Jack of All Blogs » Useless Reading

Shiny Trends/Shiny Digital/Shiny Media hits ultimate level of ridicule

waldorf — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:33:39 +0000

If before we weren’t interested at all by Shiny Media things have changed over the last weeks. Let’s be honest, why would us cowboys and muppets have bothered to follow a bunch of (not so) hot geek chicks and gadget bloggers who brought nothing to the party but occasionally were quoted in teh local UK press? Indeed, I couldn’t think of any reason to read those sites either.

But life changes and Shiny Media went in administration. Less than 2 months after new blogger gigs were available and only weeks after new editors were announced. Ever since then the blogosphere has been following Chris Price and his team. Much has been written since then and the network made a return as Shiny Trends.

Leaving aside the whole debacle with no communication with former freelancers and editors, certainly no form of financial remuneration for ex-staffers, Shiny Trends in itself is an interesting engine. Mainly operated from its Twitter account which reads as a perfect comedy show.

Today alone we had the pleasure to read following tweets with A-class comedy value.

Obviously the rumour mill is turning on full speed and a little, trust worthy birdies told us that there has been an operation of around £50,000 to reboot the network in a so-called Phoenix pre-package. Here at JOAB we will not bother investigating all these rumours because they certainly are funnier when launched by other people and there is absolutely no truth about them. But our colleague and former JOAB author, Franky was in touch with Chris Price for another tweet.

When following the bit.ly shorturl http://bit.ly/f6aeg we are greeted with a story from 09 July 2009 at the Shiny Media site.

This post (click the image for full size screencap) was written less than 2 weeks before Shiny Media went in to administration. Money quote:

They would also need to commit to paying ex-Shiny Media staff and freelancers what they’re owed until the debt is fully paid off. Don’t worry you’ll get it back, honest guv (that’s what we told them).

One can only think this post has been backdated today by Chris and the boys Price and (Ashley) Norris are having lots of fun. But who would want to work/write for them? I certainly wouldn’t. Even not if they would actually pay.

Update: The pi$$ take level becomes apparent when checking Google’s cache for said ‘Finance blogger’ entry (again click for larger version of screencap).

Another Twitter account, @Shinydigital is also maintained and communicates regularly with @shinytrends. Interesting fact here is that Shiny Digital Ltd. was registered with Companies House on 16.07.2009, one day before Shiny Media went administration.

#140chars: The advantages of being an A-Lister in 140 characters or less

waldorf — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:47:37 +0000

Ever since the creation of tinternet our society has seen an influx of so-called A-Listers, basically people no-one cares about or would care about, but who managed it to crave out a little corner of fame.
C.K. Sample III is one of those. According to his about page he is Director of Content Marketing for a company and Editor for another company. Previously he enjoyed to crave his fame corner as left, right and 2-ply toilet paper boy for Twitter and BS blowhard Calacanis. Not standing in the shadow of JC and hence spotlights, days for webreties like CKSIII must be hard and any trick will be allowed to show, tell us how important they are. Just like CK’s tweet about having the latest, all over the web reported, gadget since several weeks already. We here at JOAB *yawns*, CK finds it important to share with us in 140 characters or less:

trying to figure out why all the gadget blogs are re-reporting iStubz cables http://bit.ly/rBHQk I’ve had one of these for over a month

Valleywag editor worth $1.50. That’s how Denton makes money.

waldorf — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:12:48 +0000

I can not imagine that it will surprise you when if I told you that I used to be a big and loyal Valleywag reader. The original Nick Douglas and afterwards Nick Denton Valleywag was funny. Until a certain Owen Thomas took over the site and things went downhill. Snark became *yawns* and jokes were only insidery anymore. No full-on attacks.

Nowadays Valleywag is your Twitterwatch maintained by Ryan Tate. Today editor of the former snark blog revealed his post value: $1.50.

At least according to Sponsored Tweets by IZEA. That is true, for only $1.50 you can now also hire a Valleywag editor and make them write for you. 140 characters, disclosure inclusive.

Valleywag Emeritus Nick Douglas is smarter, he makes you write 140 characters all while he cashes in. That is why the original Valleywag was better: smarter and snarkier people ran the site.

