Amateur Hour At PayPerPost

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1. Cortland Coleman
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

   “We…dug into the Metrics platform and regretfully found that it wasn’t what we were looking for right now.”

   Shouldn’t they have done this BEFORE making the deal?

   …just when some sort of momentum was building at PPP too.

2. Dave G.
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:04 pm

   That is some ugly stuff…I would hate to make/receive that phone call.

3. Andy Beard
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:05 pm

   Both PPP and Performancing are saying they decided the deal wasn’t right for them.

   That seems like a consensus with neither of the partners upset, so why put a different spin on it?

4. Dave G.
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

   ^ The deal could not have been worth much anyway…PPP has already spent most of their $3M bank account on chairs.

5. Michael Arrington
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

   Those are some really nice chairs, by the way.

6. Hasan Jafri
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

   PayPerPost’s payday wasn’t killed by the metrics, it was shot down by their mantra: Money! Money! Money! The big platform approach to harnessing web synergies for advertizing is falling flat on its face. Social networking worked because it was spontaneous, uncontrolled and free. Advertizing, with corporations mandating what bloggers post, is the opposite.

7. Michael Arrington
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:23 pm

   Andy - Performancing isn’t saying that this is mutual. Their side of the story suggests this was a clusterfuck.

8. Ted Murphy
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:33 pm

   We saw this a great opportunity for PayPerPost and Performancing’s members. It is unfortunate that it couldn’t come together.

   PayPerPost agreed to proceed with an accelerated acquisition process to help save the platform and the users utilizing it. The hosted version of Metrics was in danger of being shut down in mid December.

   http://performancing.com/node/5249

   The companies decided to make our announcement prior to close in order to calm the users that believed a shutdown was eminent given Performancing’s previous blog posts. An acquisition would have left the hosted application intact.

   I agree, in a typical deal you wouldn’t announce until close. We didn’t announce PayPerPost’s funding until well after the deal was done. However, this wasn’t a typical deal in any sense. Please note that our press release stated we had signed a letter of intent, not that the deal was closed.

   As far as amateur hour goes I believe the amateur thing to do would be to proceed with a deal that isn’t right for the stakeholders just because you made an announcement.

9. Ted Murphy
   

   January 4th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

   -Their side of the story suggests this was a clusterfuck.-

   Where does it say that?

10. Allen
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    Mike - don’t hate me but I disagree with your post… click my name for my full post but here is the jist…

    Both companies are saying they walked away - not just one side. Also, Nick has been talking with the Perf community for 3 or so months about going open source (i have been a perf member since the beginning).

    Would PPP really want 15,000 angry new members? Would Perf want to hurt their rep with the new ad network by pissing off those same 15,000 members?

    I think both companies did the right thing here. Win-win. And I think Nick is a very ethical person, even if his email replies are always very short

11. Dave G.
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

    Good comeback Ted…lol.

12. Ted Murphy
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    -PPP has already spent most of their $3M bank account on chairs.-

    Dave,
    I am happy to let you know that all of our chairs and furniture were purchased USED and there is still plenty of cash in the bank. I have built my previous companies off of their own profits, and purchasing nice used furniture cheap is one of the many ways I have found stretch a dollar while keeping employees happy.

13. Michael Arrington
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    Allen - ah, I see what Nick wrote. Sounds good. My information came from a phone call and was perhaps the less polished version.

14. Allen
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    Aah - thanks for the clarification.

15. Dave G.
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Ted -

    I watched you (rockstartup) ask a painter to get off of your $700 chairs (that were scattered throughout your new digs). I guess $700 chairs are cheap?

    I’m sitting on a $150 chair - until I watched your episode, I thought it was a thrown.

16. Dave G.
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:58 pm

    throne (sorry)

17. Ted Murphy
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 7:59 pm

    Dave - $700 new. It took me 6 weeks to locate enough used chairs for the whole office.

18. Dave G.
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    IMHO…maybe you should have put that much work/time into your due diligence…then we would not be talking about your chairs.

