as part of these riots. How did that come to be part of the human uprising? <br /><br /><strong>Thé:</strong> We had talked in the writers' room about how behind the curtain Dolores was pulling the strings on some of what was happening. And you wouldn't really know that, but there would be little Easter eggs along the way that you might pick up on. The maze was one of these things. The idea that she had anticipated how this world would look, and had come to this world and figured out how it was working and that Rehoboam was controlling things. And she figured out that Rehoboam was also controlling RICO. She would have hacked that and figured out a way to start infiltrating and using Rehoboam's tools against it. So she foments this uprising behind the scenes, and that's why we had these little Easter eggs and the mazes. You see them more and more as the season progresses, and definitely you see them in the riots.</p><p><div type="image" title="Maze 3 Westworld season three finale Crisis Theory HBO " height="796" width="1062" msid="75544585" hostid="261"></div><br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> Playing on the idea that — and you see it more literally in the last episode where you realized that the riots were even being controlled by her. She's incentivizing and monetizing people. You have a group of true believers, and you also have a group of people who are opportunists.</p><p>Sadly that actually does connect to where we are with the world right now because these protests you're seeing going on right now in this country ... obviously we were discussing protesting in the writers' room, we were thinking more about Hong Kong. The protests you're seeing right now are the definition of astroturfing, right? Like I think <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/g3sw2l/the_user_udr_midnight_uncovers_a_massive/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=iossmfe=iossmf">someone on Reddit</a> broke down how literally every state when all these protests started, they started with an email and a chat room with the exact same wording, right? So this question that there's like a "popular uprising" — it's never been that simple. It wasn't that simple in the American revolution. It isn't that simple now. It's probably not that simple in Hong Kong. There's always been an element of cooption. There's always been an element of coercion behind these things.</p><p>And there's always, there's always a man behind the curtain, right? There's always someone else's veiled interests here. So we like the idea that a symbol in the first season (that had been created by Arnold, by Jeffrey Wright's original character as a test for consciousness) that Dolores repurposes it as a rallying cry for freedom in the real world.</p><p><div type="image" title="Dolores field Westworld season three finale Evan Rachel Wood" height="1080" width="1440" msid="75544586" hostid="261"></div></p><p><strong>Renfro:</strong> Jonah you've also said, <a href="https://ew.com/article/2016/10/16/westworld-interview-3-stray/">way back when in a 2016 interview</a>, that Dolores' journey was partly inspired by the Andrew Wyeth painting <a href="https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/21/a-closer-look-at-christinas-world/">"Christina's World."</a> This final image of Dolores in an empty field reminded me of that painting all over again, and I was wondering how intentional that full-circle moment was for her. <br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> We actually repainted her house in the pilot to more closely resemble that painting. It's a beautiful painting, one of my favorites. It's so evocative and has its own fascinating backstory behind it. But the idea is that Tony Hopkins' character Dr. Ford might've been inspired by Wyeth and inspired by all of the very American imagery. It's sort of an idealized version of what the West was.</p><p><div type="image" title="Dolores Abernathy fly Westworld premiere" height="1614" width="2152" msid="75544587" hostid="261"></div></p><p><strong>Nolan [continued]: </strong>And although Dolores has moved on dramatically from where she started, her final memory, which Denise crafted beautifully, and then Jennifer Getzinger directed beautifully, that scene is going back full circle to evoke the innocence of where she began — where they all began. Well, the <em>seeming i</em>nnocence of it, I'll say, because as we always say, there's an intentionality behind it.</p><p>It's a world that's been created for her to live in by men based on a painting of a woman by a man [laughing]. There are layers in there for sure. But we found that going back to the simple innocence of that was pretty powerful.<br /><br /><strong>Renfro:</strong> This is another reference that I've been dying to speak with the writing team about: In episode four, I spotted the Friston Custom Clothier sign and wound up reading <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/karl-friston-free-energy-principle-artificial-intelligence/">this really mind-blowing Wired article about Karl J. Friston and his free-energy principle</a>, and how that could change the way that we build AI. And I was wondering if that was a larger conversation you were having in the writers' room about the way that we think about creating AI in the real world today.</p><p><div type="image" title="Friston Custom Clothiers Westworld HBO season three " height="1256" width="1675" msid="75544589" hostid="261"></div><br /><br /><strong>Nolan:</strong> We talked a lot about Friston and Markov blankets [laughing] at first. There were a lot of ideas. We spent a lot of time talking about that, and we spent a lot of time talking about blockchain. And then it all gets piled into, hopefully, the underpinnings of how the season is put together. So yeah, Friston and Judea Pearl, in particular. Lisa [Joy] and I had the pleasure of sitting with Judea several years ago. He's one of the fathers of deep learning, but also wrote a book last year called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/business/dealbook/review-the-book-of-why-examines-the-science-of-cause-and-effect.html">"The Book of Why,"</a> questioning the assumptions about deep learning, in ways that we thought were very, very helpful.</p><p><em>This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.</em></p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/westworld-season-3-finale-details-you-missed-explained-2020-5">13 details you might have missed in the season three finale of 'Westworld'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/westworld-season-3-post-credits-scene-william-bernard-explained-2020-5">How the 'Westworld' season 3 finale post-credits scene shapes the future for William and Bernard</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/westworld-timeline-spoilers-2018-4">An essential timeline of every important event on 'Westworld'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/westworld-rehoboam-name-meaning-stand-on-zanzibar-jonathan-nolan-interview-2020-4">Jonathan Nolan reveals the surprising sci-fi reference behind the mysterious 'Westworld' AI system 'Rehoboam'</a></li></ul>Read the original article on <a href="https://www.insider.com/westworld-season-3-finale-jonathan-nolan-denise-the-interview-dolores-2020-5">Insider</a>

