Written on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 6:10am by Alan Bedenko | 25 Comments
Everything's Easier in Flowchart Form
Originally from the New York Times, HT Richard Florida’s Creative Class Blog.
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higher education is grossly overrated in this country. it tends to produce ninnies who can say they have degrees yet are ignorant to the point they believe complex demographics can be encapsuled in one-issue flow charts.
obama takes 90 percent of the black vote, for example. what is the educational level of blacks who vote for obama?
perhaps a better gauge would result from having everyone tested for i.q. then we could find out how many college graduates would be stupid enough to believe that a photo clipped from a supermarket tabloid and posted on a gossipy “news” web site “must have” been planted there by the clinton campaign.
Yes, it’s much better to abuse heroin, cocaine, countless other drugs, and spend adulthood stumbling around in an alcoholic fog dying for attention to be paid to a short lived and mediocre punk rock career.
Who needs college when you’re a drugged out, bitter, old misanthrope?
and yet, somehow i manage to make money every week doing media, chris. my newspaper makes money, my books make money, my cd’s make money and, yes, even my web site turns a tidy profit. enitrely unlike wnymedia, a vanity project not unlike the high school key club.
see chris, that’s what i mean. apparently, they neglected to tell you in college that, when you start a business, it’s supposed to…..
oh, never mind.
I didn’t know you had access to our tax records and accounting documents, you seem to be quite familiar with the details of our business. Also, think as you will. A couple of people pay their mortgage and bills off of this “vanity project”, we’re doing just fine thanks.
Don’t you have a 10AM meeting with a barstool somewhere?
so you’re making money with wnymedia chris? is that what you’re saying?
Yes, as if it’s any of your business.
how many full-time employees, chris? how many part time? do they have health care benefits?
it’s not the same as making money if your staff is a bunch of dilettante amateurs so thrilled to see their names on their computers that they donate their labor. in that context, the guy who picks bottles and cans out of the garbage cans behind my house is “making money” because he’s investing nothing but his own time.
an internet hookup costs $500 a year so, what’s your gross, like $501?
and how much of that money you allegedly make comes from the obama campaign?
forgot to mention the powers campaign as well. “your ad here” is lifted right off of illuzzi’s site.
Powers didn’t pay for an ad placement, Alan put it up because he supports him. No quid pro quo.
I take it that due to your intense level of interest in our financials, you’d like to invest? If so, we’ll pass on having a drug addled megalomaniac on board, thanks.
Chris Smith, you are a riot. At 10am you’re on buffalo rising going on and on about some kind of secret corporate chicanery behind a site that randomizes fucking lunches and, while doing that, implying that you have some knowledge and/or business with any of the entities over there and then Hudson calls out this hobby site for being just that as you say “as if it’s any of your business.”
Seriously?
I would think it’s hard work being such an inconsistent asshole. I’m surprised you have time to plug servers in.
And of course Powers didn’t pay for an ad on this site – no one has ever paid for an ad on this site. Businesses have revenue and costs and paid employees – i suspect wnymedia has only the costs part of this equation.
You can rail on Hudson all you like but the guy has created things – music, a real media publication that generates real revenue which pays real people real wages. Creating shit is the hallmark of an entrepreneur; it’s what they do. You carry on and on about shit on this site and others but at the end of the day, you’re just another employee at a large-ass tech company. Before Hudson, his band didn’t exist and his paper didn’t exist. Before you, Sun did exist. For a guy with no resume to speak of, you should speak more politely to the few people in this region who have done something.
Now, I know you’re defense – Bedenko hasn’t actual created anything either. No jobs, just lost $ on a go-nowhere campaign and some billable hours. To that, I have no response.
John and Mike, whaddaya think of the flowchart, eh?
For the record, JohnMartin on this thread is the same person as “Media Watcher”, which means I know exactly who it is.
You’re right. I haven’t created anything. Nothing whatsoever. Of course, I’ve never pretended to.