19. Michael Arrington
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    Ted - is 6 weeks of chair shopping a good use of your time, as CEO? I have a $90 chair from Ikea that kicks ass.

20. Michael Arrington
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

    and what Dave G said.

21. Scott Taylor
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    I see the comment board here is used for people to fight there case etc? Come on guys show some professionalism. Use email to talk with Mike, Ted.

22. Scott Taylor
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:07 pm

    And likewise.. lighten up on the Ted bashing…

23. Michael Arrington
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    we have our civilized conversations via email. this is good content.

24. Scott Taylor
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

    True, it does make for good reading

25. Dave G.
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:13 pm

    This is what (great) blogs are all about.

26. Ted Murphy
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

    LOL You guys are too much.

    This is like a house of mirrors for words.

    Yes, I spent my days going to flea markets, garage sales and auctions from all the “web 2.0″ companies who never made it to revenue generation. Come on…

    I worked with a company that specializes in used furniture. Perhaps I should have said “It took the company I hired 6 weeks…”. My apologies, it’s late in Florida.

    We also have a good deal of furniture from IKEA. IKEA does kick ass, but I have yet to sit in an IKEA chair that I would want to sit in for a full day.

27. Peanut Gallery
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:22 pm

    Wow. Quite frankly I’m shocked anyone still talks to you given the way you conduct yourself, Michael.

    A baseless observation on my part, but I figured I’d share all the same - seems like more and more you’re succumbing to the trap of believing one’s own press. I’m sure you think you’re the Big Man of Web2.0 (ugh), but I’ll go out on a limb and predict that if you keep on acting like an arrogant, unprofessional dickhead (sorry), you’re going to end up just like some of your current objects of scorn… regardless of how deserving they may or may not be.

    I have no idea who Ted Murphy is - maybe he drowns kittens for fun in his spare time, for all I know - but twisting his words and deriding him (or anyone else) in public is uncalled for at best and downright unkarmic at worst.

28. VC Dan
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:26 pm

    @Dave: It’s that due diligence work/time that actually drove this bit of news. Talk about chairs if you like, just keep talking…

    @Michael: I had the same question, but Ted’s a workaholic and knows how to build a productive, happy team — work hard, play hard. If kewl used chairs help make a happy team and they help make happy customers, then it’s a smart move. Don’t get me started on their monster flat panel monitors.

    I also noticed a ton of Ikea boxes the first day I met Ted…hey, maybe you two are just soulmates destined to drive controversy that benefits you both…

29. Jason
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    I agree, Ikea chairs do suck big time. I found some very comfy chairs at Costco though

30. Jason L. Baptiste
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    Shit happens with deals. Maybe it shouldn’t have been announced, but Ted is right, a minor PR problem or piss off the shareholders. I’ll take a minor PR problem any day before I piss my shareholders off. Whatever, I’m all about learning how to buy chairs for my startup. I’m going to start ChairFindR with tagging, google mapping of chair locations, and social networking for chair lovers. Mike you can have first dibs on the story for TechCrunch if you want. Yes, it is late here in Florida.

    -JLB
    Soon to be CEO of ChairFinder- Chairs 2.0… just kidding.

31. Michael Arrington
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:34 pm

    For those of you completely lost on the chair comments, watch this episode of RockStartup.com, where PayPerPost is chronicling their startup:

    http://www.rockstartup.com/episodes/episode_3.html

    The chairs make a cameo at around the 2 minute mark.

32. Ted Murphy
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:44 pm

    I am so in on ChairFinder. I am also in on ItalianSausageFinder if anyone has a line on some cheap yet high quality italian sausage. Does IKEA sell sausage? I know they sell hotdogs.

33. Jason L. Baptiste
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 8:55 pm

    It’s ChairFindR no -er, cmon, it has to be Web 2.0. Rumor is that Ikea will start selling sausage. Okay, maybe this is going a little bit overboard…

    -J

34. Dan
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 9:03 pm

    Mike - it seems that you take every and any opportunity to bash Ted and/or PayPerPost and the only thing that you are accomplishing is having people question your credibility.

