
If you run a contest as a startup, don't be dishonest. JPEGmini scammed me. - massarog
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/13336500/jpegmini.html
======
rosser
You know, I'm generally a fairly sympathetic guy. I've been screwed over
enough times in my life to know how it feels, and to be able to feel for the
next poor sod who gets screwed over in his turn. That said, I'm starting to
get really tired of people trying to leverage HN into being their _grievance
du jour fixificator_.

Sometimes, it's appropriate, as the people who could do something about the
problem are here, or reachable quickly through here. The prospect of being
shamed before the HN community is probably a very effective motivator for
companies who've been engaged in hinky behavior to clean up their acts, too.

But the simple fact is, HN isn't your mommy, and it isn't the police; we
aren't here to hold your hand, and we aren't here to fix your problems for
you. People are coming here, crying that "someone on the internet was
naughty!" over increasingly trivial bullshit like this, and I, for one, am
finding it more and more a waste of time and bandwidth.

~~~
true_religion
An alternative point of view is that people are complaining on HN to warn
others about scammers and unsavory companies in their mix.

Without being able to name and shame, how are we supposed to create a social
stigma towards the bad players?

I realize that the author spent more effort in drafting the complaint than in
entering the contest but isn't that a good thing? Many scams rely on people
being unwilling to complain when they are nickle and dimed.

~~~
larrys
"are complaining on HN to warn others about scammers and unsavory companies "

And in the case of this particular issue we know nothing of the person lodging
the complaint other than their karma score.

Why is this even to be taken on face value anyway from someone with no contact
info that has provided what amounts to little info other than:

"This is the jpegmini contest that I entered to win a Nikon D5100 Camera. They
pulled their pages down after the contest ended so I had to pull these from
google cache. For the record, I blocked out all names and twitter handles
aside from my own and jpegmini's. "

Edit: "their karma score" (if you don't want to read their comments and make a
judgement on their credibility of course which most won't have the time to
do).

------
sequoia
They had a contest, you didn't win, he-said she-said and you post it to HN.
I'm sorry you didn't win but I don't really see what the point of this post
is- shaming this company for... what? Giving away a camera? Without more solid
proof you should withdraw your accusations. How do I know you didn't tweet
more than once?

More importantly, how did they "scam" you? Did you lose money in this
transaction?

Shame on the HN community for piling on this company (which I've never heard
of) based on such scant evidence.

~~~
massarog
Solid proof was sent to the company several times. They chose to ignore it and
even claim that I violated their rules by entering multiple times, which I
never did. I have 84 followers, what good what it do for me to tweet the same
thing many times when the goal of the contest was to get the most retweets on
one tweet? I tweeted once from their app and got 15 retweets on that single
tweet.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
> _claim that I violated their rules by entering multiple times_

Actually, they didn't claim you violated their rules. They claimed you entered
multiple times... which you had previously claimed violated their rules. But
they had already pointed out that making multiple tweets is fine if it is from
the same account. And one of the spots you underlined was not the complete
sentence. The rest of the sentence concludes with _by using multiple/different
Twitter accounts_. I think it all needs to stay together.

Also, some people forget there are two ways to retweet. You still have the
perfectly valid original RT-style retweet (which you might be calling
"mentions") and then you have the "new and improved" retweet function. I would
guess that the old RT-style does not get included in the retweet count.

Note: please don't take this as an indictment of your story... just that you
may not be seeing everything correctly.

~~~
massarog
Right, as I had stated the winner did not have direct retweets, but rather the
original style (which I called mentions). He had 13 of those.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I'm not entirely sure how to run a good search on Twitter to get a count of
how many time a person was "mentioned" with a specific tweet. I'm sure you
know better than I do since you ran such a search in order to get to the count
of 13. But is it at all possible that you missed a couple? And does that 13
include the 1 direct retweet he got?

