

Zynga To Remove All In Game Offers - physcab
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/08/zynga-to-stop-all-in-game-offers/

======
swombat
So much for Michael Arrington's assertions being "shit, doubleshit and
bullshit"...

I know a lot of people have something against MA, but he does good things like
this on occasion which, imho, make up for a lot of the perceived douchebaggery
the rest of the time.

~~~
physcab
I agree. For what's its worth, he's an ardent supporter of user rights and you
need someone with a loud voice on occasion. It's also quite difficult to
inflict change on an industry that seemed entrenched in its practices. Kudos
to him for taking the initiative and getting results.

~~~
biznerd
Ugh - guys please don't be fooled by this. The guy has no journalistic
integrity whatsoever. Remember the last.fm fiasco?

[http://www.itworld.com/business/63085/lastfm-tech-crunch-
and...](http://www.itworld.com/business/63085/lastfm-tech-crunch-and-riaa)

He's a very opportunistic person. Ranting against popular business practices
produces great publicity. So does posting a very damaging but completely
unverified rumor. Arrington has done both, which is why he is hardly the Robin
Hood of web2.0.

Yes, occasionally Arrington's flamebaits produce some good. But overall
TechCrunch is a mediocre and irresponsible "publication". I think it's a
tragedy that the network effect has resulted in a clown running the most
important blog about web start-ups. Imagine if the WSJ or NYT was run like TC.

~~~
jkincaid
Imagine...

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/11/why-mainstream-media-is-
dyi...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/11/why-mainstream-media-is-dying.html)

------
kwamenum86
This whole affair makes Zynga look much more shaky as a potential IPO
offering, although I have in general been impressed with Pincus' response too
the whole thing. Perhaps the strong response was to retain the IPO momentum.

~~~
chaosprophet
I for one am still not convinced about the explanation Pincus gave for how the
ads came back for everyone _other_ than Mikey boy.

~~~
kwamenum86
I don't think they would selectively remove ads from critics' pages. That
would be monumentally stupid. fyi: not to be nit-picky ;) but Matt Handal,
President of DoubleDing gave that explanation. Zynga is an investor in
DoubleDing so maybe that is about the same as Pincus giving the explanation-
who knows?

------
middus
I don't get it. Zynga controls the ad content as they are free to chose with
which offer provider they work and which they don't. Sounds like a lame
excuse.

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, they choose the offer provider, who then chooses the offers. Unless
you're going to have someone watching the offers 24x7 there's never going to
be any fool proof quality guarantee. I would think at Zynga's scale though
such a guard would be worth the expense.

~~~
middus
Yeah, but they knew that their offer provider has chosen scammy offers before.

------
joeycfan
These people are typical of the ethicless parasites that infest everything
creative smart people make.