Women to manage blog networks FTW!

waldorf — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:36:08 +0000

Regular JOAB contributor Andrew G. Rosen reported over at the Blog Herald the findins of a survey by SAHM and Mommyblog network BlogHer.

The conclusion of said survey is rather simple.

Blogmums to run JOAB!

Wait, let’s try that again.

Blogmums and SAHM to run JOAB FTW!

Much better already.

The reason why we come to this conclusion is because ~~SAHM~~ ~~mommy bloggers~~ women seem to have less problems with accepting free gifts to review, than most bloggically correct Probloggers do.

98 percent of surveyed bloggers believe it is acceptable to receive a free product

I think after the identity crisis I fell in yesterday I will just return as a female Jack and grab all the free shit I can get. If I am really happy and go through a great period I might even review everything. Disclosure though, who cares!

Another one bites the dust. RIP JOAB 1.0

waldorf — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:28:34 +0000

With the announcement that JOAB beloved Jeremy Wright stepped down at B5Media we are sad to report that good ol’fashioned Jack of All Blogs died in the same breath.

Back in the days JOAB was snark blog par excellence, mainly excelling in it’s offensive style. Ran and edited by a snark master who we rather prefer to ignare and totally blank nowadays, JOAB was feared and every problogger or A-lister in the ‘about blogging’ scene became the victim. But times have changed and all these bloggers have become a snorefest. With Jeremy’s change in position the last of the failbloggers has died and taken down Jack of All Blogs at the same time.
Before I dive in to an identity crisis after yesterday’s event, I would love to thank JOAB’s preferred victims.

Scrivs and Mike Rundle.

Jack of All Blogs indirect being a creation of Paul Scrivens and his Fine Fools network we have to thank Scrivs for good fun times and much laughter on New Year’s Day 2007. Never mind that Splashpress acquired the Wisdump less than half a year later.

Foot-in-the-mouth-blogger par excellence, Mike Rundle always was omni-present in JOAB comments, often trying to return how much JOAB would love to be a member of 9rules. Mike we love, you. If not for your witty comments, for your funny banter in the B5Media – 9rules war.

Sadly both Rundle and Scrivs have retired in boredom.

Matt Craven

Being a friend of the original JOAB editor, Matt Craven always was good sport and often first to comment on rumours, snark. Matt is a great personality and was an awesome Blog Herald owner/editor. Sadly he seems to have retired in to WoW. I wonder if he’s looking forward to have Twitter stations in WoW or the next Elder Scrolls.

Jeremy Wright

Main culprit of the death of JOAB1.0, Jeremy Wright was maybe our favourite commenter here at JOAB. Always the first one to hit out at Scrivs and Rundle, stirring the fire in the comments and making sure we had many a great day. Often we had more fun in the commentfire between Rundle/Scrivs, Craven and Wright.
Rumour goes that Wright used to send internal emails about JOAB entries to B5Media contributors and channel editors.

Wright now has become a member of the B5Media board. We think he should become a consultant of Splashpress Media as well… and ghost contributor to JOAB.

Matt Mullenweg

Matt, sadly you have never been enough on the JOAB radar, but we recognize that you have matured admirably over the last years and now even would not want to have you on our snark attack radar anymore. Please create some more controversy as we really do not want to start reading Om Malik’s snorefest.

Franky

Last but not least there’s Franky. Nowadays he is Assistant Editor in Chief at Splashpress Media. Ever since he started writing here at JOAB his aggressiveness has gone downhill as weeks passed. Once shit-stirrer par excellence he then took over Wisdump from his idol Scrivs and since then things have gone downhill to say the least. Rumour goes he even doesn’t believe in snark anymore. We bet he must have a LiveJournal blog now or writes on MySpace. Or maybe he works for LiveUniverse and maintains train-wreck BlogExplosion. Probably the blogger’s union deal has gone to his head.

RIP JOAB1.0

Dear Jack of All Blogs V1, it was an awesome ride and we certainly will miss you. Feelings are split, divided between ‘how can we revive the old snark and offense tradition’ and ‘This is it, I’m having an identity crisis’.

Thank you for all the fun we had… and stop whining now. Arrington and Riley are still posting! Get in there!

Photo credit: Mike Abundo.