I am now officially the Technology Channel editor, which means I get to write about tech, gadgets, gizmos, web sites and other geeky things, as well as boss a few select writers around a bit from time to time.

It helps that I absolutely love the sites.

If you’ve even slightly been missing my ramblings about high definition TV, the iPhone and general consumer tech, you’ll find a similar blend of regular writings over at ForeverGeek, Gadzooki and GeeksBlog. I’ll also be popping up from time to time on Have Laptop Will Travel, My Asus Eee and IT Security Blog.

More into blogging and new media? You’ll find my news and feature articles at Blog Herald, 901am and Performancing.

All of our blogs and writers are stars. Some have a larger following than others but we’re a friendly crowd (usually — the odd bit of ‘snark’ pops up from time to time) and we’re definitely worth a visit.

Add the whole channel to your RSS feed reader (go on) or visit each site to grab the individual feed.

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.

1. I’m a freelancer who has lost little

Compared to some with a greater stake (financial and emotional) in Shiny Media, who in fact have generally handled things extremely gracefully (online and in public at least) I know where I fit in the pecking order.

I always knew that the freelancers’ life was a somewhat risky path to tread, and in fact I’ve been very fortunate to have worked pretty much full-time with Shiny Media over the past three years.

I’ll probably end up out of pocket and I’m a little frustrated that the last month’s worth of work (when I could have been investing time in other projects) is unlikely to be remunerated, but that’s life.

2. I saw it coming (or at least, I wasn’t surprised)

Yes, it’s easy to say this with the benefit of hindsight, but unfortunately I can’t say I’m surprised at all this.

In fact, I thought it might happen sooner (maybe six months to one year ago).

I realise that I don’t have insider knowledge, and I can only speak based on seeing things from the outside, but Shiny Media always felt like it had problems. I believe this ultimately led to its downfall.

Firstly we have…

3. Communication (or lack thereof)

Communication, certainly between management and freelancers at least — I don’t know exactly what it was like for permanent staff — was patchy, and sometimes non-existent.

In the early days of Shiny Media we had a lot of resources, guidelines, an internal staff forum, and more to help us to deliver what the company expected from us.

Now, editor-to-writer relationships have, as far as I’ve seen, been very good. This is testament to the overall high quality of staff at Shiny Media. On personal and individual site levels, it all worked quite well, but the overall vision seemed disjointed.

Again, as a freelancer, I don’t expect to be kept ‘in the loop’ about everything. Even after signing a NDA I realise there are some things I can’t know about. Having said that, more regular filtering down of important information — things that have an impact on how writers write — would really have helped.

I effectively edited two Shiny blogs, also as the sole writer, with no managerial input, for at least six months. That can’t be right.

We move on to…

4. Choice of partners

I have been called out before for publicly slating the company Shiny Media chose to use for its web hosting and “consultancy” services.

While I won’t go into great detail about it now, I still stand by my belief that Shiny Media could have got a much better deal, and indeed service, by working with a dedicated web hosting company. Unfortunately, the financial debts had already set in far enough to make switching very difficult.

5. Staff Support

Let me make it very clear that I think all the staff (and certainly the ones I met) past and present, in various departments, were excellent, quality people.

The trouble it seems — and it’s probably linked with my earlier point about communication — is that they weren’t given the resources required to excel at their tasks, be that technical, ad sales, or whatever else.

Again, let me say that the staff were excellent, but the systems probably weren’t.

6. My defence of Shiny Media may have to cease

I have been a strong defender of Shiny Media — odd, you might think, given that I have no vested interest in the company except that it paid me to write.

When the TechCrunch furore broke out, I strongly defended Shiny Media.

I’ve pushed through, trying to deliver much even when the company couldn’t afford to pay its freelancers an amount closer to what they were worth.

I’d even be happy (in a strange kind of way) to shake the hand of the dying company — metaphorically speaking — and let everything rest.

What irks me, though (and this is as much a fault of UK business law, which I don’t profess to understand) is that another company, owned by Chris Price — possibly even with input from the original venture capital company — is able to buy the derelict Shiny Media, wipe the debts (which includes a lot of unpaid wages and fees) and start again.

Start again?

Of course I don’t mind start-ups restarting, but if I discover in a couple of months time that it’s “business as usual” for Shiny Media, or Shiny Digital, or whatever it’ll now be called, I’m going to be just a little peeved.

Then again, I’ve got other opportunities bubbling, so I’m not going to get bitter about it.

