Secrets of the City

Still $23 short of publishing.

Would we end up bidding against CP paying to not publish the story?

Isn’t this the old model for investigative journalism?

I agree that Ed’s piece on VV and Digging was solid, but the second one on Flickr attribution was significantly weaker. I need a more solid base of good reporting in the hopper before I’m throwing in my dollar.

Since money has come in, there appears to be a market here. How large is hard to say. If it doesn’t make it to $50, lesson learned.

Anonymous, I think one’s interest in photo theft probably varies based on their financial interest in the subject. That one got a lot of traction among photographers and has changed (but not entirely fixed) things on CityPages.com.

A similar model is used to select Senators in Illinois.

They seem to be deleting Ed’s comments from their own site.

If my PayPal account was set up right, I’d give a $1 toward seeing it. But something is wrong and it would take me too long to figure out how to fix it. I’m lazy like that.

Ed got the dough. Looks like he is going to go ahead and publish early. I’ll update the story when he does.

I am no lawyer but allowing someone to pay so that some percieved negative outcome is averted = extortion/blackmail.

I hope Ed bounced this one past a lawyer or two.

I am no lawyer but allowing someone to pay so that some percieved negative outcome is averted = extortion/blackmail.

or Fox News.

Its an interesting experiment in monetization…like DIGG with your wallet.

While I don’t condone some of the VVM tactics I think that this railroading is getting silly. The digital equivalent of throwing them to the lions. All the while the Romans (Ed’s visitors/myself included) chanting…kill, kill, KILL.

I wonder what made Maximus (Ed) so pissed?

Ed can be a bit of a linkbaiter. I suspect he isn’t pissed at City Pages so much as he is delighted by the traffic he gets for calling them out.

I will never get that sort of traffic for writing bawdy songs for a sailor puppet.

try throwing phonebooks, Max.

Let’s wait til we see the story to judge Ed. And, ryanol, do you have any dispute with what he’s done so far on CP other than he’s got more traffic? It’s original journalism, and a lot more that any other so-called media journalist in town has done lately. Should we fault any journalist who points out shady deals for selling more papers?

If y’all don’t pay a cumulative $50 for his next piece, God will call Ed Kohler home.

No Tom in fact I applaud Ed for both his investigative journalism and his openess to experiment with new forms of monetization.

I wasn’t really trying to judge Ed more reflecting on my own self motivations. These CP articles for me, are like watching a wreck…you don’t want to look but you can’t turn your head away either.

HAHA to grote. My grandpa use to send Oral Roberts money every week. Good old Oral. I wonder what ever happened to him.

The story is up:

http://www.thedeets.com/2009/02/17/how-citypages-ad-department-is-gaming-their-restaurant-reviews/

No offense to Ed, but a fool and his money are soon parted…

/says the cheap girl…

Meh. I didn’t think that City Pages/Digg article was all that important. Just because business people don’t understand how the internet works, doesn’t make VVM is to blame. See my comments in the thread about that if you want further explanation.

I have to give this a big meh as well…employees at small media sites, social or not contribute content.

The line is really blurry though…its the same thing I worry about with heavy table. Everybody is trying to capitalize on the social grid/conversation stream whatever you want to call it. Its real easy for someone to slip in a “hey you should check ouit so and so, the steak is great” tweet from a sponsor without properly disclosure…hell that might even be twitters business model.

Bixby, I love the universal nature of your dismissal. “Just because people don’t understand how _____ works, doesn’t mean ____ is to blame.”

Not gonna pay for Internet news unless it’s so unbelievably good that I can’t not pay for it.

People aren’t even willing to pay for online porn anymore– I don’t know why anyone thinks they’ll pay for news.

I think Ed’s experiment proved that people are willing to pay a little to support Ed. Is this sustainable? Who knows?

We’re talking about Ed’s experiment in our digital media area at WCCO. If I put 2 Good Question choices up there, would people pay a quarter to cast a vote for their favorite?

Ed, I love your placing blame on the City Pages without addressing the issues I brought up. In fact, did you address my point in the previous thread on this when I asked how this was a. The fault of the City Pages and b. unique? And calling my point a basic “dismissal” is quite dismissive of you. Why don’t you tell me why people not understanding how the internet works suddenly places a large amount of blame on City Pages.