'Westworld' writers Jonathan Nolan and Denise Thé shed light on Dolores' fate in the season 3 finale

<p>On the short, 290-yard par-4 fifth hole at The Barclays, Phil Mickelson tried to get tricky with a driver, hoping to loft the ball up into the air so that it would land softly on the green. Unfortunately for Mickelson, a cart path and a hospitality area got in the way.</p>
<p>The shot looked bad right from the start, with Phil yelling "fore." The ball hit a cart path and bounced up on to a staging area to the left of the green where it appears VIPs were enjoying some afternoon beverages.</p>
<center></center>
<p><br> Here is an overhead view of where the ball landed. Most golfers wouldn't even think about playing this shot. Phil is not most golfers.</br></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Even before seeing where the ball was, the fans let Phil know that it was in a playable spot. This seemed to please Mickelson as well as the announcers.</p>
<div><biembeddedobject id="8e4cbf1e-f2ef-4de8-b9f4-89fd27d120b2"></biembeddedobject></div>
<p class="embed-spacer"></p>
<p>As Mickelson made his way up to the area, he received a thunderous roar and politely decline several beers that were offered.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Phil inspected the ball for a few moments and then decided he was indeed going to play the ball off the AstroTurf-like floor. The crowd roared again.</p>
<p>At this point a few tables were moved and Mickelson even helped move some chairs.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>And here was the view from where the ball was located. The ball certainly had a better lie here than if Mickelson were to drop elsewhere.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Unfortunately, there was no happy ending for Mickelson and his ball.</p>
<p>Using an extreme-lofted wedge, Mickelson caught a little too much of the ball and it sailed over the green and into a bunker.</p>
<center></center>
<p> </p>
<p>But never one to get down too much after a bad shot, Mickelson was still all smiles and even asked a young fan for a fist-bump on the way down to the green.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Phil would go on to bogey the hole. But the fans were not disappointed. Here is one more angle of the shot by the ever-daring Mickelson.</p>
<center></center>

