I was in the press again Friday when the Mail & Guardian discussed my recent blog posting entitled The Times Hypes Up The Sunday Times
After Shelly & Gavin played me the weekly M&G podcast called Flamebait, we discussed it, and the reason I think Vincent and Nic missed the point of my post, is because I should have given a background summary when doing my post.
Here is the Full Story (trust me, it’s a COMPLICATED twisted TRIANGLE - grab a large mug of Hot Chocolate before reading!)….
1. David Bullard writes a less than complementary column about bloggers in the widely read Sunday Times
I am currently the Deputy Multimedia Editor at The Times, overseeing the production, development and utilisation of multimedia content on the site.
3. David Bullard launches his own blog
4. Gregor Rohrig AKA Groogle writes about the launch of David Bullard’s blog
Colin, David and I have been strategising and developing the idea of The Bullog since National Bullog Day. This blog is very special, firstly because it is David Bullard’s official blog, secondly because this is the first (and definitely not the last) blog powered by The Times , and thirdly because its content will (as expected) spark much discussion and debate.
Think of a snappy title and if we use it you win a bottle of fizz.
But Colin Daniels is also at the Sunday Times / Times!!! And as exposed in part 4 above….part of the Groogle / Bullog / youngBlood Blog triumvirate!
“youngBLOOD is the online moniker of Colin Daniels who is currently the New Media Strategy Manager at The Times as well as a host of other things…”
Who would ever have thought that the anti-blogosphere poster child, David Bullard, would be crowdsourcing on his very own blog not even 2 months after the highly publicised Bullardgate affair?!
In this case of brilliant irony, I doubt that Bullard is aware of the term or realises that by asking his readers to come up with a new name for his print column and offering a bottle of champers as a reward; he is effectively “crowdsourcingâ€â€¦
7. Eric Edelstein comments that he finds it amusing that David Bullard’s COLLEAGUE has written a sarcastic posting about David Bullard, and QUESTIONS whether Colin Daniel’s posting is an independent viewpoint, or staged to drive more traffic to the infamous Bullard.
8. First Vincent Maher RIPS into poor Eric…
First, Eric Edelstein’s post about the Sunday Times. ***** *****, what is that exactly??
9. Then Vincent Maher & Nic Haralambous feature Eric on their weekly M&G Podcast called Flamebait discussing how they didn’t understand the The Times Hypes Up The Sunday Times posting.
The podcast called Episode 2: Social networking for dead people, Facebook.co.za domain squatting and other linkbait can be downloaded here as an MP3, or add the podcast feed into your iTunes (much easier as you can then download the podcasts onto your computer)
9. Eric tries to be strong after the Flamebaiting and after a stimulating dinner with ANOTHER Sunday Times Journalist (& her interesting boyfriend), [TOTAL COINCIDENCE - I PROMISE] decides to dedicate the rest of his night to watching the Live Earth Concert (I should be in London watching - Look @ the lineup!!!), and creating a chronology of the Bullog Blog events…
…hoping that Vincent & Nic now GET IT.
Remember my theory of the whole bullard saga being staged?
Could this rival the JFK assassination mystery?
19 responses so far ↓
1 Colin Daniels // Jul 9, 2007 at 9:32 am
Eric I’ve got to say that I think it’s YOU that is missing the point and seem to be putting your foot further down your throat mate.
Quoting you:
“Colin Daniel AKA youngBlood links to David Bullard’s posting sarcasticly asking why David Bullard is crowdsourcing”
Besides the two typos in that hyperlink, my post was not intended to be “sarcastic” or clandestine and it was also not meant to drive traffic to Bullard’s blog. I was simply stating the obvious, the fact that Mr. Bullard is now a bona fide blogger, despite what he said about the blogosphere only two months earlier.
Finally, just as your investigative journalism post uncovered, I place a visible disclaimer on my blog stating who I am and who I work for, no hidden agenda or conspiracy there…
You have in fact tried to contact me on numerous occasions in order to establish contact with Mr. Bullard, why have you not made any mention of that? Surely, that would be the right thing to do?
P.S Please stop calling me “Colin Daniel”…
2 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 10:03 am
LOL - sorry Mr. Daniels
Last week I had pretty bad flu, and my throat was really sore (it was from the flu though *grin), but this week i’m feeling better - thank you for the concern…
typos being fixed now
NOTE TO EVERYONE - i sent Colin Daniels a facebook message asking him to forward to David Bullard (as David’s blogging prowess hasn’t moved to the Facebook phenomenon - YET…) - the message was to tell David that my suggestions for the renaming of his column (whether my suggestions were good or bad) were proper attempts @ trying to help him.
I think I sent him another message through Colin Daniels awhile back, but through 500 to 1000 emails a day and about 50 facebook messages a day, I honestly can’t recall what it was about.
3 Wezzo // Jul 9, 2007 at 10:44 am
“…hoping that Vincent & Nic now GET IT” - yeah I hope they GET IT ’cause I’m still struggling too.
Your previous post where you lambasted Colin you asked for a return in traffic by the tons: “Colin & David - now that I’ve driven a ton of traffic to both your websites, perhaps you’d be so kind as to return the favour so the TRAFFIC FLOWS to my 2 sites?”. Thats what I’m confused about, as are Vince and Nic. Begging for traffic? Not on.
4 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 10:52 am
I sure hope you are being facetious Wezzo and just wanted your link to appear on another blogsite (as I see comments appearing all over the place from you lately)…
5 Groogle // Jul 9, 2007 at 11:21 am
What They Don’t Want You to Know
In order to understand David Bullard’s Blog you need to realize that everything is controlled by a group of Johnncom employees made up of journalists with help from bloggers.