    You really need to lay off.

    Oh, and before you start bashing me (the little guy that reads your blog) remember that it is the thousands of people like me that make your blog stats look good everyday which causes advertisers to want to advertise here.

    You better deflate the bubble before it pops.

35. matthew
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    i need to reiterate the value of a good chair. i have a cheap one and my ass hurts all day because of it. if i did have the money, i’d probably spend it on good italian sausage though…

36. Pud
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    Many of us at AdBrite sit on red exercise balls. They cost $19.95 from the sports store down the street.

    Though in the olden days I did sit on an Aeron, and they’re nice too.

    Pud
    Chairman (har har), AdBrite

37. Drama 2.0
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    I didn’t realize Draper Fisher Jurvetson was in the business of financing comedy. I truly hope that PayPerPost is really a front for a commentary about how nothing was learned in the first bubble.

38. Fred
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 9:25 pm

    Ted,

    I watched the video.

    You are a dick.

39. Josh
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 9:45 pm

    I think out of control would be an understatement.

    Im still laughing.

    Im guessing next week we’ll see ComedyCrunch added to the network.

40. random dick for joining in
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    the roof…. the roof…. the roof is on fire. Does PimpPerPost have a fire extinguisher?

    Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that this waste of time is entertainment.

    Dick in the Box is entertainment.

    1. cut a hole in the box…

    you know the rest.

41. salvj
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    Until watching that video, I thought Ted was the naked guy in bed Michael linked to in an earlier PPP post.

42. Andrew
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    PPP burn rate must be high as sh*t!

43. rice a roni
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:20 pm

    The best rockstartup still has gotta be Yelp. Ever been to one of their parties? WTF, they must cost millions of dollars each! $700 chairs aren’t shit when it comes to VC fueled decadence.

44. Kevin Burton
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    This company is SOOOOO doomed.

    If I were an investor I would ask for my money back.

    Can we add these guys to the deadpool?

45. Zoli Erdos
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:34 pm

    I thought “kicking ass” is the last thing you expect of a chair … aren’t they supossed to be comfy?

46. Zoli Erdos
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 10:35 pm

    opps, my chair (also aeron, bought used) just kicked my *ass, hence the typo above …

47. Tom
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Mike, what’s with the constant usage of their Christmasified logo? You make them look even sillier than they are.

48. Fashion Industry Ceo
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 11:21 pm

    this is very hilarious…a first on techcrunch

49. Peter
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 11:23 pm

    always seemed to me like Performancing should have been the folks criticized. in fact, they were - i’d stumble on blogs and they’d be half-bashing Performancing for selling them down the river. i couldn’t figure out why they didn’t come in for more criticism for that deal. eventually, performancing was probably like “screw it - we tried to screw our users, they didn’t like it - and in the end, if we look like a bunch of dopey amateurs who will sell their users down the river for the right place, then maybe that’s just what happened”.

50. rice a roni
    

    January 4th, 2007 at 11:33 pm

    > This company is SOOOOO doomed.

    This company was doomed just by its stupid NAME. the idea is stupid. If they called it PAYOLAperPost it at least would have been more honest. The investors were stupid. The guy running it at least was able to get funding for a totally dumb idea, give him credit for that.

51. Truckin
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 1:31 am

    Mike, have you seen the PPP truck?

    http://farm1.static.flickr.com.....fcc5_b.jpg
    http://farm1.static.flickr.com.....bce1_b.jpg

    Here is some info on the truck from MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6026041/

52. Aidan Henry
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 2:00 am

    Straight up… this company is run by clowns. I don’t understand their decision-making processes. Their strategies and choices lack simple judgment and I’d be embarassed to be associated with them.

    I simply despise this company. Their business model is corrupt and I do not support their efforts. I hope they plummet into bankruptcy or get sued ASAP, so we can stop hearing about all this BS.