------
tamal
Let's do about five minutes of fact-checking:

@tommytrc won it with <http://twitter.com/tommytrc/status/220161069958705152>

There was one API retweet and 14 unofficial retweets:
<https://twitter.com/typertist/status/220268257163214849>
<https://twitter.com/JuliaRosien/status/220171309785690112>
<https://twitter.com/TarlovCyst/status/220252912251699200>
<https://twitter.com/joycecherrier/status/220220366088454144>
<https://twitter.com/level343/status/220201521369989123>
<https://twitter.com/mmangen/status/220186571012444161>
<https://twitter.com/SEOcopy/status/220185232802975745>
<https://twitter.com/arkarthick/status/220180186136719362>
<https://twitter.com/JohnLusher/status/220179206485712896>
<https://twitter.com/purplehayz/status/220174864634482692>
<https://twitter.com/JuliaRosien/status/220171309785690112>
<https://twitter.com/roncallari/status/220165178401099777>
<https://twitter.com/ShellyKramer/status/220162599696859136>
<https://twitter.com/SarahRobinson/status/220162544600485889>

But @arkarthick's tweet was API retweeted once, brining the total to 16.

Looks like @tommytrc won fair and square, sorry.

~~~
massarog
Here you go,
[https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/Just%20saved%2029.4%2...](https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/Just%20saved%2029.4%20MB%20thanks%20to%20%40JPEGmini%20for%20mac!%20)

Don't count tommytrc, or JustIs that tweeted twice. 13 total.

Edit: Looks like I missed the direct retweet, so 14 total.

~~~
tamal
I accidentally duplicated a status as well (@JuliaRosien). I don't know why
you're discounting @typerist's tweet, yes she tweeted twice but it doesn't
mean both are excluded, it's only counted once.

So by my count you're tied at 15 retweets each.

~~~
massarog
Just found something more interesting. 'Dan Julius' direct retweet of
@tommytrc looks like it was actually done by someone who works for JPEGmini
(icvt-tech) based on my google search their email has icvt-tech.com on the
end.

<https://twitter.com/#!/dnjuls_test/following>

[https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&output=search...](https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&output=search&sclient=psy-
ab&q=dan+julius+icvt-tech&oq=dan+julius+icvt-
tech&gs_l=hp.3...184.2499.0.2617.20.18.0.2.2.0.148.1503.12j6.18.0...0.0.CjmOKYryb_s&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=4e98f8c28d07ef18&biw=1536&bih=1267)

And right from their rules: Employees of Sponsor and members of their
immediate families are not eligible to participate in the Contests. All
federal, state, provincial, and local laws and regulations apply.

~~~
tamal
Okay, _that_ is interesting.

------
zmoazeni
OP has explained his side, which is compelling. JPEGmini tweeted "You have
only seen one side of the story"
<https://twitter.com/jpegmini/status/222433391025459200>

At what point does he-said/she-said matter for a company? How much is negative
publicity worth to an early startup?

1) OP is completely legit, which paints JPEGmini in a bad light. Give him a
camera and let it go quietly, and get some kudos for giving out two cameras.

2) OP is not legit, which with his compelling argument will still have people
thinking something is fishy. Give him a camera and let it go quietly, and get
some kudos for giving out two cameras.

For $850, I think winning the kudos would be far more important than a company
trying to prove somebody wrong. Sounds like pride is getting in the way here.
Chalk up the the drawing as a lesson-learned and figure out a less ambiguous
way to deal with the next one.

~~~
mseebach
There's an obvious slippery slope you don't want to go down: Just shelling out
to shut up any random guy with a dropbox account or even be bullied into
responding publicly to said random guy. Assuming, of course, you're sure you
did everything right. We have, as you point out, only heard one side of the
story.

Right now, the fallout, as in negative publicity, is pretty limited. The guy
comes off as bitter and with an axe to grind. If you're in the market for the
product and you come across this thread or the current five clicktivists on
twitter, are you going to steer clear of the product?

Of course, they shouldn't be smug or arrogant if they happen to be forced to
respond later, but ignoring at this stage is definitely the right strategy
IMO.

~~~
zmoazeni
_Just shelling out to shut up any random guy with a dropbox account or even be
bullied into responding publicly to said random guy._

That's pride talking. Pick and choose your battles. If you're going to pick
this one, make it overwhelmingly compelling. I've never heard of this company,
but my first impression is negative. Turn that around.

