Have you heard about this kid from Texas, Ralph Hardy? He stole his father's credit cards and ran up a $30,000 tab on a spending spree, hotel stay and - oh yeah - a couple hookers who he simply played Halo with for a couple hours. The story ran on the front page of Digg and was even covered on Fox News's Red Eye. And, it's completely made up.
A case of guerrilla marketing by way of an 8 ball (which is not to say that the writer of it had done an 8 ball, just that the story is that crazy), writer Lyndon Antcliff created the story for money.co.uk as linkbait - a story designed to go viral across social networks and drive up traffic to the site. According to Wired - Epicenter, Antcliff made the story as ludicrous as possible so that people would know it was a hoax. Besides, how would a British financial magazine scoop the American media over a story out of Texas?
The money.co.uk story now includes a disclaimer at the top. But the more interesting part is how quickly the media latched onto it, with Fox News running with the story, obviously without any factchecking. And, for Money and Antcliff, the gambit worked. According to Mediawatch, money.co.uk's online ranking went from 80,000 to under 6,000 in a matter of days.
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