    Cheers,
    Aidan

53. Stephen
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 4:43 am

    High School 2.0 returns!

54. Ravish
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 5:56 am

    Ted

    I hope your employees don’t read this blog. If they do, they will get to know you gave them used chairs. Which can make them unhappy. I sit on a $100 Durian chair and it is equally good. Our employees sit on $50-100 Durian chairs and they are happy. I seen that video of yours, you are not dick. Britt is hot and she definately needs a $700 chair.

    Anyways… jokes apart. I think it was a right decision to hold the deal at this time as it may not give the desired benifit to any of the companies.

    Your product will survive because your target audience want you. They do not get Notebooks from Microsoft, no latest gadgets from other companies not even $$$$$$ from advertisers. Your product motivate that little blogger to continue blogging.

    A post with disclosure is definately not evil. How about MFAs writing keyword stuffed content for search engine bots but not for humans? How is that justified? PPP sponsored post content is still human readable

55. Ravish
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 6:05 am

    PS. Please buy a new chair for Britt

56. Rajeev Vashisht
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 6:14 am

    WEll all this should be incorporated in the contract and a provision should be made for payment of damages in such eventualities.

    http://www.tekno-world.blogspot.com

57. CrunchBack
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 6:23 am

    I thought it was an amateur move when first announced on TechCrunch. See http://johntreadway.typepad.co....._payp.html

    You don’t announce a deal before you’ve done some level of due diligence with the teams and customers. DFJ should clean house over there.

58. Paul
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 6:39 am

    Ted,

    More company related stuff in RockStartup please. Thanks.

59. Jim Durbin
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 6:53 am

    I feel for Performancing - when I heard PPP was acquiring them, I pulled the advertising off all of my blogs (I had just started, so no big loss to them), but I wonder how many other people did the same.

    Currently, I just block out blogs with the PPP logo - I was about to do the same with Performancing - I wonder how many blogs and/or readers have done the same.

60. DewKnight
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 7:27 am

    Most of you people whoa re doing the bashing seem to have no idea why you really hate PayPerPost, you just hate them. You need to understand the company a little more, and how it all works before you can hate them.

    skittles rule

61. Janson
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 7:42 am

    WTF! This is the most assholic thing one company can do to another. Stupid of Performancing not to sign a binding agreement prior to the announcement.

62. Jay Adair
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 8:31 am

    Very amusing post and comments, thank-you for the light-hearted humour Ted & Michael Nothing wrong with Ikea desks though.

63. Deepak
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 8:49 am

    Sad all round actually. Poorly handled from the M&A perspective and the PR perspective. Not sure how this impacts PPP, but it hurts Performancing a lot and I liked their offerings.

64. Brandon
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 8:53 am

    I need a new chair actually, any advice from a chair seeking guru…Ted?

65. Mathew Ingram
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 8:59 am

    I am no friend of PayPerPost — although I think they have gotten better by requiring disclosure — but I think you are being overly negative to put it mildly Mike. Calling off mergers when it doesn’t look like there will be a good fit may not happen all the time, but it’s not unheard of either, and from what Ted says it was not a signed deal but a letter of intent. Signing one of those and then getting a good look at the assets and realizing they won’t work is nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s a little naieve to suggest that it is.

66. Samer Bazzi
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 10:01 am

    Does not seem doomed to me:

    http://www.alexa.com/data/deta.....erpost.com

    also, i am not a big fan or PPP, i actually don’t care what they do. I think that Michael and Ted should have a boxing match, lets see who will win and lets just solve this once and for all please!

    Anyway, good luck to both of them, obviously they have a BIG difference of opinion and it shows in all of the postings and replies about PPP.

67. Someone
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    I’ve worked for Ted in the past… he IS not someone I would ever want to work for ever ever again.

68. shadilac
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 10:34 am

    Did the web 2.0 blogging community finally hit saturation? Every blog I follow is getting more and more desperate and posting more and more crap. This community is getting less professional every day. I’m starting to get nostalgic for real journalists. Maybe it’s time for some consolidation.