Finally…

7. Would you want to work with someone who uses underhand tactics because they don’t agree with a business decision?

I don’t know the identity of the “minority shareholder” who (allegedly) cut off/hacked the email and mobile phone of Chris Price, but given that it potentially made it extremely difficult for him to communicate with staff and freelancers, I ask whether anyone would really trust said person working for their business, lest something goes wrong and the same dirty tactics are used again?

Yes, I’m posting a fairly personal piece here, and yes I’ve tweeted some annoyed tweets in the past, but deliberately breaking systems because your minority stake is under threat? I don’t think so.

Conclusion

Anyway, there’s not much more to say on the Shiny Media situation. We’ll see what pans out. In the meantime, there are a few more journos and bloggers on the look out for new opportunities.

Be nice to them

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.

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.

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.

What’s worrying me is that this stuff is all coming from a similar place, and I’m wondering if this is some of the advice that the “30 day blogging course” is offering in order to make money: be as controversial as possible, and rip other people’s work off.

I’ve already been told that I’ve fallen for Hannah’s linkbait by responding on my blog, and that’s probably true, so I’m not going to link to the offending site – plus the fact I’d effectively be linking to illegal content.

I know there are plenty of people doing a wide variety of dubious things online in order to build popularity and money, and it concerns me. It’s really not doing blogging.

Another person in the “network” justifies the whole affair by writing that “It’s good to challenge the status quo from time to time. Tthe [sic] blogosphere has far too many stale and impotent blogs in the make money online niche and it’s refreshing to see someone shaking things up a little.”

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.

Even if you do deals with individuals on a case-by-case basis, you have no guarantee that their products, services, or sites are always going to sit comfortably with you or your audience.

The fact is, if you generate revenue through most kinds of advertising, you will at times have products, services, images, headlines, deals and promises sitting right next to your content that you might not agree with. Worse still, it’s very hard to catch what contextual ads will be shown, because they do vary based on advertising stock, day, geographical location of the visitor, and so on.

Unfortunately, some visitors to your web site will believe that, because something is advertised on your site, you in some way agree with it, or the messages that advertising portrays have exactly the same ethics as you.

I wonder if they do the same when they look at adverts in newspapers, magazines and on TV, or listen to radio commercials?

Of course, you can take steps to safeguard your content from completely opposing advertising, though there’s still no guarantee, by choosing to approve ads (where that option is available), blocking competitors and other sites you don’t want to link to, and keeping an eye on paid links to ensure they still lead to the site that they did when you first accepted them.

The only way to guarantee complete control over what appears on, and gets linked from, your site, is not to accept any types of advertising. Some would argue that this is what blogging was originally about, and that things are far too commercial now, but that’s a different debate.

Ultimately, perhaps formally through a disclaimer, or (hopefully) through how your character shines through the content you write, visitors will be able to differentiate between your own values and viewpoints, and the occasional ad which doesn’t quite match.

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:

I came to your web site after reading the fairly rude “Oh dear, more lists, more repeat content, more stuff we already know.” you left on Darren’s site. I’ve not seen you participating in ProBlogger before, and now I can see why. It’s bait to get people here to read your anti-Darren propaganda, right?

“it soon became apparent that Darren was, and still is, simply baiting the gullible newbies who are happily and obediently queuing up to be told how to make money online. Darren’s blog, Pro Blogger, advertises a plethora of systems, most of make claims like “easiest money everâ€? or “become a six figure bloggerâ€?. Sadly, but unsurprosingly, all of the adverts lead to scams.”

This is highly offensive to me, and possibly to Darren, though he probably has a lot more patience and has had far worse accusations levelled at him.

For a start, just because various “get rich quick”-esque keywords lead to Darren’s site, it does not mean that he is telling people that making money from blogging is easy.

The fact is that he has seen a lot of success from blogging, so he is qualified to talk and teach about it. However, I’ve not yet read somewhere that he says doing so is easy, or doesn’t take a lot of time and effort. Though I’ve only met Darren in person once, I think I know him well enough, through his writing and general attitude, to know that he hates Internet scams and get rich quick schemes. To accuse his blog of encouraging such practices is verging on libellous.

“You see, even a newbie like a me, a simple 18 year old girl who only left school 4 months ago can see through this sort of rubbish.�

Perhaps you just haven’t bothered to examine the evidence in more detail. You’re now effectively saying that anyone who follows Darren’s example is gullible, whereas you’re an 18-year-old girl who knows it all.