Phil Mickelson Played An Amazing Shot From A Hospitality Area At The Barclays

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://instagram.com/p/buHOIRBKPz/">Instagram/Sondos Makeup</a></p><p class="caption">An example of an <keyword id="819905" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Instagram">Instagram</keyword> store.</p></div></div>Instagram is being used in a pretty unusual way in Kuwait. </p>
<p>Instead of being just a photo sharing service, it's also being used a storefront with people posting pictures of things they're selling. </p>
<p>Jason Kottke <a href="http://bonus.kottke.org/post/55260870293/kuwaits-booming-instagram-economy">highlighted this excerpt</a> from <a href="http://moussemagazine.it/articolo.mm?id=994">an interview with artist Fatima Al Qadiri</a>, who grew up in Kuwait:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">BR: Kuwait is a crazy mix: a super-affluent country, yet basically a welfare state, though with a super neo-liberal consumer economy.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">FQ: We consume vast amounts of everything. Instagram businesses are a big thing in Kuwait.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">BR: What’s an Instagram business?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">FQ: If you have an Instagram account, you can slap a price tag on anything, take a picture of it, and sell it. For instance, you could take this can of San Pellegrino, paint it pink, put a heart on it, call it yours, and declare it for sale. Even my grandmother has an Instagram business! She sells dried fruit. A friend’s cousin is selling weird potted plants that use Astroturf. People are creating, you know, hacked products.</p>
<p>Instagram doesn't have a business model, yet. We doubt this model would scale, but it's an interesting alternative to traditional advertising. </p>
<p><a href="http://bonus.kottke.org/post/55260870293/kuwaits-booming-instagram-economy">There's more at Kotkke's site, including examples of Instagram stores &gt;</a></p>

Instagram Is Being Used To Sell Stuff In Kuwait

<p>There's something special about going to a live sporting event - flashing Jumbotrons, rowdy crowds, and live <keyword id="6356028" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sports">sports</keyword> action make it a thrilling experience.</p>
<p>Now the architects at Populous, the firm behind Pittsburgh's Heinz Field, London's Olympic stadium, and the new Yankee Stadium, want to recreate that experience by building a personal stadium for someone with a huge backyard and $30 million to spare. <div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">Courtesy of Populous</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Designed for <a href="http://robbreport.com/paid-issue/21-ultimate-gifts-2013-play-ball">Robb Report's annual gift guide</a> for the super-wealthy, the personal stadium would be a perfect gift for the deep-pocketed sports fan.</p>
<p>The concept includes a 40-50 yard playing field with wrap-around LED screens that could theoretically simulate the arena experience of any sports team of your choosing. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Fiber-optic lighting in the astroturf means that it can transform from a football field to a baseball stadium to a soccer pitch with the flip of a switch. </span></p>
<p>The backyard stadium would be exclusive, with seating for about 100 people. There's also potential for concession stands and a broadcasting booth for those wanting to practice their play-by-play skills. </p>
<p>But that's not all. <a href="http://robbreport.com/paid-issue/21-ultimate-gifts-2013-play-ball">According to Robb Report</a>, <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"Wind, snow, and rain machines can add even more authenticity to the playing and viewing experience, or Populous can design the stadium with a retractable roof so that weather is not a concern. Locker rooms with showers also can be included."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The construction process would take an estimated 12 months to complete, and it's important to note that <a href="http://robbreport.com/paid-issue/21-ultimate-gifts-2013-play-ball">"the gift recipient must supply the land."</a> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"<span>Is it doable?" <span>Ryan Sickman, a Populous engineer and associate principal, said to Robb Report. </span>"Yes. It just hasn't been done before."</span></span></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">Courtesy of Populous</p></div><p></p></div></p>

The Architects Behind Yankee Stadium Will Build You A Personal Arena For $30 Million

31. Bill Nye the GMO Guy

Inside The Sleazy World Of Reputation Management, Where People Pay To Control What You See On The Internet

