June 26, 2007

More Drama For Jobster

Michael Arrington

26 comments »

Seattle-based Jobster has had a rough time over the last several months. They radically changed their business model and went through a round of layoffs. The company, and CEO Jason Goldberg, has faced criticism for all of these changes.

Now a new storm is brewing over a former employee, Jason Davis. Davis previously sold a recruiting blog to Jobster, and worked with the company for a while. He eventualy left, but apparently had a non-compete in place.

Davis may have violated that non-compete when he started a new blog, RecruitingBlogs.com. Jobster and Davis have been “discussing” the issue behind the scenes, but it all became public today when Jobster sent Davis a cease & desist letter (see here and here as well).

I’ve pinged Goldberg for his side of the story. His response is below.

Hi Mike.

I will make my only public comment on this here to you, as follows:

We at Jobster are actually big fans of the www.recruitingblogs.com website. It’s a great site and offers recruiters an online blogging community that can be very valuable.

Our issue is not with recruitingblogs.com, rather it is with the site’s founder, Jason Davis. Jason Davis sold the www.recruiting.com online recruiting blogging community website to Jobster a little over a year ago. Jason Davis stayed on to run www.recruiting.com until a few months ago – when his one-year contract with Jobster ended. We parted amicably and wish only the best for Jason Davis. As part of his departure from Jobster/recruiting.com, Jason agreed to a fairly standard non-compete.

Jason has now launched www.recruitingblogs.com.

As would be expected, we’ve asked Jason Davis to honor his contractual agreement with Jobster. We’ve also offered/suggested that there is probably a good way for us to work together going forward. When we spoke to Jason Davis last week, we offered for him to come up some ideas on how we might work together. We would like to work this out in a way that benefits everyone.

Today, Jason Davis decided to go public instead.

Our overarching intent at Jobster and with our Recruiting.com website remains to foster online community in the recruiting industry — the more the better. At the same time, Jobster needs to ensure that our employees and contractors uphold their commitments.

I am certain that we can and will arrive at a good outcome for everyone on this.

Jason Goldberg

I’m not familiar with the law in Washington on non compete agreements, but in California its pretty clear - if you sell your company to someone for stock, they’re enforceable. We’ll see how this develops.

Sphere It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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MN Headhunter/Nerd Search

June 27th, 2007 at 11:54 pm

nice

August 30th, 2007 at 3:53 pm

Jobing Buys LocalCareers.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Partners With Monster » article » Diggings

February 25th, 2008 at 7:34 am

Comments

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Adam Benayoun

June 26th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

I am a share holder in Jobster and the founder of Recruiting.com and I would love to see both of those entities succeed. My goal is not to mess with that.

From what i’ve read in his blog, it seems he sincerly doesnt want to hurt Jobster and Recruiting.com but on another hand if he didnt honor his non-compete agreement, he will need to make it up to jobster.

my 2 cents.
Allen

June 26th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Although I empathize with Jason here, I’m going to have to side with Jobster…a non-compete clause in a contract should never be violated. I am confident, however, that Jason will be just as successful in launching another “non-competitive” site soon after the dust settles.

Allen, CEO
Famesource.com - Claim your fame!
http://www.famesource.com
Jason Alba

June 26th, 2007 at 4:28 pm

I’m not sure what the non-compete is for (probably just between Jason and Jason and expensive attorneys), but I didn’t see recruiting.com and recruitingblogs.com as competing. They both have very distinct flavors, offerings, etc. Based on what I’ve seen from both, and what I know about “fairly standard non-competes” I’d have a hard time siding with Jobster on this one.

Unless, the non-compete completely precludes JD from anything in the recruiting social media space - obviously blogging, what about vidcasting, podcasting, etc.? Can he have a presence in SecondLife?

Finally, if the non-compete is enforceable, and JD is in the wrong, I would have to question Jobster’s intention with this space. I’ve wondered what real business purpose they have there, except to extend their brand to recruiters (ok, duh, that’s why they are there). But JD’s site isn’t the only distraction in this recruiting blog space, and if he is forced to shut down I have a feeling he will have a lot of his recruiting bloggers 100% supporting what he originally started.

