We knew the Scroogled campaign was no more -- it was a miserable failure and the object of ridicule that somehow still got architect Mark Penn promoted within the company. While some folks found it amusing, most laughed it off, as the misinformation conveyed was a joke. Now it seems the fate of this advertising endeavor is completely sealed.
Microsoft has rerouted traffic from the Scroogled website in an effort to forget this embarrassing moment in history. If you visit the site now, you'll be sent to WhyMicrosoft -- a site that shows off the good things the company has to offer, as opposed to a mudslinging campaign against a rival.
In reality, the company should have seen this coming when it hired an adviser from political elections to run things with this. Penn formerly chaired the presidential bid by Hillary Clinton, and we saw where that ended up.
In an unofficial statement that BetaNews received from Microsoft, the company claims the redirect is to a site that isn't new, but declines to comment on the reasons or when the switch was thrown for this move.
"WhyMicrosoft has been around for about 5 years", was the only comment we could get. It would seem this whole thing is being swept under the rug, which is the best place for it.
As for the Scroogled RSS feed, a simple "Hello World" with no further text, was posted to it. That was likely the moment things moved. It's for the best really. A company should stand on what it can do and not attempt to smear others instead. Now if only politicians would learn this lesson.