I’m not following you, Brandi. If I read Ed’s piece right, a lot of CP marketers are providing glowing reviews of advertisers on a VM social media site without identifying a potential conflict of interest. Wouldn’t a large amount of blame for this then fall on CP, and, by extension, VVM, which Ed also blames?

Doesn’t vita.mn do somewhat the same thing? It’s not too hard to figure out which people work for the site, and when you click on the profile, they have their title on it… but there’s no flag in their username or in the actual review.

I would venture Metromix, and Yelp…hell I bet all of them do or did to gain traction.

Again I am with Bixby on this. It isn’t up to village voice media/city pages to show their readers/audience the mediums shortcomings.

If he really wants to test the waters, go write a bad review about a major sponsor and see if it gets pulled.

IMHO Ed is doing the internet a service, using VVM media as a case study to explore what is right and wrong about SMM or social media marketing.

If he really wants to monetize the content though. I think he would do better to aggregate it all as a white paper/case study, then give it away in exchange for signing up for a newsletter/rss feed.

Again I am with Bixby on this. It isn’t up to village voice media/city pages to show their readers/audience the mediums shortcomings.

Wow, have I got a nice car you should buy! Just don’t ask me what’s wrong with it, okay? I mean, I’m just selling it.

If I’m an advertiser spending thousands of dollars trying to improve my business, I would sure hope an account exec would have enough credibility to manage my budget in a way that benefits both of us … not just them. Isn’t the alternative called “fraud?”

Brandi, we’re not talking about how the internet works, or doesn’t. We’re talking about how journalism works. City Pages purports to be a journalistic organization. As such, it must rely on credibility. All Ed is pointing out is that the reviews on its site have no credibility because they’re done by the same people who sell the ads. It’s the same for their traffic numbers, artificially inflated by gaming Digg, and their very journalistic credibility for ripping off others’ work without giving credit. Part of what advertisers should(used to) buy at City Pages was that credibility. If they have none, they denigrate their product. It’s why some sites get a higher price for ads, because the ads are next to trusted content, and some sites get a very low price because the ads are next to generic jumbles of words. If your content is not credible, you’re just a link farm.

Adam Platt makes some good points about this subject: The methods are myriad, from stealing photos and stories off the ‘Net to use without credit, to “Digg”-ing its own blog posts to make them appear better read, to having its advertising staff anonymously comment to create the impression of a high volume of user “reviews” on a local entertainment site it owns. It’s all about creating the illusion of high relevance and popularity for advertisers and readers. It’s despicable.

Link Farms FTW, I guess.

Isn’t Platt an editor for the magazine that allows editorial reviews of restaurants whose chefs are contributing writers to the very same magazine? just sayin’

I’m just glad I hold no claims on being a journalist. I gave up any and all airs of professional integrity years ago. I got a family to feed.

Noodleman the VVM is a business, they aren’t there to hold hands with advertisers, sing them songs at night and get them a bottle when their hungry. They are out to make money.

Every transaction has pros and cons, it is up to each individual involved in said transaction to determine if what their receiving is worth what their giving.

As for credibility of reviews- if you haven’t learned how to filter out astroturfed reviews…yur doin it rong.

Also if you as a business aren’t actively “managing” your online reputation via third party review sites…you probably ought to start.

I know the SEO spammers who regularly post garbage to this site would probably make the case that they are just managing their reputation online by raising its profile in search engines. But if I ever meet one of them, I’ll squash them like a cockroach.

Just because so many people online have thrown ethics out the window doesn’t mean it is good business.

@ryanol: Remind me never to do any business with you. I wouldn’t trust a word that came out of your mouth since you would have only your own self-interest in mind. If you sell cars, I would never buy one from you. If you sell houses, I would never use you as a realtor. Etc., etc.

Of course, it’s a “buyer beware” world out there. But this is not the same thing!

This is a media company that not only artificially inflates its readership but passes off that readership as being valuable to a local advertiser! That is not the same thing as being aware that the peanut butter on the store shelf might be contaminated; it’s akin to being told that the vegetables at the farmer’s market are grown locally when, in fact, they’re trucked in from California.