This will be interesting to watch, I have met both Jason and Jason personally and, aside from having great first names (:p) I like them both.

Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
:: self-serve career management ::
bdb

June 26th, 2007 at 4:43 pm

Real quick question: How many people claim to be “the founder” of this site now owned by Jobster?
Craig

June 26th, 2007 at 5:05 pm

On a different topic.

Jobster model was flawed from the beginning. It was all hype to begin with. Here is why. You cannot add social networking elements with HR. HR do not want to see pictures. They will get sued like crazy for discrimination. For all those who wanted LinkedIn to include photos or social networking element (posted few days ago) on their site should look at jobster as Jobster was the mouse on this experiment and it is slowly dying. Companies are shying away from Jobster and sorry to be skeptical but I give Jobster 6 months to fold or even sooner.

I just can’t believe how experienced VC’s did not see this.
Recruiting Animal

June 26th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

bdb is right. Will the real founder of Recruiting.com please stand up. As I understand it, JayDee Jason Davis purchased the URL from Adam. He started Recruiting.com in August 2004. Anthony J Meaney and I became equal partners in the site (not the URL) in April 2005. I moved over to The in April 2006. Anthony J Meaney remained on board until he and JayDee sold out to Don JGo Jason Goldberg.
Recruiting Animal

June 26th, 2007 at 5:44 pm

By the way, this is the topic on The Recruiting Animal Radio Show Wednesday at noon Eastern Time.

My guest will be St Jimmy Durbin, a major contributor to Recruiting.com during its glory days.

To find the show, click my name above or go to http://www.recruitinganimalshow.com
Recruiting Headaches

June 26th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

@7: No offense meant, you endeavour seems valid and all, but after 30 large seconds I could no longer tolerate the tonality of it. It’s headache-inducing. When you have something I can listen to during a jogging stroll or an evening walk without wanting to rip the headphones off, pls. make it known.
Jim Durbin

June 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm

I was one of the writers who was with Recruiting.com when it was sold to Jobster, and it was my stories and e-mails that got this picked up.

My view is simple - I know all of the parties, and while I don’t have everyone’s story straight, I can tell you that Jason Davis is not competing with Jobster for anything.

He’s a tinkerer and an experimenter of the first order. He had recruiting blogs, first as an RSS feed, and then as a Ning community he built just to play with.

When his contract ended, he started tinkering with it more, and with the help of the current executive editor of Recruiting.com and other bloggers, who linked to him and said what a wonderful job he was doing, it took off.

No money is made from recruitingblogs.com. No services are sold. No advertisements. It’s a playground for recruiters, and most of it is driven by those recruiters, not Davis.

It is their site now, and for Jobster to say that Jason is breaking his non-compete is a big stretch.

Recruiting.com/Jobster should focus on improving their own site, seeing as they have the SEO, the traffic, the personnel, the money and the brand. And most important they should never send threatening letters to bloggers. I mean come on - what possible damages could recruitingblogs be doing to Jobster?

If Davis had joined ERE or SHRM or Monster, or a software company that competed with Jobster, they’d have a case, and I wouldn’t have written what I did. The real hassle is this isn’t helping the recruiting blogosphere grow and prosper.
HH!

June 26th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

Wow that letter sounded like a 1980 cassette
dave

June 26th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

dudes, jason davis is such a cool shit, and while others are crapping on jason, he’s also a very genuine dude…i do not honestly believe that jason means any harm by this, it sounds more like he’s trying to figure out what to do with himself and recruting related blogging is what he knows…

non compete aside, if jobster is really threatened by another wordpress installation or whatever it’s running on, and they’re wasting precious remaining dollars on this litigious endeavor, then they’ve got some bigger damned problems to contend with…

just my opinion,
dave
chief MoFo
http:www.passingnotes.com
…because everybody appears to be sticking site links in your comments now even thought the names are hyperlinked anyways..
dave

June 26th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

sorry, just had to come back to clarify - it’s running on NING! hah! is jobster really threatened by this? a private label ning site? come on man, get over it and pick up the real work and prevent jobster from dying on the vine!
rons dixon

June 26th, 2007 at 10:46 pm

We can say this and that all day, if you sign a “non compete”, that clearly stipulates that you can operate in that space, whether its social networking or otherwise, then that is exactly what it mean.