“The really frightening part is that Darren Rowse has over 67,000 subscribers who hang off his every word, desperately trying to comment on his site to catch his eye in the naive hope of getting some traffic in the form of scraps from the masters table.�

Again, you don’t understand Darren at all. He’s actually quite personable, and would probably have taken some time from his busy schedule to get to know you personally had you talked to him rather than reading a few pages on his site and then defaming him in public.

Perhaps for you, oh enlightened, wizened, “four months out of school� woman, you do know it all, but not everyone knows everything.

You also don’t hold to the widely accepted definition of a “spam blog� (or splog). Spam blogs are those which rip and scrape content from other places. While Darren may not have been able to teach you anything new, there’s a high amount of original and insightful material on there. ProBlogger.net is NOT a splog.

In the likely event you don’t like this retort to your appalling appraisal of ProBlogger, and delete my comment, I will also be publishing it on my own web site.

This is the new blogger who, despite professing to know a lot about blogging, hasn’t even deleted the default welcome page from her WordPress blog, and has written a grand total of… three articles, one of which is a ten-point list entitled Five reasons why you should leave school and become a teenage pro blogger.

I’m sorry, Hannah, but when it comes to online experience, I know where my loyalties lie. You probably don’t care, and in general I admire a new startup with attitude, but picking on a big name in blogging just four articles in could end up backfiring.

Two opposing perspectives on ProBlogging?

I thought to further illustrate the huge gulf between Darren and Hannah, I’d take a look at the advice they have both given on the subject of blogging for money.

Darren has been blogging for at least six years. The following eleven articles are just a selection from the thousands he has written, and in my opinion all offer balanced, sensible, measured advice about blogging for money and blogging as a full-time occupation.

• The Process of Going Pro as a blogger
• 11 Lies of Professional Blogging Resources
• Is it possible to earn a full time salary as a part time blogger?
• Blogging as a Job – The Perceptions of Others – Convincing those you love that you can be a ProBlogger
• A reality check about blogging for money
• Going Pro as a Blogger – Turning blogging from a hobby to a career
• How much money can a blog earn?
• Introduction to making money from blogs
• Becoming a ProBlogger – A story in many parts
• Making money from blogging takes time
• When is it time to “Go Pro” as a blogger?

In addition, Darren has measurable success in building strong blogs, brands, and networks.

By contrast, Hannah encourages teenagers to “leave school and become a teenage pro blogger”.

While it’s not impossible to make a living from problogging, advising people to leave school as soon as possible is downright irresponsible.

Combining it with soundbites like “You choose your own hours. Want to work only 4 days a week? No problem. Want to work at the weekend but not during the week? No problem”, “You make more money in your first year than you would if you took a typical student job flipping burgers, waiting tables or stacking shelves”, and “You might, and probable will, become famous if you are successful at a young age” creates the illusion that anyone can easily make enough money to live off in their first year.

Despite my rant, Hannah, I really hope it works out for you, and I have no problem with people aiming high (I do), but don’t be surprised if you find that it’s not as easy as your ten step guide makes out.

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.

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!

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.

I don’t have a problem if the person or company who feels aggrieved contacts both me and my editor, but I think I have the right to feel cross if everyone else who works at a publication gets to find out about it.

Actually, I think I have the right to be peed off if I get a threatening email in my inbox (albeit a legally threatening one with strong tone, don’t misread me here, I don’t want my own lawsuit looming) that has nothing to do with me.

And Leapfrog Computers are annoyed because the author in question allegedly didn’t do their research properly, or badly worded something.

Hypocrisy!

No-one at Tech Digest — as far as I’m aware — ever writes anything deliberately malicious or untrue. If there’s an issue with an article, we do our best to sort it out as soon as possible.

Sending a heavy-handed email to everyone concerned threatening legal action within 24 hours is baffling.

One thing is certain — I won’t be publicising products from Leapfrog Computers again. Look, ma, no link.

Please, companies, yet again I urge you to think like human beings rather than corporate monsters.

Here’s the complete email transcript to date. I don’t usually publish these kinds of things, but this makes me very cross:

Original email sent to NINE people:

Please can you delete or correct the above article as the story is incorrect. I have posted a comment on the article but the story needs sorting out ASAP otherwise legal action will be taken against the website.