I wouldn't advocate ignoring it. I'd rather you make me love your company or
hate it. Ignoring stuff like this is cop out.

Hell, doesn't Nikon have a camera in the $300 range? Even a response like: "We
already picked the winner, and we don't have a budget for two cameras, but we
were able to spring for Nikon Dxxxx" would be miles better.

 _Right now, the fallout, as in negative publicity, is pretty limited._

You're right. They were thrown a curve ball, and they can turn it into an
opportunity to leave a positive impression on potential customers who have
never heard of their product before.

~~~
mseebach
> That's pride talking. Pick and choose your battles. If you're going to pick
> this one, make it overwhelmingly compelling.

As I said:

>> Assuming, of course, you're sure you did everything right.

The rest of your post assumes that there is an issue to deal with. There
isn't. If they're in the right (again, _assuming_ ), being mentioned on the
internet doesn't mean they should pivot into crisis mode.

There's a HN post, most of which, including the top comments, is meta and five
(5) tweets - all of which are boring knee-jerk condemnation, none of which ask
for clarification. If it'd gone viral, if people, if _customers_ started
asking what the hell is going on, then respond to them. But _at least_ until
that happens, it's a non-issue, PR-wise.

> I've never heard of this company, but my first impression is negative. Turn
> that around.

Sure. I've also only just heard of this company too. I think their technology
and value proposition sounds promising. If I was in the business of putting
JPEG images on in the internet, I'd be intrigued.

------
dasil003
My guess is the person who "won" was somehow affiliated with the company so
they didn't actually have to give one away.

~~~
sequoia
Have you proof or are you just tossing another unfounded accusation on the
pile?

~~~
dasil003
The latter. But to be fair, only my accusation is unfounded, the OA seems
legit.

------
dfxm12
The other lesson here is if you are going to run a "dishonest contest", decide
the winner via a "random" drawing and not something objective.

------
hcarvalhoalves
I wish people didn't used Twitter for contests, it's not transparent and you
can't audit it. You can just have a bunch of bots retweet you, or anyone can
claim you delete a tweet, etc.

~~~
ben0x539
I wish people didn't participate in contests on twitter because I read twitter
to see what my friends are up to, and not which products they are using.

~~~
urbanjunkie
I have a second twitter account that is followed only by me for this kind of
bullshit. If more people did the same, we'd get fewer companies encouraging
Twitter pollution, and consequently fewer children crying about how they got
'scammed' on HN.

------
DarrenMills
I'm sorry this happened to you, but I don't think the power of crowd sourcing
should destroy a small start-up based on what still may be a misunderstanding.

Hell, perhaps this will gain them some needed attention.

------
mparlane
JPEGmini is oozing with professionalism. "Save disk space with JPEGmini for
Mac, tweet _you_ savings".

I would honestly stay clear of such a company, and not just based on their
scammy contests.

~~~
pavel_lishin
You would write off an entire company based on _one misspelling_?

~~~
mnicole
Absolutely. It takes a few seconds to do a once-over of your website copy and
a few seconds more to change it.

------
mrpollo
that's pretty much why i dont enter any contests online, they all seem
dishonest to me

~~~
dfxm12
I've entered plenty of "(re)tweet this to win" type contests. The barrier to
entry is incredibly low, and I've won enough times to keep myself encouraged.

If your time is so valuable that taking the time to (re)tweet something will
be a drag, or if your twitter account has some intrinsic worth that could be
brought down by this type of tweet, then yes, there's no reason to enter, but
then again, if you meet either of these criteria, you probably don't even need
to enter contests...

~~~
gkoberger
More importantly -- why do you think your followers' time is so invaluable?

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Well... a tweet saying "I saved space with some app" is probably not any less
valuable to your followers than one saying "Mmmmm... fried cheese... [insert
instagram pic here]". I see a lot more useless food tweets than I do contest
tweets.

Edit: full disclosure... I frequently tweet food pics and almost never tweet
content entries. :)

------
tlrobinson
I won't offer any sympathy to people who spam their followers with companies'
advertisements.

------
brown9-2
Is the "retweet" count on the bottom of Twitter's web UI authoritative?

The company's response makes it sound like they also counted some other kind
of retweet, which maybe was quoting someone's tweet instead of pressing the
Retweet button.