The conspiracy first started during Bullardgate in South Africa. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including the JFK assassination.
Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by their link-baiting.
They want to super poke Eric Edelstein and imprison resisters in Cape Town using I.P banning.
In order to prepare for this, we all must blog. Since the media is controlled by Colin Daniels we should get our information from bloggers…
6 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 11:31 am
Brilliant Gregor!!
So glad there are still people in South African who know how to enjoy life…
On a more serious note, do you know where Diana is?
7 Wezzo // Jul 9, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Wow! Yeah you got me, I really, really wanted to comment on another blog post for shits and giggles. Are you serious? Did you read my comments or just brush through them?
Eric, I enjoy reading your blog as do I enjoy reading many others. I have a bucked load of SA feeds I run through and comment one or two interesting posts… Or posts where the blogger in question is being a knob aka. flame/link baiting and needs to know that “its not the right thing to do” and “careful, credibility is on the line”.
8 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Wezzo - please contact me with your cell number and i’ll give you a call…
9 Vincent Maher // Jul 9, 2007 at 1:21 pm
This is not the first time this has happened. Remember I met you via this masterful piece of spam/linkbait. I remember that Mike Stopforth at the time was commended you for showing “respect for the SA blogosphere” for sending out linkbait spam. So see how others are spotting a pattern here. I stand by what I said - having a good point is the best way to attract quality traffic.
The fact that you don’t seem to read the comments on this blog before YOU TYPE BASICALLY ANYTHING in caps as a response is also a good enough indication for me of why this happened in the first place. It’s not personal, I just feel like sometimes everything you say is generated by a computer trying to be more SEO-optimal, at the expense of sense or grammar.
As for having a sense of humor, weren’t you the one who lost his sense of humor around about the time you started the ill-fated “third blog aggregator”? We’re trying to help you man, come back to the light.
10 anne // Jul 9, 2007 at 1:55 pm
hey eric - despite your agonising attempts to the contrary, i’m still trying to work out why anyone would care about this? but, like oprah, there are some things i know for sure:
(a) seo whoring is still not cool;
(b) any news about david bullard is old news;
(c) colin, gregor and the boys have never been anything less than upfront about what they’re doing, so, ask yourself: where is the conspiracy? and
(d) it’s never, ever a good idea to use more than one picture of oneself on one’s own blog.
11 Groogle // Jul 9, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Vincent - please contact Eric with your cell number and he’ll give you a call…
12 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Vincent - go have another read on http://ericedelstein.com/2007/07/03/the-times-hypes-up-the-sunday-times/
Thanks Wezzo for making me realise an extra line was necessary!!
And Vincent - making money on the Internet is not all about building up quality brands. (as much as we’d all love it to be about quality everytime, we’re not living in a Utopia)
There’s no 2nd market place here like there is in the States, and other than lack of cheap high speed broadband, I believe this is one of the major reasons why SA is so far behind the US. (I’ll put together some proper thoughts on this when I get some time to explain it more…)
So yes, I am TOTALLY against anything illegal, but if it’s grey, and people are clever enough to use it for their advantage, I might not do it myself because of my personal ethical code, but I have full respect for pushing the limits.
If black hat SEO guys are making great money overseas for knowing how to spam the engines full of links, then good for them. I’m not sure I would do black hat SEO, but if others want to, then good for them - and it’s up to the company (such as google, yahoo, or msn) to be able to adapt their algo’s to resolve this.
The Mobile-QandA thing was me playing around - if that bothered you then it’s better that you stick to the South African Internet playing field & don’t try take any business International…
…for now until South Africa becomes more like the USA!
My point - you come across as NAIVE in understanding how internet traffic REALLY moves from site to site around the world. Every example I can think of has different levels - the 100% pure traffic, the dodge traffic and the bulk comes from somewhere in between.
13 Groogle // Jul 9, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Vincent - please contact Eric with your cell number and he’ll give you a call…
14 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Anne - thanks for the chuckle while I enjoy my MOET over lunch
15 Chris M // Jul 9, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Eric, I want to make money online, how?
16 Vincent Maher // Jul 9, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Okay Eric, let’s have a look at your logic:
1. The “States” is the biggest market in the world
2. South Africa is probably “behind” because of our lack of broadband
3. Therefore we must respect someone who linkbaits
As a result of NOT UNDERSTANDING this point I am naive. It certainly does seem like you don’t not have missed THE POINT.
17 Eric // Jul 9, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Vincent - next time u’re in CT, call me. Will be fascinating having a face to face discussion / debate / argument on this topic.
I can forsee it being one where we’ll have to agreed to disagree!
Regarding your point number 3, please refer back to the original posting, and TRY understand that it wasn’t a link bait.
I was amused at how Colin Daniels was remarking on David’s Bullard’s blog strategy. (as he was one of the guys that came up with the strategy in the first place)
If I did do the posting just to get an extra 100 or 200 visitors to my website, then I would be the first to admit that I’m not as good at Internet Marketing as I think I am.
To be honest, I wouldn’t get out of bed and go to any amount of effort for such a small amount of additional traffic.
18 Vinny Lingham’s Blog » Blog Archive » Would you like some FaceBook with your coffee? // Jul 10, 2007 at 10:45 am
[...] and Facebook hasn’t even noticed yet! Not going to delve into this, but here are some other blogs about [...]
19 Dave Duarte // Jul 10, 2007 at 7:07 pm
This is quite possibly the funniest comment thread I’ve ever read! Guys, I was laughing out loud for real. Thanks:o)
Gregor in particular - legend!
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