Johnd said:
My understanding is that a troll is someone masquerading as something he is not with a (not so) hidden agenda...usually to market or sell a certain product.
That's generally called astroturfing (fake grassroots support, mostly as a form of advertisement). Trolls are generally out to start an argument.
I think this post had a little bit from both columns (I read the entire original, unedited post shortly after its appearance).
Trolling: He says a number of things that are blatantly nonsensical or the opposite of the general opinions of the forum's denizens hoping for a correction (an angered one, preferably). He isn't nearly as hostile as the common variety of troll; so he was either trying to subtle enough to not scare off those who'd see the trollish behavior and simply move on or he was actually intending to not be a troll at all, but rather astroturfing.
Astroturfing: the only brands he specifically mentions are products in the same market (err, kind-of) as Bose (Sony, Paradigm, Boston Acoustics). When it comes to the television, he doesn't directly mention what product he has looked at: likely his "sponsor" doesn't sell TVs or doesn't need to advertise them. (I could have sworn he had a follow-up post that did mention more after Rock&Roll Ninja's post, but it's gone now.) Then he takes the one brand he's here to push and branches into further advertisement for their other products. The previously mentioned "blatantly nonsensical" statements actually take on purpose; he previously stated the lack of objective facts about Bose to mislead the reader into not looking outside of his post for information. All numeric prices were meant to be less real and more relative (hence, no need to actually mention much about the TV), to show how economical the overpriced Bose is in comparison. And so on...
Column A or B? Well, honestly, who cares?
