Who is Maria Korolov (Trombly), and why she spreads FUD?

[niko]

I don't mind criticism and fresh perspective, but PR campaigns - even pathetic and poorly executed - raise an eyebrow. You may have recently noticed a series of regurgitated, ill-researched, biased articles of this kind:

"Bitcoin: Seven reasons to be wary"
"7 Reasons to Beware Bitcoin"
"5 reasons grids should avoid Bitcoin"

Articles have been discussed in respective threads on the "Press" board, so please let's not waste time here dissecting them. 

A quick look at what the writer says about herself reveals that Maria Korolov (aka Maria Trombly until recently) is a writer-for-hire.

From Trombly International "about us" page:

Word rates vary depending on amount of reporting and difficulty of subject matter, but generally range from US$0.50 per word for general business reporting to $1.25 a word for highly technical financial and technology subjects.

An interesting question is - who pays her to spread FUD and why?  A one eyed-crook with a wooden leg?  A traditional asset securitization firm?

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[DeathAndTaxes]

I got a more pedestrian idea...

She is a crappy writer and nothing brings traffic like controversy.  Bashing Bitcoin is a way of remaining relevant.

[kiba]

She is a crappy writer and nothing brings traffic like controversy.  Bashing Bitcoin is a way of remaining relevant.

Unfortunately, the news industry is full of lazy writers like her.

[MrTeal]

I haven't bothered to even look at the articles, but the author isn't our whiny Bitcoinica whale Maria, is it?

[rjk]

I haven't bothered to even look at the articles, but the author isn't our whiny Bitcoinica whale Maria, is it?

No, different one.

[RodeoX]

This is not new to bitcoin. Last year someone was paying people to write disparaging articles about BTC, at least some claimed to be approached and there was a huge rash of such articles.  We never found out who it was, but I suggest the Stalin approach. Stalin would reason that when something happens and you don't know who did it, ask yourself "who stood to gain?".
Could be competitors like PayPay or investors looking to drive the price down. Whoever it is/was they must be profiting from it. Why else would they spend their money?

[kiba]

This is not new to bitcoin. Last year someone was paying people to write disparaging articles about BTC, at least some claimed to be approached and there was a huge rash of such articles.  We never found out who it was, but I suggest the Stalin approach. Stalin would reason that when something happens and you don't know who did it, ask yourself "who stood to gain?".
Could be competitors like PayPay or investors looking to drive the price down. Whoever it is/was they must be profiting from it. Why else would they spend their money?

Citation needed? Anyway, paypal is not a "competitor" to bitcoin. The competitors are the governments.

[RodeoX]

This is not new to bitcoin. Last year someone was paying people to write disparaging articles about BTC, at least some claimed to be approached and there was a huge rash of such articles.  We never found out who it was, but I suggest the Stalin approach. Stalin would reason that when something happens and you don't know who did it, ask yourself "who stood to gain?".
Could be competitors like PayPay or investors looking to drive the price down. Whoever it is/was they must be profiting from it. Why else would they spend their money?

Citation needed?

I don't have time to look it up right now. But I remember multiple threads about it. You were here then. Don't you remember?

[kiba]

I don't have time to look it up right now. But I remember multiple threads about it. You were here then. Don't you remember?

Yes, I been here since before the 1 dollar per bitcoin horizon, but it doesn't means I remember everything throughout my 5255 posts long history.

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Don't worry about it. There are plenty of loudmouths who are unable to accurately predict future developments even in areas that affect them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak was unable to foresee the utility of mouse or the cable modem. And remember the nonsense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Metcalfe (the inventor of ethernet) was spreading about Linux in the 90's?

But my favourite example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest , who was first prosecuted, in 1913, for claiming that he can provide transcontinental broadcasting (which was deemed absurd by the experts at that time), only to claim himself later that other technological developments (e.g. commercial tv broadcasting or the space flight) are impossible.

Even real expertise does not give the writer any significant foresight in assessing the consequences of innovation.

It's a paradigm shift, baby. Market forces will drive you to participate whether you understand it or not.

[beckspace]

It's a paradigm shift, baby. Market forces will drive you to participate whether you understand it or not.

True.

[naima53]

It's a paradigm shift, baby. Market forces will drive you to participate whether you understand it or not.

True.

I think it is advertising on the money stupid governments. Governments think they do worse, but the paradox - everything goes vice versa. Someone very smart understood this 

[kiba]

Don't worry about it. There are plenty of loudmouths who are unable to accurately predict future developments even in areas that affect them.

If you ask them why is it impossible, they might have no explanation as to why it is impossible.

[niko]

I wonder if I could pay her not to write. Or even better, if I could pay her to read and understand before writing.

Anyhow - we have no idea who paid for those articles, if anyone. Could be a weak attempt at market manipulation, could be the writer's own initiative driven by the need for traffic, and supported by laziness and ignorance. Could be one of the private e-payment processors she promotes in "5 reasons..."

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[blablahblah]

This is not new to bitcoin. Last year someone was paying people to write disparaging articles about BTC, at least some claimed to be approached and there was a huge rash of such articles.  We never found out who it was, but I suggest the Stalin approach. Stalin would reason that when something happens and you don't know who did it, ask yourself "who stood to gain?".
Could be competitors like PayPay or investors looking to drive the price down. Whoever it is/was they must be profiting from it. Why else would they spend their money?

My guess would be an intelligence agency. By keeping a variety of low-key storylines simmering in the background, they would have a lot of control over the big headlines whenever needed. If someone gives the order to send some kind of message about Bitcoin, whaddya know, one of those stories goes fake-viral across the huge mainstream media network.

Then when the sceptics do some Google research, they find a long, genuine-sounding history that backs up the tv news.

[Gareth Nelson]

She's known for writing articles relating to the virtual worlds industry with a focus on opensim and hypergrid (hence the name of her blog - hypergrid business). Bitcoin has been thrown around a lot as an ideal way to implement virtual currency for opensim grids and not everyone is interested in that approach.

[giszmo]

Outside of this forum bitcoin is not known yet, so "bad news" are first of all "news". Revealing the bad propaganda was all by guns for hire might be the best good news we can get. How much would Maria charge us for an article about people buying articles against Bitcoin?

[TheBitcoinChemist]

An interesting question is - who pays her to spread FUD and why?  A one eyed-crook with a wooden leg?  A traditional asset securitization firm?

A well heeled silent investor trying to supress the exchange rate until he has bought or mined as much as possible?

[edmundedgar]

She's quite good on virtual worlds.

The theories people have about somebody paying her to discredit Bitcoin or whatever sound mildly bonkers - I'm guessing that what happened here was that she did the piece on Bitcoin on her virtual worlds blog and got a lot of attention resulting in a very decent number of pageviews for what is normally a fairly small niche, so she figured she may as well repeat the trick on another site for a wider audience.

[proudhon]

Her next article should be titled "8 Reasons To Avoid Bitcoin" and she should include 9. trololol