Sony Shutters PSP Flog

Sony Friday took down the phony blog AllIWantForXmasIsaPSP.com, just two days after confessing that it was behind the marketing effort.

The flog, or fake blog, went live late last month--but visitors were immediately suspicious of the site. Visitors soon discovered that the authors, who purported to be a pair of PSP-fanatic teens, were actually marketers from the agency Zipatoni. Last Wednesday, Zipatoni posted a message admitting that they created the site. The message also said that the site would be used for straightforward PSP publicity in the future.

Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer for Cymfony, a buzz measurement firm, said that the decision to shutter the site was the right one. "The proper response is take it down, take responsibility and embrace the new reality that companies can't just talk at consumers, they must learn to speak with them in an honest and authentic way," he said.

Despite Sony's efforts to get the blog off the Web, however, at least one mirror site exists. UK Resistance, a United Kingdom-based gaming blog, saved the site's front page even before it came down. "When all the posts get deleted and the site gets closed because it's just too embarrassing to carry on having it on the internet, a recent back-up of the page will be located here," the blog author wrote. "It's simply too good to let fade away."

The AllIWantForXmasIsaPSP.com is the latest ill-fated PSP viral marketing effort to draw consumer ire. Last year, Sony hired graffiti artists to paint murals of kids playing their PSPs, which prompted other artists to deface the advertisements.

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