NOVEDGE blog

CAD Companies Push the Marketing Frontier on Wikipedia

Reading Paul Wilkinson blog, I discovered a sophisticated and pretty useful online tool called Wikipedia Scanner created by Virgil Griffith. Using the WikiScanner anybody can check the anonymous editing of Wikipedia pages done from computers registered under company domains such as Autodesk, SolidWork, and Adobe.
A search for edits from the Autodesk domain returns a long list of Wikipedia editing activity, spread over several topics, with only a few related to CAD and AutoCAD. Some of the edits are about Autodesk products and are useful contributions to the Wikipedia project. Other edits feel more like a marketing operation than a sincere, objective contribution.

One example is from November 12, 2006, when someone from an Autodesk computer, IP 198.102.112.18, edited the SolidWorks' page, adding this sentence to the product description: "In recent years it has begun to lose ground to more sophisticated modeling systems like Autodesk Inventor, launched in 1999, and Solid Edge in 1996."

What is particularly fascinating is the variety of topics edited from Autodesk computers. You can find editing on pages ranging from the Roman Empire page (see the edit) to the Pretty Ricky, a R&B group (see the edit).

Edits from SolidWorks' computers are slightly less interesting. Someone edited the Autodesk products pages a few times, typically trimming the more explicit marketing statements (by the way, mostly posted from Autodesk computers). Here's one example where the sentence “Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has quickly become the number one mid-market modeler” later became “Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has been bundled with AutoCAD to increase usage”. The page was edited from IP 12.159.140.125, a computer on SolidWorks domain.

Another interesting example is from July 15, 2006, when someone from a SolidWorks' computer, this time from IP 12.145.143.98, edited the SolidWorks' page and added this candidly promotional sentence: "Click here to learn more about COSMOSFloWorks" (see edit).

The last pearl I found using Wikipedia Scanner is from Adobe (see all edits): on July 22, 2005 someone from an Adobe computer, IP 192.150.10.200, changed the Carly Fiorina page on Wikipedia, calling the then HP CEO, “Bitchy Fiorina” (see edit).

Franco Folini

Who is Using Wikipedia to Promote Autodesk Inventor?

A few days ago while browsing Wikipedia searching for information I landed on the Autodesk Inventor page.

not exactly an encyclopedic and objective style

Going through the text I was surprised when I found a series of statements that looked as though they have been written by a marketing department. I don't think people at Autodesk (ADSK) are approaching Wikipedia the way Microsoft did (paying a blogger to edit a page). An Inventor fan must have done the editing. When I discovered the page, there were a few statements like:

… Inventor is based on newer, more advanced parametric modeling techniques... Inventor takes these concepts to the next level …

Well, not exactly an encyclopedic and objective style, I would say. And again:

Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has been developed using a newer technology-base to allow for unique innovations.

What is acceptable for a product brochure is not obviously good for an encyclopedia.

After the discovery, as a Wikipedia member, I cleaned up the page and removed the boldest marketing statements. Thanks to the Wikipedia revision history system, you still can see the original version of the page.

Also, using information from Wikipedia I was able to trace back to the anonymous author of the marketing statements. On February 16, 2007 the mysterious author edited the Inventor page from a computer in Brunswick or Cleveland, OH. Interestingly enough, this is the only contribution of that user to Wikipedia.

Franco Folini