That is called fraud. And it can be considered a crime if someone wished to prosecute.

And, anyway, caveat emptor is good advice for a purchaser, but a terrible philosophy for a seller.

@ Max link dropping in comments on nofollowed blog comment threads is about trying rank for the keyword term that they use as anchor text in the spam. Really that’s a whole different ball of wax. It’s a waste of time based on how much the Search engines have devalued comment links.

@noodleman, As a salesperson I wouldn’t lie to you if you asked me about a negative aspect, I may try and overcome your objection but I wouldn’t lie. That is however totally different from telling you all my products shortcomings. Also I agree that it is short sighted to sell someone something they don’t need or that won’t benefit them, in the long run if you want a long term relationship, you need to think of customers as partners.

I’ve bought and sold display advertising and guess what- it doesn’t come with any guarantees.

If I thought it would benefit my customer or I thought it would benefit me- I purchased/sold it.

If I/They didn’t I/They passed.

Once you have made the decision to purchase you evaluate based on some conversion factor, signups, purchases, ROI. If it doesn’t make the grade you cancel it…lesson learned.

Thats how media is bought and sold.

It’s a waste of time based on how much the Search engines have devalued comment links.

That’s beside the point. Even if it was not a waste of time, it still would be abusive and unethical.

Yeah it is, people selling those services are definitely scammers no different than email spammers, what VVM is doing…it’s a little greyer IMHO.

I think it’s only greyer because it’s online. If VVM were to publish on real paper a series of reviews of businesses that they sell, and a large percentage of the most flattering reviews were from ad reps and others in the sales staff, and there was no immediate way to distinguish them from non-salespeople, it would immediately be called out as unethical advertising. Or at least it should be.

I don’t know who this Ryanol character is but the next time a MNSpeak event occurs, I hope he shows up so that I can meeting him.

That is all.

I plan to gerund him.

Max can you prove that Heather doesn’t actually love Pizza Luce.

Its subjective, reviews are subjective. Yes they may be skewed,but I don’t think they need to necessarily be flagged as insincere or sponsored.

Would VVM benefit from a small badge on their profiles that states “staff” yes. I would assume that this is coming soon if not already done.

I’ve bought and sold display advertising and guess what- it doesn’t come with any guarantees.

Any businessman understands that basic concept, I’m sure.

However, if you sold a local restaurant a display ad and based your pitch to them about a presumed *local* readership (e.g. Eastside News, Southwest Journal) when, in fact, half your readership lives outside the metro — or is even non-existent to a not-so-little degree degree — then you are committing fraud.

I don’t understand why this concept eludes your frame of reference.

Max can you prove that Heather doesn’t actually love Pizza Luce.

It doesn’t matter. This is not a paid advertisement, it’s a sort of editorial. If I were to write a theater review of, say, the Off-Leash Area, even if I really, really loved whatever they were doing, I would have to state upfront and transparently what my relationship was with the company, and, honestly, it would probably be better that I simply not write about them, because my relationship with the company is colored by my experience.

That’s basic editorial ethics, and it’s not being followed here.

I think that the “Likeme” site is an attempt to move the conversation out of the editorial realm(citypages) and its implied ethics. Whether or not that is ethical I am not sure. But in the “likeme” realm of social review sites I don’t think its anything but par for the course.

It all depends on the “presumed” pitch. I haven’t experienced it in depth so I can’t say how it goes down. I can tell you that when evaluating display advertising online, you probably ought to ask for geotargeted stats. Ed’s post did a good job of bringing that to light for folks who didn’t already know.

By the way, it’s not just that heather may or may not love Pizza Luce. It’s also, as Ed pointed out, that they are simply cutting and pasting the company’s own promotional copy into their “reviews.” That doesn’t sound like an honest review from someone who coincidentally works for VVM, it sounds like shilling for a company.

But in the “likeme” realm of social review sites I don’t think its anything but par for the course.

The ethics don’t change, and, I can tell you from experience that this is the sort of thing that doesn’t go over very well online. People don’t participate in social communities because it’s a great place for pitchmen from businesses to sneak in and promote their products without transparency. They’re looking for honest interaction, and this seems far from honest.