I dont know either of the parties, but Jobster has a right to ask him to honor his agreement. Since Jason is smart and a thinker, then he should take his creative juices into a different space. I see nothing wrong with that.

But come on dude man up. You cant have your cake and eat it. shutdown and honor your word. How about Jobster returning the favor ..
Gadgetize

June 26th, 2007 at 11:26 pm

‘Pinged’?. Ah, you mean you ‘contacted’ him, or you ‘emailed’ him? Mostly a pet peeve of mine for using new words when there are more accurate words already around– but, strictly speaking, a ping is simply a request for a response, period, not a response about anything. My curmudgeonly two cents.
Drama 2.0

June 27th, 2007 at 12:03 am

I can assure you that I was not involved with this, so I don’t understand the title of this post.
Maureen Sharib

June 27th, 2007 at 4:28 am

“As part of his departure from Jobster/recruiting.com, Jason agreed to a fairly standard non-compete.”

This may turn out to be a very interesting lesson. What is a “fairly standard non-compete”, anyway?

Maureen Sharib
pam claughton

June 27th, 2007 at 6:47 am

If Recruitingblogs.com is not generating any revenue, how could it be viewed as ‘competing’ with Jobster?

Seems like this is the worst kind of PR for a company that is already obviously struggling. To make this kind of a fuss over a tiny community of recruiting bloggers on a free Ning site. Doesn’t reflect well on them at all, especially since this community is also Jobster’s target audience. Partnering with Recruitingblogs.com would make far more sense than ordering its founder to cease and desist. Not a good business decision on Goldberg’s part at all.
Alex Rudloff

June 27th, 2007 at 6:54 am

Non-competes are really tough to enforce, especially when they’re designed to prevent someone from doing what it is that they do. You can’t tell an artist he’s no longer allowed to paint, etc.

On the other hand, it’s another recruiting site, so there might be enough to hold water. As others have pointed out though, comparing a free ning site to recruiting.com might be a stretch.
Restaurant Recruiter

June 27th, 2007 at 8:00 am

Jim Durbin is exactly right. It is hard to enforce a non-compete against someone who isn’t involved in a revenue generating activity.

This is just another indication of Jason Goldberg’s business immaturity. I can’t believe that he has real lawyers on is payroll who would give him advice that would include sending a cease and desist letter to a former employee who was doing nothing more than blogging.

Is it any wonder that Joel Cheeseman’s article about Jason Goldberg “killing Jobster” brought so many comments? Possibly the first time I made public comment about Goldberg was in my article “Will recruiters become extinct?” where I take Jason to task for not understanding the value proposition of recruiters. After he unceremoniously ended Jason Davis’s helmsmanship of Recruiting.com, I took him to task again in my article about John Sumser taking over the site.

My bet - recruitingblogs.com will last longer than Jobster, and eventually make more money.
Recruiting Fly Guy

June 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am

I’d be curious to read the actual language of the non-compete. Jason Davis has actually owned recruitingblogs.com before he went to work for Jobster/recruiting.com. In fact, the sites co-existed peacefully. JG had to know JD had this site online. Was there anything specific that said recruitingblogs.com? If so, why wasnt it taken down when JD first went to Jobster?
John Walker

June 27th, 2007 at 11:12 am

I am experimenting with a Ning network for building a talent pool for my company, I also have a presence on Jobster and to tell you the truth I get a better response from my own efforts and the candidates feel a more personal connection with our company.

Ning obviously has something going on that Jobster has missed. As a member of the Ning developer community I am seeing a lot of new recruiter networking sites going up.

I just wish Jason Davis the best in this situation. Ning is the thing!
John

June 27th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Proverb: If your product is weak, sue.
Jason Davis

June 28th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

Jobster and I amicably worked this out today. Thanks for covering it. You drove more traffic to my site than any other site ever. quite amazing.