When we took the chance and helped Mobile Jones break the story that Blognation was not just DOA, but had joined the dead pool, there was a certain amount of uncertainty in the story. Today the story is confirmed, amidst high drama, and everyone and their brother chiming in.
It is probably the weirdest play out in public session that we have seen since the Kathy Sierra debacle earlier this year.
The bad part about taking things like this in public is the reputational damage that happens, and good luck getting funding for anything any of the participants want to do next. The VC is going to Google the name, they are going to see all this information, and they are not going to fund anything that anyone wants to do for a while. Even then, the VC is going to have to think long and hard about funding anything that happens in the future for anyone who was part of this very public meltdown.
The privacy of these participants is forever altered, its all in various search engines cache if not in the internet archive.
Remember business 102 – do not lie ever to anyone – Facebook faced something similar already, Blognation and more specifically Sam Sethi should know this, it should be ingrained in the business culture, unfortunately as the details and warring on line shows both sides of the story, facts are painfully clear.
There was no sponsorship forthcoming, there was no funding coming, the bloggers got polarized and used their blogs, and others comment sections to have an internet war of words that are going to be there forever. Reputations have been damaged, employment opportunities are going to be scarce, and no one wants to hire anyone who will take internal matters onto the internet.
I just can’t decide. It’s like deciding which part of the train wreck is the best, or which accident victim is worse off. The only thing that’s clear is that Sam doesn’t bear any of the blame for what happened — anything wrong he did was something he was forced to do by Mike Arrington (Mike has posted a response here). What a graceless and insipid way to end something. If Sam was trying to win any support or respect with his post, he has failed completely. Source: Mathew Ingram
The train wreck did not have to be public, but it was, and while it is interesting to watch drama unfold, there is far too much drama when groups get polarized. If we want to be professional bloggers, and we want to carry some journalistic weight, or even just report the truth, there has be an accounting for what we do.
What we have seen around this divisive issue is a big pile of emotion, with facts debated in heated tones, failure to take responsibility, and using their blogs as a tool for punishment.
If you have something to say, say it, that is great, but lets keep the drama out of this if we are going to make any pretense that we are “professionals”. While it is fine that people feel abused, playing out of issues like this in public only hurts rather than solves problems.
2 comments ↓
I am glad you helped Debi expose the story but cannot agree with “The train wreck did not have to be public, but it was, and while it is interesting to watch drama unfold, there is far too much drama when groups get polarized.” I had the Blognation experience for a brief couple of months at the start of the project. I heard (and foolishly believed) all Sam’s lies and grandiose claims for a while - until he “forgot” to bring his credit card to pay for a team meal at Essential Web in London and walked off with Stowe Bowd and some other big movers when a team mate’s bag was stolen (including cellphone, credit cards, passport - the lot). I didn’t do an Oliver on it because Sam threatened me and I got scared. So I kept my head down and got back to reality. I feel guilty about that now that I didn’t expose Sam, and I think a lot of us are wondering if we had spoken sooner would Marc still be with us today? We’ll never know so we’ll always carry the guilt I guess.
[…] and if Valleywag is in that much trouble that they have to paycut, we may be looking at another blognation kind of blowout. Since these are all gossip rag kind of folks, it will be very interesting to see […]
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