By now, anyone with even a passing interest in the British new media publishing scene will have seen that Shiny Media has gone into administration (in layman’s terms, it’s dead).

Despite reports to the contrary — and not trying to sound pompous — it was me that broke the story to the Internet, based on the closest thing to an official statement as I could get (my editor at Tech Digest Skyped me after having just found out himself).

This was later backed up by tweets from co-founder Katie Lee and, finally, by email message from Chris Price.

You can read how the Internet has covered the story (Guardian, Inquisitr, Real Business, Digital Journal, New Media Age, Paid Content UK) so I won’t rehash it all here.

This is a summary of my feelings on the matter, for those who are interested or care, or simply want to add it to the increasing pile of commentary on the matter. Read the rest of this entry »

If you listen to the latest Tech Digest podcast you’ll hear some new jingles at the beginning and end.

Every podcast needs intros and outros, right?

It’s my composition that’s sitting there. Well, I say composition, but that’s probably a little generous. More like “stringing together some GarageBand sound effects and ‘stringy’ chords”.

Anyway, it’s there. Hopefully it adds something to Dan and Duncan’s tech talk. Give it a listen.

For those that haven’t been watching the world of blog networks, last week Shiny Media cut a number of jobs due to the current economic climate and the need to restore some stability.

Unfortunately this has meant that I now have a reduced workload — hopefully temporary but who can tell — with Shiny Media.

I’ve been very fortunate to have found so much regular work with them over the past three years or so, and I will continue to have input on both HDTV UK and iPhonic, but that leaves me in a place where I could use some more assignments.

Naturally, I’m not sitting around on my backside simply waiting for opportunities to plop on to my lap, but if some nice friendly editor or blog owner types were to come along and offer me some work — whether on an ongoing basis or one-off assignment — I certainly wouldn’t complain.

As well as writing on a wide variety of topics — most notably consumer electronics, HDTV, Apple products and the Internet — I am also happy to build web sites and blogs (primarily in WordPress) from a design idea.

If you’d like to find out more about me, you can contact me via this form or see me on LinkedIn or Facebook.

I’m opening up a real can of worms as I surf around the little network I discovered after my disagreement with Hannah.

As well as uncovering several dubious Internet marketing schemes (which is ironic given how much at least two people in this “network” accuse Darren of doing exactly the same thing) I found one web site that has ripped off Tim Ferriss’s “Four Hour Work Week” book and is giving away the audio recording and PDF to anyone that links to the web site.

The guy doing this (and he’s not getting a link from me) says that he’s doing it “because I don’t like watching people get ripped off by scammers like Ferriss”.

The problem is, in law, you don’t have the right to rip people off regardless of what you think of them. Copyright is copyright.

The guy ripping content says it’s OK because “Ferriss is a liar” and “he won’t risk a confrontation for fear of being exposed for a fraud”.

Still against the law. Read the rest of this entry »

One thing that’s become apparent from the recent attack on Darren is that contextual ads, and others close to content, can be interpreted as being endorsed by the web site owner.

One of Hannah’s criticisms of ProBlogger is that it contains ads with titles like “Easiest Money Ever”. In fact, that is true — that particular ad is for TextLinkAds.com, a link-selling service.

When Hannah visited this blog, she noted that there were “adult links” in the header. Since I don’t explicitly accept or link to “adult” themed web sites, I can only assume that this is something that slipped through the net with Google AdSense, should the accusation in fact be true.

The fact is, choosing to carry nearly any type of advertising on a web site is a risky business. If you use contextual links, there’s a chance it’ll throw up something undesirable to you or your readers. If you accept paid advertising for banner or other graphical ads, but do so through a third-party agency, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get exactly the sort of content you or your readers find acceptable. Even large media organisations have been caught out on this one, when they’ve pushed out the placement of adverts to external agencies. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t usually launch personal attacks on people (any more) but when I read someone assassinating the good name and work of someone I respect, I still take action.

The fact that Hannah Solo, an 18-year-old girl “just four months out of school” decided to bait ProBlogger Darren Rowse with her article The truth about Darren Rowse and the great Pro Blogger swindle shows that she’s either arrogant, or deluded, or both.

Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone should agree with everything that Darren writes, or his approach to blogging, but her article not only comes close to libelling Darren, but also insults those who follow him.

As my comment possibly won’t go down well on her article, and could be deleted, here’s the response I left: Read the rest of this entry »

Today I’ve finally decided to stop thinking about a project which I began working on last year but was never paid for.

In truth, I’ve not done anything since I heard that the company had run out of money, but today, as one of the company’s minor creditors, I received a big pack of legal documents from the US. To be perfectly honest, it’s all rather confusing, and would need to be filled in and then faxed or posted back to the States. Even then, I’d stand little if any chance of receiving any money at all, and if I did, it might just cover the cost of faxing the documents back, and the time I could have spent working on other projects.

I’m just going to email the team handling this company’s affairs (from courtesy) letting them know not to bother with me.

Fortunately, I’d only written one “pilot” feature. If it had worked out, it would have turned into a series of posts which would have been pretty interesting to write – not bad remuneration for a fair amount of autonomy. Still, it wasn’t to be.

It’s not as if I’m sat here with nothing to do, anyway.

There’s a slightly bizarre concept. Now that Dave and Al have moved on ttto new things, I find myself the longest standing current writer on Tech Digest.

Granted, others like Ashley and Kat have worked for longer on the publication overall, but they too have moved on. I’ve outlived three editors, and yet have only been working full-time with Shiny Media for two years.

That’s how fast things change in the online media world. Seems fast to me, anyway.

Still, there’s something nice about being part of the virtual furniture and watching new talent come through, some just cutting their teeth in the world of paid blogging just as I was in 2006.

For all the “joys” of the publishing system and a few quirks here and there, I love writing for Tech Digest. Of course there are trolls to deal with, and people trying to sell mobile phones and dodgy medicine, but then every blog contends with them.

Here’s to the next two years, nay decades, of Tech Digest!

Update 6th May 2008: I received a very decent email today from the MD of Leapfrog Computers (at least, I trust that it was from him). I’ve never held any ill feelings towards him, and I’m sure his company is generally good.

I do still work for Shiny Media!

Unbelievable!

Let me start with a hypothetical question: if you read an erroneous piece of information about you in The Guardian, would you (a) contact the author directly, (b) contact the editor, or (c) send an email to everyone who writes for the publication?

If you answered (c), shame on you.

Yet, that’s exactly what Leapfrog Computers did about a recent article (now removed) at Tech Digest.

Instead of contacting the writer directly (the name of the author of each article is stated quite clearly at the bottom of each page), the Sales Manager at Leapfrog Computers decided to email everyone.

I’ve had my share of companies who have been annoyed by things I’ve written. Sometimes their annoyance is justified, in which case I remove the offending material, and sometimes it’s just because I’ve made them sound bad, but without actually defaming them.

At least the complaints were (in the main) directed at the right person.

Read the rest of this entry »