![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Here's something I missed a while back. Apparently
mimbo, our friend Chris Williams, the CEO of FanLib, was posting to boards defending FanLib to critics without mentioning his affiliation to the company.
Chris' posts on the Lord of the Rings forum, Northern Kingdom.
Apparently he was (ever so politely, I love the Tolkien fans) caught. The members never knew he was the CEO, but they smiled as they noted he was repeating the company line.
I found it here, in a new article about FanLib Social Media and Communities: How Not To Approach Them
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Chris' posts on the Lord of the Rings forum, Northern Kingdom.
Apparently he was (ever so politely, I love the Tolkien fans) caught. The members never knew he was the CEO, but they smiled as they noted he was repeating the company line.
I found it here, in a new article about FanLib Social Media and Communities: How Not To Approach Them
oh, the stealth!
Date: 2007-06-21 07:47 pm (UTC)This man can't even be an ethically reponsible forum participant. And he wants people to trust him with their creative works? Riiiiight.
Re: oh, the stealth!
Date: 2007-06-21 08:33 pm (UTC)That article's pretty good, too. It picked up
no subject
Date: 2007-06-21 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-21 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-21 08:49 pm (UTC)Or at least, hand the money to a company with him as its main face and voice to the public. I could see if he were a techy who hung out in the back and banged out code or something, while someone who actually has come idea of how to deal with people did the smiling and talking. But as the CEO?? [headdesk] Jeez....
Angie
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:35 pm (UTC)I'm not sure that that money is really for the FanLib website. I strongly suspect that the venture capital is for the successful part of their venture -- the fanisodes and contests. They just lumped it all together in their announcement for the launch of the website.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:35 pm (UTC)And yeah, that's quite possible. Although they started doing the "fanisode" thing several years ago, so it'd be interesting to see just how the investment history goes. IIRC, the press release said that FanLib had three million in venture capital, but they've had the collaborative writing gig going longer than that. [ponder]
Angie
HAH a HAH a HAH.....NO.
Date: 2007-06-21 09:19 pm (UTC)That was a great article btw. Thanks for sharing. I wonder if Chris has any shame in his body. Do you think he whistles while he works, happily participating in polls where he praises himself (Liek, ZOMG I are awesome yay fanlib!) and not understanding he's a giant douchebucket (Hay guyz, THEY're totally cool, I checked them out myself, they rule! POST on there, I am! Now let's all go streaking together, chums!)
Or do you think he posts with shifty eyes, hoping no one can see through his master disguise?
Re: HAH a HAH a HAH.....NO.
Date: 2007-06-22 01:33 am (UTC)I'll bet he doesn't do that any more. I mean, he has to have learned his lesson by now.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 12:52 am (UTC)I still can't believe he calls himself 'mimbo'. Makes me laugh every time.
Mimbo: a male bimbo; an attractive but vacuous male. Seinfeld - "He's a male bimbo. He's a mimbo!"
I have no idea about the 'attractive' part, but judging by the way mimbo interacts with fandom, he has the 'vacuous' part down pat.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:43 pm (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 01:33 am (UTC)Further examples
Date: 2007-06-23 08:42 pm (UTC)Well, I can point you in the direction of Chris' Digg account http://digg.com/users/mimbo/news/submitted
Personally I don't think it's proper to be diggin' your own stuff, but if you do, you should at least disclose your relation to the stories. Failing a mention in the post itself, your profile should at least provide the necessary disclosure. Neither of which Chris does.
I'm pretty sure there was at least a couple other forums out there which had postings similar to that in the LotR forum. When writing my blog post I had some 2-dozen tabs open in Firefox with assorted examples of things FanLib has been doing wrong, but I'm afraid I parred back the number I included and didn't hang on to them. A few googles or technorati searches on 'mimbo fanlib' should be able to turn them up though.
Before I blogged the story, I passed it along as a listener comment to The Hobson and Holtz Report, a twice-weekly podcast on New Media as it relates to Public Relations. The show's hosts bumped it up to be one of their main items of discussion for show #245 (http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/index.php/weblog/the_hobson_holtz_report_podcast_245_may_31_2007/ ). Both hosts were fairly disgusted with the practices being put to use by FanLib.
---
Rob Clark
http://www.theelusivefish.com
Re: Further examples
Date: 2007-06-23 11:35 pm (UTC)The guys at FanLib are shady. I wonder if the diggers tore them apart....
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 11:07 pm (UTC)Ad for the Star Trek contest which it looks like he wrote himself (http://www.mania.com/55020.html) and also dugg himself (http://digg.com/users/mimbo/news/submitted). Couple other things on his digg account there too. One of them is an article about some sort of webisode contest where some horrible sounding plans to integrate MySpace profiles are described. Don't know why this never happened, but one theory is that MySpace wised up and blocked them the same way ff.net did.
Here's a podcast (http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/index.php/weblog/the_hobson_holtz_report_podcast_245_may_31_2007/) with a piece about FanLib, inspired by a comment from Rob. The whole podcast is an hour, but the FanLib stuff starts about 970 on the counter.
I've been saying it short for "library" all this time, rhymes with "vibe." Perhaps I am incorrect.
This (http://fanfic.meetup.com/cities/us/nj/woodbridge/506078/?ic=sn42) sounds like a good time, eh?
I can't tell if this is him or not, but it's a possibility that he thinks we should stop Sanjaya (http://stopsanjaya.blogspot.com/).
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 11:38 pm (UTC)They write their own ads? This could explain the ghastly Blue Guy.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 11:42 pm (UTC)Who knows, maybe he paid for the copy. It does have proper capitalization.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-24 03:41 am (UTC)Icarus