Vista giveaway is smart. Masquerading posh choccy not so smart.

Brewing over the winter holidays we have seen a sudden explosion of social media PR stunts dissected in the public eye.

The most visible has been Microsoft's giveaway of 'very expensive' and 'really cool'  Acer Ferrari laptops loaded with Windows Vista to A-list bloggers. One might say this is a standard product testing PR tactic, but as it involves bloggers, the stunt has caused massive blog buzz and has been both endorsed and slammed equally.

The fans: Robert Scoble says he thinks it's an awesome idea. Michael Arrington at CrunchNotes thinks it's not much of a scandal. Loren at Incremental Blogger says this is just Microsoft ramping up and that when Vista's consumer launch hits we will see yet more. Ben Harris says this is a smart choice by Microsoft.

The non-fans: There's a lot of negativity being spread about. Dan Warne on Digg says this is bribery. BL Ochman is saying this is another Edelman ethical scandal in the making. Marshall Kirkpartick is saying that this has been poorly managed, and that the PR backpedal here is just silly.

I think Robert McLaws and Scoble give a fair reflection of this and I agree with them. Awesome idea! Well, nice idea, I'd say.

The other product PR buzz online right now is about 'deluxe' chocolate brand Noka being exposed. Noka is meant to be the second most expensive chocolate in the world, with first place being part black truffle, and third place bing gold-plated. Surely Noka must have something special about it too? No? It's a fake?! Bloggers are saying Noka buys widely-available chocolate and remolds it at up to a 6,956% markup. Are they fo real!? What kind of a product strategy is that? This blogger's expose has made it on to Boing Boing,leading to the blogosphere now coming alight with Noka-slamming articles. Bad marketing strategy Noka.

Update - Noka is now lising distributors of its products.

Xp - LEWIS360