
My Sys-Con Nightmare - tortilla
http://aralbalkan.com/2284
======
gaius
_So I called them out on it. I tweeted about it_

Something about this juxtaposition of old-fashioned wild-west mans-gotta-do
with urban hip web 2.0 trendiness just doesn't quite work...

~~~
moe
You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with
twitter clients and those who dig. You dig.

(You are right. Doesn't work at all.)

------
michael_dorfman
Weird. I seem to be experiencing quite a bit of cognitive dissonance trying to
reconcile a publisher like Sys-Con, which as he notes, draws in Microsoft, IBM
and Sun as advertisers, and publishes reasonably well-respected journals like
".NET Developer's Journal", "AJAX World Magazine", etc., with articles like
_"Turkish Fags Who Live in London: Aral Balkan"_.

~~~
pelle
I thought the same, but just 10 minutes searching around the sys-con sites I
found plenty of evidence that Sys Con Founder Fuat Kircaali has a pretty
intense temper and uses his entire company to channel it.

He would make a pretty hilarious sitcom character. It's pretty entertaining
until you realize it's real and like Aral you're the victim of his wrath.

Google him and go to his own sys-con page (I won't link straight to it to
avoid paying them google juice) and see his article on "Social Media
Terrorists" for a classic result of what happens when a powerful man has too
much of a temper. I took a screenshot incase they pull it down:

[http://skitch.com/pelle/b3fam/social-media-terrorists-
coldfu...](http://skitch.com/pelle/b3fam/social-media-terrorists-coldfusion-
developer-s-journal)

I would be embarrassed to have anything to do with that company. And yes the
advertisers (like Sun, IBM etc really should not encourage that sort of
behavior. Luckily Sys-Con is such a web 1.0 like company and I had happily
forgotten all about them until I saw this article.

------
extension
Whoa, it looks like a garden variety internet cook has managed to get himself
into a fairly powerful position and hold it for years. At least, that's how it
appears from Googling.

The internet anti-bullshit machine should make short work of this, assuming
there is actually something to do and all of this guy's wealth and status
isn't just psychotic delusion.

Just spread the meme around and he'll self-destruct under scrutiny.

~~~
extension
Friends from the security community tell me SYS-CON has been well known for a
good while and nobody takes them seriously, but they make decent money from
ads. They are essentially ad spammers.

As such, I assume the way to hurt them would be to follow their ad supply
chain until you find someone who cares about copyright. The chain seems to end
with the likes of Microsoft, Sun, etc. but I don't really understand how their
ad network is setup.

------
fauigerzigerk
At least SYS-CON is aptly named :-)