Lee Bevan is the Managing Director of Leapfrog Computers. He was the one who reported the finding of the disk after a unamed consumer brought in a laptop for repair. The writer of the article has obviously not taken their time to gather the correct data which is freely available on many websites like BBC News, ITV, Sky News, Channel M, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The New York Times! Also, Lee has been interviewed on several news programs which were broadcast yesterday.

I would appreciate confirmation that this error has been corrected ASAP. If no action is taken within the next 24 hours and a full apology is not written then I am afraid we will contact our lawyers who will be instructed to take procedings against the site.

Yours

—
J
Sales Manager
Leapfrog Computers

My response:

Hello J,

Please note that the article in question was written by —, as it states quite clearly at the footer of the article. Would you write to every columnist at a newspaper if there was an error with one journalist’s article?

I personally don’t appreciate the threatening tone of your misdirected email. I have no access to other people’s articles, however I do know that the server is undergoing maintenance this weekend, so your 24 hour (well, 22.5 hour now, I presume) warning will be impossible to rectify.

I would suggest that any errors with the story can be amended on Monday morning. I apologise if this is unsatisfactory, but blanket spamming every writer on the publication is simply no more acceptable than the grievance you hold against the allegedly inaccurate article (I wouldn’t want to comment on that, naturally, given that I should not have been brought into this in the first place)

You’ll be pleased to know that I’ll be removing the few personal articles that I wrote about Leapfrog Computers (on other sites), as I don’t publicise companies who threaten me, particularly erroneously.

Yours

Andy Merrett

Ever more threatening response to my direct but non-threatening email, also sent to “the boss” (his, not mine):

I personally think this reply is absolutely disgusting considering that this article on your site is complete deformation (sic) of charachter (sic). You are responsible for what goes on on (sic) your website regardless of what you say. If I contacted a solicitor over this then we would have a strong case. If this had happened on any other site, regardless of what it was then my reaction would be exactly the same.

Before you reply to comments with such an agressive and unreasonable manner I suggest you check the accuracy of the dispute and put it right rather than acting in this way. I personally couldn’t care less about what articles you retract on any site. It is more important that this totally incorrect article is retracted and my bosses (sic) good name is not tarnished by some idiot who doesn’t know what he is talking about.

I still stand by what I said earlier. Get the article retracted or changed within 24 hours (or 22.5 now) and an apology written about the mistake, otherwise we will seek legal action!

OK, Tech Digest is not MY site. It belongs to Shiny Media. I’m an independent, freelance writer. I have no jurisdiction over the works of others, or over how Shiny Media run their site. Furthermore, I was DIRECT, not AGGRESSIVE, given the nature of the original misdirected threat.

But J is obviously happy to call some of the people who write on my site “idiots”, though I never used that word about anyone at Leapfrog.

My response (now I’m cross):

Sorry, do you mean defamation of character? Please note that I have not defamed anyone’s character.

The web site QUITE CLEARLY says WHO WROTE EACH ARTICLE. The article has already gone (not that you’ve bothered to check)

I still stand by what I said earlier. I DO NOT appreciate being falsely accused. I am NOT —, neither do I have ultimate control for the web site.

As you obviously won’t apologise, I do not wish to hear from you again.

Good day.

Ignoring my request not to hear from him again, he wrote this:

One of youryour (sic) more reasonable colleagues has actually removed the article. So the matter has ended. I couldn’t care less who you are! DO not email me with that crap when your site has false accusations on it. Whatever you say, its (sic) your site and you are responsible for the content. You have shown yourself to be a complete fool who doesn’t care about inaccuracy about articles. I am sure you would have something to say if your name (be it good or bad) was mentioned on a site with a false accusation.

Anyway matter is closed. I do not expect your pointless crap littering my inbox either, but I thank your colleague for sorting this matter out. He obviously realised the importance of the matter!

–
Wow, and this is how the sales director for a “large” company behaves?

OK, you might argue that I aggravated the situation, but the fact is that I DO care about both accuracy and my own name.

If the article had been mine, and someone had emailed me politely and non-threateningly about it, I’d have retracted and apologised forthwith. Like I said above, none of us at TD are malicious, but this level of response is laughable.

Though I was obviously cross about this situation, I didn’t descend into personal name calling. I merely stated the FACTS and my FEELINGS.

The amusing thing is that J obviously did care who I was enough to send the email in the first place, but now that I’ve challenged his overreaction, I’m just a worthless piece of crap that’s bothered him. I suppose at least I’m not the “idiot” who wrote it (I’m just a “complete fool”)

I won’t be responding to anyone at LC any more, unless they persist in hassling me.