Why did Barry steal my company from me? Why did I sign up to do business with loan sharks? Why do they make me work out of a coffee shop while I start a new business and attempt to salvage my dignity? Why do I keep contributing articles to a site owned by people who treated me like a prison pincushion? Why does it come as a suprise to these clowns that half the Elmwood Village knows they kicked me out on my ass?
Yay! Another internet slapfight between BRO and WNYM.
Brett/Barry/Whomever…
This online battle between Hudson and I has been going on for months, don’t hop into the middle of it now. We’ve been insulting one another on a near daily basis for quite some time. My rule for these types of things is to not type something I wouldn’t say to the person if we were in the same room. I would absolutely say what I wrote here to Mike if we were face to face. Sure, it might get ugly, but I own what I write here.
On to the topic at hand. I hardly claimed that there was any “secret corporate chicanery” going on with your lunch randomizer. As I explained on your site, during an IM conversation with a friend, we discussed that we liked the site and thought it was a cool idea. He wondered who built the site because it was much more functional than foupons. It took all of 30 seconds to look it up and I found it registered to Barry, which I thought curious. I queried on your site why you wouldn’t simply say that it was a product put forth by the owner of HLM/BRO instead of pretending it was some cool new product by an unconnected group of developers. You overreacted with a thirty line tirade and now here we are. The funny part is that the WNYM crew liked the site and Alan even put it as a fixture on his site.
The management change that I mentioned on your pages had to do with Geo leaving the company and moving back to Cali to startup Blowtorch, which is hardly a fucking secret. I have discussed it with him directly. I’m not implying anything other than what is common knowledge to anyone who is tangentially familiar with BRO. Hardly a claim that there is some sort of chicanery going on.
As to my response to Hudson’s queries about our business and revenue, I hardly feel that the revenue we generate through our business is something that should be discussed as a matter of public comment on a blog. If someone wants to know our financial situation and our business plan, we ask that they sign an NDA and demonstrate the capacity to invest in our privately held company. Pretty standard business practice.
Is this site a hobby? Well, for most of our writers, it is. So, Hudson is correct in that assumption and I have never claimed that the website serves as the primary means of revenue recognition for our company (Convergence Media). We are a film, video, and TV production company that has a website which generates traffic and buzz for our multiple lines of business.
In the past year, we have signed multiple contracts with public authorities, government agencies, and private companies to provide video production services, streaming media, broadcast content, virtual meeting space, and we also filmed a couple of documentaries. If you’d like to think that for some reason we simply do all of this as a hobby, well, you’re free to do so.
As to size of my profit margin, salaries paid to employees and contractors, health benefit plans, or anything further…that’s our business. My response to Mike that it was none of his business stands as written. It is not inconsistent with the goings on at BRO at 10AM as I don’t believe I asked you to hand over your corporate balance sheets or openly discuss the inner workings of your financials. I did claim that for you to pretend that three companies which share office space and are owned/managed by the same person are separate in some way is a bit disingenuous, which it is. Don’t like it? Eat a dick.
As to whether or not I create or have created anything, you’re not very familiar with my resume. Sure, I currently work for Sun, but I have a litany of previous work experience and creative work that stands on its own. I’ve been in business for myself in various incarnations for quite some time. If you’d like to learn more about me, you can just shoot me an email and ask. Of course, you won’t do that, you’ll just act like a petulant dickbag and we’ll keep trading insults while you claim to be above it.
In the end, this site is whatever you want it to be. Odien started it in 2004 as a way to report stories and discuss stuff that he wasn’t covering at Channel 2. He was one of the first people to get started with online news, web video, and podcasts in WNY. Over time, he found people who were blogging about their neighborhoods/interests and he invited them to join together on a site where people could come and get a flavor of opinion and citizen journalism from around the area. Rather than searching various Blogspot, Typepad, and Wordpress blogs; readers could come to one site and get a sampling of the region.
Could we monetize it more than we have? Sure, but that takes time and resources that we choose to invest in other business which delivers more revenue. Do I want to write three articles about a shitty energy drink in order to convince them to buy an ad on my site? Not a fucking chance.