69. Jacob Wyke
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 11:01 am

    Oh what a great set of comments. If people havent already, then you have to spend 5 minutes watching the joke that is rockstartup - it seems to be a cross between the apprentice, the real world and the office and is just plain terrible. I would not be impressed watching this if I were investing in PPP as they are pissing away money on anything and everything in the hope of looking cool, young and hip.

70. Jonathan
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 11:22 pm

    I don’t know how much a used Herman Miller chair is going to save you. You must have really good connections if you can a used one for less than $400

    The problem I have is that the bottom line is do you have a viable business model and how do you make your employees happy. Certainly a shiny new office with fingerprint scanner, a decked out cab, 24″ wide screen flat screen can make anyone happy, but it’s not going to make them want to stay at the office any longer than they have to.

    Who’s going to visit the office anyway? It’s a very niche market so why deck out a cab and drive it around town for show and tell? Do you really expect to pluck a blogger off the street who happens to see you drive your rig around?

    I hate to think what your employees think of your company after reading so much negative posts. It’s very demoralizing to say the least.

    This company reminds me of my former employer. They told me when we moved into our swanky all glass office on the top floor back east that it’s all about perceived value. They overshot their move in costs by 50K as they sunk a ton of dough on things that won’t make them any money. Heck, we had portable Teknion furniture with a team that comprised of 1 dev and 1 designer.

    You are setting yourself up for short term sprint and you are in long term, unless your goal is to flip the company in 1-2 years. Then go ahead, put on a show. I just hope no buyer isn’t dazzled by this cunning joke.

71. Aseem Behl
    

    January 5th, 2007 at 11:49 pm

    I don’t understand why everybody is bashing Ted and PayPerPost.

    Why do you call PayPerPost unethical? What is wrong with a sponsored post with a disclosure? I just don’t get it. PPP is keeping small bloggers motivated to continue blogging, it also helps them pay their blog hosting costs. IMHO it is going to help blogosphere grow instead.Michael Arrington just cannot understand that.

    Also it is clear from the Performancing and PPP blogs that the decision is mutual

72. robwatts
    

    January 6th, 2007 at 2:11 am

    >ppp livery trucks

    Thanks for those pics, I literally lol’ed

    Im with the anti bashing crowd, we can all theorise about ethics and motives until the cows come home, its a free economy full of people trying out new stuff, I dont see any real harm in that, the sky certainly isn’t falling in. Its the quality of the posts that will count, sometimes people use their feet to vote, if these ‘posties’ talk a lot of crap just to earn a little $ then they’ll lose readership and run their blogs into the ground.

    Hats off to this Bill and Ted chap for giving it a go at least - Looks like he is having an excellent adventure

73. The Drunk
    

    January 6th, 2007 at 6:31 am

    Pay Per Post is not unethical. It is simply different.

    Good quality chairs for a staff of professional sitters is an exceptionally good decision. It keeps people healthy and happy.

    It looks like PPP jumped the gun a little on getting the word out regarding the aquisition. They’re a young company who lives and dies on blogging - what would you expect them to do?

74. Shrikant Joshi
    

    January 8th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

    I think it had to do quite a lot with the member comments on Nick’s post about the PPP deal.

    Members denounced PPP and the deal left, right and centre.

    Hmm, lemme see:

    Ads on Blogs - GOOD
    Pay per Post - BAD

    Premium Content - GOOD
    Pay Per Post - BAD

    Community Reviews - GOOD
    Pay Per Post - BAD

    Summing it up, as long as you are not associated with explicit financial motives, whatever you do is ALWAYS good. That’s a thin red line, there.

    Weird sense of morality we have, eh?

    PS: I am not sure how many of you guys have noticed it, but suddenly the TC gang is jumping in and out of comments more often than it used to. What is it?

    A sudden fit of camarederie, guys?

75. DewKnight
    

    January 9th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    You said it perfectly Shrikant Joshi