

Why we don't trust Devil Mountain Software (Exo Performance backstory) - barrkel
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=31024&page=1

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andrewljohnson
The thing is, you really can't trust any of the tech publications. You can
find an ethical reporter or two in the crowd, but the organizations tend to be
corrupt.

I used to work at an ad agency, and one of my jobs was pitching stories to
tech trade media about the companies I represented, as well as researching ad
buys. I had sort of a mixed practice serving tech clients - I would do PR, ad
research, brochures, websites, business plans, etc.

When I was pitching a story to an editor or reporter, there was never any
discussion of ad buys or quid pro quo for placing ads, but on the other side
of the shop - when talking to publishers and salesmen who sold ads, I can't
even count the number of times I was either straight up offered a story in
exchange for an ad buy, or given assurances like "I'll make sure the editors
read your press releases." I'm at least happy to say that the agency I worked
for didn't go for that type of thing, so I was free to politely ignore their
offers, but I imagine that's not universal.

From these kind of conversations, I draw the conclusion that these
organizations are rotten to the core, and they let the ad salesmen handle the
dirty work. I never had this kind of offer from eWeek or InformationWeek and
publications of that size, but the small ones were often dirty, and owned by
the same conglomerates that own the big boys.

You should also be suspicious of expert articles written by industry
professionals in trade publications. They might just be ghost-written by some
20-something at an ad agency.

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Angostura
Hmmm, I wrote and edited UK IT trade magazines for well over 15 years and I
can tell you a couple of things in my experience:

1\. The editorial staff didn't give a fig for the adverts that went in. Once
the magazine had been put to bed, we hardly ever looked at it again, apart
from to see how the colour repro came out.

2\. Occassionally we would get calls from a vendor who was stupid enough to
suggest that we should cover them, since they advertised. It gave us the
greatest pleasure to tell them we really didn't care.

3\. Occasionally an ad-sales guy would make a stupid promise to bring
something to editorial's attention. They got short shrift. But that's what ad-
sales sometimes guys do, they sometimes make silly promises to try and make
their quota. That doesn't mean the organisation is rotten to the core.

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mhansen
Don't miss the reply from Devil Mountain Software in the comments:

[http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&th...](http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=75498&messageID=1468379&tag=content;col1)

~~~
seldo
His claim that IDG execs knew the whole time is pretty explosive. That makes
the issue a LOT more about their own integrity as an organization (but I have
no reason to believe that claim).

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seldo
It seems to me this story should be about IDG's apparently total lack of
oversight of its reporters and their sources.

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hardwareguy
This Randall Kennedy dude is an epic troll. I love his responses to the
article. He spent years as a writer basically pimping this terrible xpnet
stuff. If he's not lying about getting companies to throw down real cash on
his shitty software then he won and he's laughing all the way to the bank.

