Stuart Jones wrote me asking if I mind if he posted a question over at AccountingWEB. This related to a post where I talked about a quick and dirty app that provides some simple Q&A capability. Wow – do I mind? They get 800K page views per month. Me? 10K. Anyway – Stuart did his thing. He suggested going to check out the app which is hosted goodness knows where but not at my place.
A number of people saw the AccWEB story and one asked: “Is it any better than what’s here?” I saw that and said something along the lines: “Go see for yourself and remember this might be something you could use to engage with your clients.” Within I’d say 2 minutes, the entire thread was hosed. Here’s the dead link.
OK – what’s happening? I know these guys – heck their tech editor does a weekly podcast with me for chrissakes. I’ve know him 10+ years, we have no beef and have always enjoyed solid professional relationships. Heck – he wants to know more about what Sig’s doing. I gave the founder oxygen in the ‘good ol’ days’ – maybe 10 years ago – in Information Week – I like Ben.
I fired off emails and received a response from the editor which was factually incorrect on EVERY ONE of the points raised.. But here’s the crux: “We don’t allow self promotion – It’s not in our commercial interests to send people away from our site.”
Who was doing the self-promotion? no-one. A practitioner was merely trying to test an idea among a larger audience. I added explanation with a link to my place which went into more detail about the idea. So it’s not me that gets screwed by this. The idea’s still out there and ain’t going away. And it’s totally free. It’s Stuart – AccWEB’s own reader and contributor who gets screwed in this. As does the reader who wanted to know about the app. That sucks.
And I’m saying all of this as a PAID contributor to AccWEB on an article for which I’m on deadline around about the time many of you read this. It won’t prevent me honouring my commitment, which by the way will be the first time I’ve earned a penny in 10 years of contributing to AccWEB.
The elephant has seen the mouse methinks today. What say you?