<p class="p1"><keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> smoothie company <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/cms/posts/edit?id=547f1184848fb633252b81f5">Innocent</a> turned 15 this year. From very humble beginnings, the company has grown in that time to become the biggest smoothie maker in Europe, turning over £200 million each year.</p>
<p>Most people know the company for its fruit drinks, noodle and veg pots, and range of ready meals. But the company has a fascinating history, filled with unusual stories.</p>
<p>Business Insider is toasting Innocent's 15th birthday with 15 facts about the company that most people don't know. </p>
<h3 class="p1">1. Innocent was founded in 1999 by three Cambridge University graduates. They put up a big sign at a jazz festival in London asking people if they thought they should give up their jobs to make smoothies. People voted by putting their empty bottles into a "yes" bin or a "no" bin. </h3>
<h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>2. It took a while to settle on a name. The company was originally called Fast Tractor.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>3. It then became Hungry Aphid...then Nude...then Naked, before the co-founders decided on Innocent. The founders each <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e13793d4-a0ba-11e0-b14e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3KqDEWDjq">ran up debts of £15,000</a> from overdrafts and credit cards in order to build the business in its early days. Here are the first three packaged-up smoothies the company made. </h3>
<h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div> 4. When Innocent was first trying to drum up business, the company took to the road in a stand-out grass-covered van, giving away drinks and selling healthy meals at markets, parks, and festivals. It even used to hold its own festival, The Village Fete.</h3>
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<h3>5. The Innocent office - Fruit Towers - has still kept many of the quirks from its young startup stage, such as an AstroTurf "grass" carpet and a picnic bench breakout area. You can also still ring up the £19.99 office "banana phone" (yes, a novelty phone shaped like a banana) and chat to the staff. The number appears on its products and website and the phone rings hundreds of times a day.</h3>
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<h3 class="p1">6. Every year, Innocent holds an AGM ("A Grown-up Meeting"), where the company invites a couple of hundred customers to come into the office, try new recipes and share their views.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3 class="p1">7. All Innocent packaging contains a secret message. Once you've finished drinking your smoothie, check the bottom of the bottle. </h3>
<p class="p1"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>8. Coca-Cola took a minority stake in Innocent in 2009. In 2013, Coke increased its stake to near-100%, prompting Innocent's co-founders to step away from the day-to-day running of the business. Richard Reed, the company's then-CEO, explained the news to Innocent customers and reassured them the company would continue to run in its own "unique Innocent way" via a YouTube video.</h3>
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<h3>9. Innocent was forced in 2011 to <a href="http://www.marketingweek.com/2011/03/02/innocent-in-david-vs-goliath-trademark-battle/">call in legal counsel</a> to protect its brand name against a business called Innocent Vitamins, a startup company founded by a single mum of two. Innocent Vitamins' founder Dawn Reid said the trademark dispute was reminiscent of a match between "David and Goliath." <a href="http://www.marketingweek.com/2011/08/16/innocents-david-vs-goliath-trademark-battle-reaches-resolution/%20">Reid eventually backed down</a> and discontinued operating under the Innocent name. </h3>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></p>
<h3>10. For the past 11 years, Innocent has asked its customers to knit and send in little woolly hats, which it puts on top of the smoothie bottles it sells in-store. For every be-hatted smoothie it sells, Innocent makes a donation to charity Age UK. So far, the company has received more than 5 million hats as part of its Big Knit campaign.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>11. Innocent staff like to play pranks on their co-workers. They then share them on the <a href="http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/blog/pranks">Innocent blog </a>for the world to see. When Megan announced she was leaving the company to move to Canada, they boxed her in so she couldn't escape.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>12. Innocent worked out that if you placed all the bottles smoothies they had ever made end-to-end, they'd stretch around the world 270 million times. That's a lot of fruit. And a lot of peckish customers.</h3>
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<h3>13. Innocent smoothies are made from 100% fruit and one of its 250ml bottles counts as two of the recommended five portions of fruit a day and has extra added benefits such as vitamin c and fiber. However, drinks containing so much fruit have their downsides: sugar. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2301135/15-WORST-health-drinks-Orange-juice-Innocent-smoothies-sugar-13-Hobnobs-3-half-doughnuts.html">The Daily Mail</a> found last year that Innocent's pomegranates, blueberries, and Acai smoothie had the sugar equivalent of 3.5 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Donuts.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>14. Innocent donates 10% of its profits to charity, mostly to its own Innocent Foundation, which supports global projects to prevent hunger. The company released an advert in the UK last year, explaining the work it does for good causes.</h3>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></span></p>
<h3><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span></span></span>15. Richard Reed, Innocent's most famous co-founder, went on to create Art Everywhere, a charitable project that for six weeks every summer floods the streets of the UK with artwork.</h3>
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15 Things Hardly Anyone Knows About Innocent Smoothies