Do I want to spend hours and hours of time rolling around town chomping at the same bone with the likes of Artvoice, Spree, BRO/M, BlockClub, Buffalo News, and the other 78 publications/websites in town to eke out a stream of iterative ad revenue? Not really. So, we do pretty much whatever the hell we want on the website. We generate controversy with our opinions, report news on the frontpage which we find interesting, draw readers who enjoy arguments like these, act like dicks, and have some fun. It’s served us well in many ways.
If we decide at some point to chase down more ad revenue for the site, I’ll let all of you know so you can come here and criticize me. Until then, kindly go fuck yourself. Have a nice night!
At times like this I like to recall the words of 20th Century philosopher Rodney King:
“People, can’t we all just get along.”
I have great respect for all of you, just as I respect many of our community’s government leaders. But like our politicians, you folks can’t resist the temptation to get diverted from the good you’re capable of doing for WNY to engage in this type of petty nonsense. That’s one of the reasons the motto of our town, to turn a phrase of the 21st Century philosopher Obama, is “No we can’t.”
I’ve never understood this basic need that people in WNY have to get along. Why can’t we dislike one another or call each other on our respective bullshit? I think it’s healthy, especially since it is a sideshow to what we contribute as individuals to the general discourse and community both online and offline.
Chris speaks truth.
If someone has a healthy dislike for me, I have no problem with them calling me out. Much rather that then a fake smile and lies.
There comes a point when we must ignore some (not all) of the imperfections of others and hope that they extend to us the same courtesy. Otherwise, we are stuck forever in the sandbox or a Buffalo School Board meeting.
chris, you dick. i asked about wnymedia, not something called convergence media, which i’ve never even fucking heard of. are the powers advertisments listed as “campaign contributions” in his filings? i’ll have to check and see. as for the rest of you guys, thanks.
Hudson, you illiterate rehab case, I answered your question. In a direct manner. Also, search the filings all you like, you won’t find any cash changing hands between Jon Powers and anyone affiliated with our company. Powers has not paid us for advertisements, consulting, video, or any other such products or services.
chris, you dick….the gift of free advertising, or even discounted advertising, is considered a campaign contribution under new york state election law. look it up. that is, of course, based on whether you get paid for ANY of the advertising that appears on the site. i thought a smart guy like you would know that. do you charge others for your consulting, video and other products and services? because if you do, and you’re giving them to powers for free, he is violating the law by not listing them on his campaign finance reports.
this will certainly give his opponents some extra fodder to go along with the fact that he was basically living on his “campaign” contributions.
and you’re right, chris, i may be an alcoholic, but i’m not stupid enough to implicate a friend of mine in illegal actvity because i can’t keep my mouth shut on some stupid blog.
And one muses why nothing ever gets done in WNY?
I’ve found out that the world continues to turn, and the status quo is alive and well in WNY without my making any snarky or profane comments to Mike Hudson, whether I agree with him or not.
And though WNYMeida,BRO, and any associated ventures have a presence in the community, and have made their contribution, the amount of measured actual progress and ability to end the 51 year downsprial of the area could overflow what, a thimble?
Folks, nearly all of ye thinketh too much of yourselves.
Mike, bloggers on WNYM pages where the company might sell advertising signs a contract and in that contract, we established that 30% of space on the page that would be used for selling ads was declared as usable for the blogger. The space has no declarative value and is to be used for their own personal interests. If a blogger supports a cause, they can put the logo in that space, if they choose to use it for the support of a political candidate, they can do so. If they wish to sell ads in their alloted page space, they must seek written approval from our company and sign a letter of intent to sell and establish a value for that space. Something which Alan has never done.
This allowed for the bloggers to have their own individuality and not be tied to the advertising whims of the company. Our arrangement was approved by our legal team and would probably past muster in a court of law if someone were inclined to take it that far. Then again, it might not. That’s why there are 90,000 lawyers in WNY. So, thanks for looking out for the well being of Jon Powers and our bloggers, we appreciate your interest!