@Max actually it sounds like a lazy person who doesn’t understand what they are being asked to do.

I am not arguing that they aren’t seeding content on the likeme site if not rather poorly.

I don’t really know what you’re arguing. That it’s not bad business?

It’s bad business. It’s bad for the Web. It will be bad for VVM, because either people will catch on early, as Ed did, and the site will lose users who don’t want to join a social forum only to discover that they are surrounded by ad people tossing up breathless prose about how wonderful their advertisers are. Or people will catch on later, after the community has actually grown, and will feel duped and furious.

The web demands more transparency, not less. And people catch on mighty quick.

And you seem to be suggesting that this is an accident. That all these ad people just decided to get on and make happy noises about businesses that just happen to pay their salaries. Maybe. I don’t believe it, but maybe. Nonetheless, because they weren’t transparent, there is no reason for us to assume that it was all just a happy coincidence. That’s why there are editorial ethics, and that’s why they do, in fact, translate to the online world. It makes certain nobody thinks something crooked is going on.

tara_r 04:24pm Feb 17   HAHA to grote. My grandpa use to send Oral Roberts money every week. Good old Oral. I wonder what ever happened to him.

I saw a 500 foot tall Steve Marsh in St Paul Minnesota!

I think that they were instructed to go on and write reviews so that the site wouldn’t look empty and could gain traction.

I also think that since they service some of these customers it stands to reckon that they may have utilized their services and had top of mind awareness when it came to which reviews to write.

They should have a staff badge, but don’t think they need to go as far as stating “sponsored review”

Is it bad business to populate your site: no I don’t think so..could it have been handled better-yes.

Bad for the web???

The web isn’t all popsicles and lollipops, its may have been created as tool for information but has morphed into one of the main commerce driving utilities of our age. Yes people are going to try and game it but that’s the nature of the beast folks.

The ethics don’t change, and, I can tell you from experience that this is the sort of thing that doesn’t go over very well online. People don’t participate in social communities because it’s a great place for pitchmen from businesses to sneak in and promote their products without transparency. They’re looking for honest interaction, and this seems far from honest.

What is the difference between this type of “advertising” and the Promo’s or free advertising on regular media local news casts.  They both Pretend to be interesting news with un- biased facts.  Ethics in journalism is dead.  It is all bout selling things.  This is one reason no one cares what the media has to say anymore and  are unable to sustain their market share.  The media is either trying to push an agenda,  a cause or  a product.  In the end they will always lie to promote their bottom line at any cost.

This is one reason no one cares what the media has to say anymore and are unable to sustain their market share.

Precisely. This is why it is bad for journalism, bad for the Web, and, ultimately, bad for sales.

The issue is that you’re not selling product. You’re selling to people. You have to get your product in front of the eyes of people who see a thousand ads per day. They are not going to be interested in going to a magazine that is nothing but one long series of ads, where even the editorial functions as advertising. They are not going to be interested in going to a television show that is one long promotion (unless they have some interest in the product, and know its an ad, as in infomercials). And they are not going to enjoy a social site made up of ad reps selling products.

It’s bad business. It’s bad for the Web. It will be bad for VVM, because either people will catch on early, as Ed did, and the site will lose users who don’t want to join a social forum only to discover that they are surrounded by ad people tossing up breathless prose about how wonderful their advertisers are.

Hear, hear. That is exactly what’s happening on Twitter. Too many of my recent “followers” are only there to pitch me their MLM schemes or worse. (Thankfully, I don’t have to read their tweets if I don’t follow them.)

I don’t mind the occasional “hey, look at what I’m doing” tweet but, sheesh, when the sum total of a Twitters’ timeline equals “Make Money Fast” or “Make Her Happy With You Chemically Engorged Penis,” well, then, chances are I’m not going to follow them.

“They are not going to be interested in going to a magazine that is nothing but one long series of ads”

Tell that to my wife and her Domino subscription.

I’m pretty sure Domino is going out of business.