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="Flickr user thomasbonte" title_caption="Look at how pretty it is in there." class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52def10c6da8111e21a09e3a-960/google-bus-11.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasbonte/">Flickr user thomasbonte</a></span></p><p class="caption">Look at how pretty it is in there.</p></div><p></p></div>Protestors are physically <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bus-protests-demands-2014-1">stopping Google's employee buses in the streets of San Francisco</a> because they view the vehicles as elitist, part of the gentrification of San Francisco that is pricing out non-tech workers.</p>
<p>The argument against them goes like this: Google employees who might normally live nearer Mountain View can live in the city because of the buses. The influx of Google employees in the city has driven up rent prices. And their private buses use public bus stops, clogging up the public bus system.</p>
<p>Google is rubbing locals' noses in it by jacking up rents through increased demand, and by cloistering its pampered workers inside a private bus fleet.</p>
<p>This tweet, from Hannah Levintova, a Mother Jones editor, is typical:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>So one regular human= $2 per Muni ride, expires after 2 hours. Entire bus full of fancy Google humans= $1 per Muni stop, per day. Mmmk.</p>
- Hannah Levintova (@H_Lev) <a href="https://twitter.com/H_Lev/statuses/425760911060525056">January 21, 2014</a></blockquote>

<p>The list of why people hate the private shuttles goes on and on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bus-protests-demands-2014-1">Protestors have issued concrete demands</a>, and leaked memos from the company <a href="http://valleywag.gawker.com/leaked-memo-google-tells-employees-what-to-think-about-1505505585">offering talking points</a> about how to talk about the buses at <a href="http://sfist.com/2014/01/21/live_from_city_hall.php">a hearing at city hall</a>, including saying things like "I am a shuttle rider, SF resident, and I volunteer at..."</p>
<p>(The implication of the ellipses, of course, is to make the talking point their own in a "insert your own example of do-gooder-ness here" sort of way.)</p>
<p>The talking points - even the fact that they <em>have</em> talking points - is pretty clumsy. It looks like AstroTurf lobbying. But some of the points make sense. It's just that their logic is lost under the sea of ick that washes over you when you read a memo urging employees to act politically on behalf of their employers.</p>
<p>But hold on. Google is, in fact, doing the very best thing it could possibly do in terms of public transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area.</p>
<p>For starters, the buses are getting cars off the road. According to <a href="https://www.sfmta.com/news/press-releases/mayor-lee-and-sfmta-announce-agreement-commuter-shuttle-providers-benefit-muni">a statement from MUNI</a>, 35,000 people are using private shuttle services to and from work per day. Fewer cars means less pollution. And let's face it, the West Coast can use a little help. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-pollution-is-blanketing-americas-west-coast-2014-1">A new study claims</a> that pollution from China is hitting the West Coast, adding an extra day of smog a year to some cities.</p>
<p>People are moving to San Francisco in droves, and they're not going to stop because they can't get to work. They're just going to drive. What's worse, a private bus in your lane or 50 BMWs?</p>
<p>San Francisco is <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/01/san-francisco-going-charge-google-bus-use-its-bus-stops/8055/">finally going to charge</a> the companies to use public bus stops, among other rules and regulations that have thus far not been implemented. It's a good start, granted one that probably should've been handled years ago, when the shuttle system began. But more can be done.</p>
<p>Here are three things Google should also do:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Influence other companies to offer free shuttle service.</strong> Google isn't alone, and if it can win the PR war, it could inspire other companies. In fact, one of the first companies to offer free shuttle service to its campus outside of San Francisco was biotech firm Genentech, which claims that its employees and <a href="http://www.gene.com/stories/100-million-miles-saved-and-counting">Bay Area roads have been spared 100 million miles of commuting</a> since its program began in 2006.</li>
<li><strong>Instead of using public bus stops, Google can build its own. </strong>Hey, if <a href="http://www.boorbridges.com/project/four-barrel-parklet/">Four Barrel Coffee can have a "parklet"</a> outside of its coffee shop on one of the busiest streets in the city, why can't Google build a bus "stoplet"?</li>
<li><strong>Figure out a system that lets others use the shuttles. </strong> In an age of Airbnb and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-new-years-eve-surge-pricing-2014-1">Uber surge pricing</a>, I'm sure they can come up with a system that allows other people to use the shuttles to get to their jobs in the South Bay that perhaps don't yet offer shuttle service. </li>
</ol>
<p>Shuttling people to work is a good thing. And this is just the beginning, as Google is now offering a<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24872894/google-launches-private-ferry-service-workers"> free ferry service for its employees</a>, as well.</p>

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