Reading What You Seek to Criticize
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | November 14, 2006 | Share This
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Last Thursday I did a roundup post of search engine news, including a note about Eric Schmidt’s denial of the Google/YouTube collusion rumors. On Friday, Mitch Ratcliffe, a blogger for ZDNet, posted an interesting response,
“The folks at SearchViews, which is a blog run by RepriseMedia, a company that makes a business of optimizing Google and Overture results, are not in a position to dispatch questions without revealing their own conflicts of interest. In order for me to blow Mark Cuban’s rumors “out of proportion” you’d think it would have been necessary for Cuban to publish first. Not to mention that I would have had to be writing about the same thing. On neither count is the charge accurate. Cuban posted his assertions of collusion on October 30 where I published on October 19. Somehow, I managed to take his ideas and expand on them 11 days before he published… More to the point, the linking of my posting to Cuban’s is erroneous and self-serving, not to mention just plain full of crap because it seems calculated to ingratiate RepriseMedia to Google. Hey, SearchViews, you should correct and retract your posting. At least, you should try reading what you seek to criticize, though in this case the posting doesn’t rise to the level of criticism.”
You can read the entire rant here. Needless to say, I felt Ratcliffe would appreciate a response. Thus, I’d like to begin by saying,
Mr. Ratcliffe, I recognize that you would like credit for being the first to call the deal collusion. You are correct in pointing out that your post is technically earlier than Mark Cuban’s. My bad, consider credit given. However, I don’t believe that it changes my inherent points that,
a) Mark Cuban’s post was picked up by several major blog sources who were too quick, in my opinion, to take his anonymous source as verifiable (especially considering Cuban’s overtly biased position on the deal). For example, note story coverage by PVR Wire, Search Engine Watch, Frank Barnako, Techmeme, and Clickety Clack Online Ad Blog.
b) Ratcliffe’s own assessment of collusion was also overly speculative, based on his quick assumptions from a vague passage in the New York Times. Ratcliffe, however, did seem to recognize this by linking to a follow up by PaidContent.org that clarifies some details on the YouTube deal.
These points are not as important, however, as responding to another of Ratcliffe’s unwarranted accusations:
“the linking of my posting to Cuban’s is erroneous and self-serving, not to mention just plain full of crap because it seems calculated to ingratiate RepriseMedia to Google.”
If nothing else, a comment as boneheaded as this shows that Ratcliffe doesn’t understand a search marketer’s business model. But, I’m glad to take this opportunity to clarify the role of Searchviews in relation to Reprise Media. Searchviews is a blog representing independent voices from within the company, that do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Reprise Media as a whole. We highly value that independence because it gives Searchviews liberty to write unbiased commentary on search news - including criticisms of the engines. As an independent blog, Searchviews doesn’t have anything to gain from “ingratiating” with Google - except maybe a link from the Google blog. Sure, we’ll take that.
In case this doesn’t satisfy Ratcliffe, here are a few of the many less-than-ingratiating reviews we’ve done on Google in the past:
On Google’s love of money
On Google’s shady traffic distribution model
On Google being creepy
On Google’s poor quality Book Search
On Google Checkout’s long lines
On Google’s little bits of evil
And in the meantime, I’ve removed my original link to his post, but maintain criticism of Ratcliffe’s overblown assumptions. Finally, regarding his defametory remarks about Searchviews - Hey ZDNet, you should correct and retract Ratcliffe’s posting. At least, you should try reading what he seeks to criticize…
UPDATE: Ratcliffe had more…ahem..interesting words in response to our response, which you can read here. Then, check out our response to his response to our response, in a comment to his post here.
Topics: Blogging |