Yep, Domino is folding.

http://www.wwd.com/media-news/domino-to-close-1953603?justin=1953603

Your wife might enjoy the new Village Voice Media. Me? I remember when the original Village Voice decided to do an insert on all the little electronics stores in Times Square. The ad people concocted this. And they begged the editorial department to do a selection of stories around these electronics stores, so they could sell them ads. And the editorial department agreed. But the editorial department discovered that these guys were mostly a bunch of crooks, selling defective merchadise for inflated prices and gouging their customers by doing things like making them buy the instruction manual separately.

So those are the stories that the editorial department ran.

And so there was a wall between editorial and advertising. And when someone in the editorial department recommended a show, or a product, or whatever, the readership knew they had not been bought, and that they could trust that recommendation.

That sort of trust is hard-earned, and worth a lot more than whatever flash-in-the-pan hits you can get by gaming Digg, or whatever else they are doing to try and drum up business.

LikeMe.net, by design, seems to percolate up the venues that are getting the most reviews, add to favorites, etc., so regardless of what people actually say in the reviews, the venues that are interacted with the most will be the ones that end up on the front page of CityPages.com and other prominent locations within the website.

So badge or no badge on profiles, the VVM team can easily make sure their clients are displayed ahead of excellent venues who don’t rely on CP advertising.

I don’t mind the occasional “hey, look at what I’m doing” tweet but, sheesh, when the sum total of a Twitters’ timeline equals “Make Money Fast” or “Make Her Happy With You Chemically Engorged Penis,” well, then, chances are I’m not going to follow them.

And I’m goingto guess they don’t need you to follow them. All they really need is to get you (and enough other people) to simply click that link once. And you’re probably going to do it to find out who the ‘ell they are.

@Tara sweet now if only i could get J.Crew to fold.

@ Max I think that running a print news rag is tough business. Look at the Rake. VVM is doing what they believe is necessary to survive. Yes they might be frying their golden egg…but thats their right, and I solute them for at least trying/experimenting. Sure their doing it wrong but their doing it and thats half the battle.

@ryanol, figuring out how much you can scam your advertisers, steal photos, and manipulate your visitors sure are some interesting experiments. I one-finger solute them.

You and I have a different attitude, ryanol. I don’t see violating editorial ethics as experimenting. Yes, it’s a hard world. Everything is harder now. That’s not an excuse to sacrifice ethical sales or editorial behavior under the guise of “experimenting.” Sure, maybe they’re in a grey area now. Grey areas are good places to steer clear of.

Is Lucky magazine still around?

I am against the stealing of photos Ed,

I’ve never been pitched their media so I don’t know whether or not they are misrepresenting information to advertisers.

As for the likeme.net I haven’t read the terms of use, but i assume that they probably can just sort reviews at the top as they seem fit…its their site. Whether or not visitors will put up with that is another issue entirely.

If I wrote the TOS I would leave it on the table.

Of course they can do what they like. They own the site. As long as they aren’t actively defrauding anybody, they’re free to do whatever they want. But I just get a whiff of a shabby attitude off all this stuff, like stuff like transparancy and creating a wall between adveristing and editorial and building a real readership, has ceased to be important there. Perhaps it hasn’t, but they haven’t been very forthcoming with firm mea culpas. Instead, they publicly appear to have an attitude of “well, let’s see how long we can get away with it.”

And, as City Pages used to be my home, that makes me a little sad.

Do you think its an industry wide problem or just isolated at VVM?

All they really need is to get you (and enough other people) to simply click that link once. And you’re probably going to do it to find out who the ‘ell they are.

I don’t have to click thru to their web site to find out who they are or what they’re selling. I can just look at what they’ve already tweeted … and leave it at that.

But I just get a whiff of a shabby attitude off all this stuff, like stuff like transparancy and creating a wall between adveristing and editorial and building a real readership, has ceased to be important there.

Part of it, too, is the general lackadaisical attitude in schools (even professional schools) that has developed along with the Internet, i.e. “oh, well, everyone else does it that way, why can’t I?”

Things like fact checking. My teacher friend says that it’s very frustrating for her to watch students to not put very much effort into being accurate.

Isn’t there some benefit to them getting you to even look at their tweet, or their status page?

I usually only get the “@xyz” is now following you” message. With no idea who @xyz is, you end up going to their status page.