On another note, I’ m exasperated and annoyed at the blog spam I’ ve been receiving. Every day. I feel personally affronted, though I know I should not and all I can think is, what losers. Unsurprisingly, this spam falls into 3 categories: 1. Porn;…

Nuff said.

That said it is a little archaic to have people leave email addresses in the comments though. Why not have the two companies above each set you up a phone line for people to leave voicemails confirming their interest in your various TC promotions? Convert the voicemails to text and export to a database somewhere. You could compare the results and let everyone know which is the better service.

Perfect, non?

kai

First of all let me apologize for the subject line of the email that I had sent. I had never intended to infer that this was endorsed by TechCrunch. Looking back however I realize that my subject could have been misconstrued. We intended to convey that the email was coming to them because they had posted their email address on TechCrunch for a free trial. The correct subject line should have been “As seen in TechCrunch”

That said, I do feel that our offer was made in the genuine interest of providing a free trial of our product for people who are in the market for a voice transcription service. My team and I have worked very hard over the last 3 years in building an incredible product that we are very proud of. We simply want the same opportunity as Spinvox in sharing our product with TechCrunch readers.

I apologize to those who considered my email to be spam, however, as a entrepreneur it’s hard to apologize for acting on a opportunity to build my business.

James Siminoff

This got SimulScribe mentioned on TechCrunch which probably increased their visibility tremendously.

And that’s why they pulled this shit in the first place — sure it’s a bit of a SNAFU but when they look at all the free mentions / linkage / increased awareness of the SimulScribe brand name, you know that on some bottom line somewhere this will be considered a success.

“You hurt this company by bashing them on your site, when they may very well have a good product (maybe better than spinvox?). ”

Mike hurt this company? Are you serious? SimulScribe sent spam emails & mis-represented the email subject line by using Techcrunch’s name. I realize some who received the emails didn’t mind and I also realize some here think it isn’t a big deal. That doesn’t take away from the fact that Siminoff’s actions were unethical & shady. Anything negative that comes Simulscribes way is their own doing. To say Mike hurt this company is mis-placed blame. IMO, it’s another example of a CEO being so hell bent for success that he compromises ethical standards to achieve it. I applaud Arrington for calling them out.

Also, it’s very clear that at some point you’re background not being in technology is hurting you. The iphone post… your motorola q is too difficult to use? You must realize that for most of your readers configuring a phone to work properly is a joke, and everyone knows that if you have multiple awkward crashes, you go get a replacement, you don’t just keep it and continue to bitch endlessly about it. You seem like the “business guy” at engineering meetings who makes everything go twice as long because you have to explain how stuff works. And then he goes out and butchers the explanation to everyone else. Except your everyone else is the massive bunch of Techcrunch readers. Please learn about technology, and please be more considerate when you potentially have the future of people’s hard work and their products in your hands.

This is a disturbing move from the company…I suggest when you post about companies that do negative things you don’t include a hyperlink in the post…links from TechCrunch are valuable both in terms of pagerank and clickthroughs so you are helping them more than they deserve…just a thought. I realize they are getting publicity out of this stunt anyway but still don’t give them link-props for spamming!

-J

Seems I was right, as usual.

Speak-a-Blog Post
Jan. 18th, 2007 at 7:43 PM
This is Reginald Wally. I am a complete Wally for posting my email address in this public place. Thinking that it’s an answering machine. When in fact any fool can take my email address & start sending me spam or perhaps a lot of money if it’s venture capital. Don’t post your email address. Silly people.
Voice converted to text, Powered by SpinVox

http://simoncrowfoot.livejournal.com/60363.html

That doesn’t make it “right” if you are looking at it from an ethical perspective and I can see how people could be pissed off by it. When I received both offers it was clear what was going on. The subject line didn’t make me think that it was sponsored by Techcrunch. If it had and I thought they were trying to fool me I definitely would have been annoyed.

Translation: Anyone who disagrees with me is a corporate shill.

As for the guys at Simulscribe; they made a stupid choice yes, but was it malicious?… no! Just because “unsolicited email” sounds like the kind you get pushing random speculative stocks doesn’t qualify this as the same thing. It’s a letter addressed to you about something you publicly expressed interest in.

You put your email on one of the most trafficed blogs on the net, that’s not the smartest choice either and you’ll be lucky if simulscribe is all you get…

C’mon, life isn’t fair and neither is business, and forgive me if I don’t feel terribly bad for anyone who put their email address on a public website and ended up getting one piece of spam (which was relevant to what they wanted) from an entrepreneur who is apparently a little misguided and desperate for some business. If you’re lucky enough to live in a capitalist country such is par for the course. Now if he sells those emails to a bulk mail marketer then I’d be a little irritated, but thats the risk you took so until it happens consider yourselves lucky.

How about this:
If a goalie leaves the goal unattended and the opposing team scores a point, would you get mad at the guy who took the easy shot or the guy who left the goal open?

ehh maybe not the best analogy… haha

/end rant (-_-)

TechCrunch, by which I mean Michael Arrington, should probably learn how marketing and competition works - I think he’s been on the other side of field too long and has let his status get to him a bit. By the summary at the bottom of it, I’m mostly surprised that a *third* competiter (and I bet there are more) entering the field is being posted. Slow news day, or perhaps Arrington doesn’t realise “I’ve been **lucky enough** to be using Spinvox to convert voicemails to SMS text messages since December” is the same as “I’ve been bought off cheaply”? I really don’t expect more from TechCrunch, given as most of its articles are probably filtered press releases and that’s why we come here (and more so, because the site reached a critical mass to be useful comment-wise), but the above posturing is disgusting or betrays an astounding naivete on both Arrington and many of the commenters above.

No, I’m not involved with any of the groups involved, but I have worked at a broadcasting company where we were cognizant of what marketers told us, how competition works, and the impact of our statements. Additionally, we didn’t blame our mistakes on others nor demeaned the community we depended on - we instead provided compensation and made sure our mistakes were not repeated.

Please send me an invitation. My email address is billg@microsoft.com.

Sincerely,

Drama 2.0