~~~
massarog
The winner never had any retweets on his actual tweets. People did quote his
tweet, and as stated in our emails back and forth, he had 13 mentions while I
had 15 retweets.

------
kkt262
You should write a blog post or something and get some SEO juice on there so
when people search for them they will find out how shitty of a company they
are.

------
corkill
"I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that the winner has
130k+ followers and I have only 84."

Lol if you had put that at the very start of the article, not the very end
would of being obvious why they screwed you/tried to get some more publicity,
front page of hacker news now.

Funny thing is they sound like lame people, but there product sounds useful.
So in effect your probably helping them now, much more than those 15 retweets
did.

~~~
rhizome
I dunno, "all the image quality and none of the filesize" sets off my snake-
oil alarms.

------
ernst3
Ok, how does this makes sense? The relative savings are interesting, not the
absolute.

Tried the open source PackJPG ( <http://www.elektronik.htw-aalen.de/packjpg/>
) I just ran on a few images. It says avrg. comp. ratio : 78.28 % . And the
author answers (my) emails and didn't scam me.

/edit: ok, i don't get what their software does. It is not a new codec, so is
it possible that their software is superior to imagick convert -quality 85 ?
Any technical details? The whole product seems highly dubious. The PackJPG
thing is "lossless" as it does can restore the original jpg.

~~~
wmf
Here's the key: "an image quality detector ... to determine the maximum amount
of compression which can be applied to each individual photo without causing
visible artifacts." ( <http://www.jpegmini.com/main/technology> ) So they can
detect that, say, the image looks the same at quality 30 as it does at quality
85, then they compress it at 30 which saves space. Sure, you could have done
the same thing by eye, but they're doing it automatically.

See also <http://link.aip.org/link/doi/10.1117/12.872231>

------
hullo
There's absolutely zero evidence in your post that you were "scammed". At
worst they don't seem to understand their own rules, which is far from
uncommon & not a "scam".

~~~
dasil003
You are far too trusting. When people start spewing this nonsensical BS and
then go dark, nine times out of ten you've been had.

------
danvideo
I noticed something odd on the JPEGmini homepage. They have a before/after
scan over, as illustration of what the product does, but in the source it
looks like they are linking to images of the similar size.

Here are the files and sizes referred to in the source:

272K preview-rolands.lakis.jpg 247K preview-rolands.lakis2.jpg 248K preview-
rolands.lakis2_mini.jpg 276K preview-rolands.lakis_mini.jpg

I suppose they could have just screengrabbed both images, but that seems to
defeat the point...

------
cstrat
According to the rules you were supposed to add a few words to the default
tweet which you didn't...

I still think it is unfair that they weren't honest - the least they could
have done was post a ladder with ranking so you could where you sat. It might
have cleared the air a bit? If they say you were disqualified then you would
have realised much earlier...

------
KenCochrane
What do that say "There's no such thing as bad publicity", I guess this
company is going to JPEGmini, is about to find out. They are getting way more
publicity then they thought, but the wrong type.. Too bad, looks like a nice
camera.

------
rwhitman
Sigh, if only you knew how many startup sweepstakes have no actual prize...

------
hub_
All of this for a Nikon camera.... The cheap one.

------
alincatalin90
This guys tried to promote their product with a "fake" contest! I really hate
this types of "startups"!

As somebody already wrote - use their competitors insead!

------
TheAmazingIdiot
Massarog: People regularly shit on me. So what you didn't get a camera for a
tweet. Leave it alone and go find something more important to do with your
time.

CublicleNinja: No, I do not. It's a damned contest. He lost. A guy who runs
his own advertising company can easily afford a camera. Note I am not running
around wising his pain.

~~~
CubicleNinjas
So, your life is pain, and you wish said pain on others? Gotcha.

