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How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

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Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#51

Post by benjamincburns »

patrickambron wrote: post #48
whitlock wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patrick, I heard Pete's story on NPR a while back and how it helped your company grow. It stuck out since when the reporter tried to verify the story they found no results. The reporter comes short of accusing you or your co-founder of telling a fake story to sell a product. I'd like to hear you or Pete's take on this story (URL below). http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/05/29/187080...

Thanks man. I remember that interview (it was a headache). The interviewer seemed to have an agenda going in. Before the interview he kept saying he thought it was "foolish that people would use Google to research people in the first place" and that "nobody should believe Google results anyways". When Pete was in college there were several criminals who all shared his name and his results were a mess. One of them inc…

If you were having trouble finding articles, what's with the Google screen grab on slide 6? Was this something you created specifically for the slides? If that is the case, showing a fabricated screen grab without noting it as such seems a bit disingenuous. It's a bit like selling a diet with a doctored "before" picture.

Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#52

Post by patrickambron »

benjamincburns wrote: post #51
patrickambron wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks man. I remember that interview (it was a headache). The interviewer seemed to have an agenda going in. Before the interview he kept saying he thought it was "foolish that people would use Google to research people in the first place" and that "nobody should believe Google results anyways". When Pete was in college there were several criminals who all shared his name and his results were a mess. One of them inc…

If you were having trouble finding articles, what's with the Google screen grab on slide 6? Was this something you created specifically for the slides? If that is the case, showing a fabricated screen grab without noting it as such seems a bit disingenuous. It's a bit like selling a diet with a doctored "before" picture.

I agree, it is disingenuous, especially in this context. That slide was specifically made for an in-person presentation that was later posted online (it was posted by somebody else about a year ago). For the sake of a presentation, we thought that image got the point across much better than putting two hyperlinks on the screen. It was basically a design decision. In retrospect we should have put a disclaimer on the image since it looks so realistic, but we honestly had no idea the presentation would live beyond the room I spoke to. That was a mistake

We used to use a similar type image on our about page, but for the same purpose now only link to exact articles or results we can still find. https://brandyourself.com/info/about.

Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#56

Post by tieTYT »

I'm sorry this is off topic, but that slideshare ui is so annoying. Why doesn't it progress one slide when I click on the slide? I hate how I have to precisely click on that tiny "next" button to go to the next slide.

I'm posting this hoping someone can provide an easier way to navigate.

Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#57

Post by WayneS »

tieTYT wrote: post #56

I'm sorry this is off topic, but that slideshare ui is so annoying. Why doesn't it progress one slide when I click on the slide? I hate how I have to precisely click on that tiny "next" button to go to the next slide. I'm posting this hoping someone can provide an easier way to navigate.

Use the keyboard

Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#58

Post by tieTYT »

WayneS wrote: post #57
tieTYT wrote: post #56

I'm sorry this is off topic, but that slideshare ui is so annoying. Why doesn't it progress one slide when I click on the slide? I hate how I have to precisely click on that tiny "next" button to go to the next slide. I'm posting this hoping someone can provide an easier way to navigate.

Use the keyboard

Thank you, Sir. I went down that route by wondering if "space" or "enter" would do it with no luck. I stopped short at arrow keys.

Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#59

Post by whitlock »

patrickambron wrote: post #48
whitlock wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patrick, I heard Pete's story on NPR a while back and how it helped your company grow. It stuck out since when the reporter tried to verify the story they found no results. The reporter comes short of accusing you or your co-founder of telling a fake story to sell a product. I'd like to hear you or Pete's take on this story (URL below). http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/05/29/187080...

Thanks man. I remember that interview (it was a headache). The interviewer seemed to have an agenda going in. Before the interview he kept saying he thought it was "foolish that people would use Google to research people in the first place" and that "nobody should believe Google results anyways". When Pete was in college there were several criminals who all shared his name and his results were a mess. One of them inc…

Thank you for answering my question. I was afraid you'd skip it if there was truth in what NPR had presented.

I'm probably not the only person who felt that you and Pete are misleading people with the story of Pete's online profile after that interview. In some ways it may have done more harm than good overall.

Have you done anything since then to try and get NPR to correct or update the article?

Re: How We Unexpectedly Got 60K Users in 60 Hours (2012)

#60

Post by patrickambron »

whitlock wrote: post #59
patrickambron wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks man. I remember that interview (it was a headache). The interviewer seemed to have an agenda going in. Before the interview he kept saying he thought it was "foolish that people would use Google to research people in the first place" and that "nobody should believe Google results anyways". When Pete was in college there were several criminals who all shared his name and his results were a mess. One of them inc…

Thank you for answering my question. I was afraid you'd skip it if there was truth in what NPR had presented. I'm probably not the only person who felt that you and Pete are misleading people with the story of Pete's online profile after that interview. In some ways it may have done more harm than good overall. Have you done anything since then to try and get NPR to correct or update the article?

Well it was interesting. He asked us if we had a link to the drug dealer article. We looked and couldn't find one. I was in contact with him the whole time, sent him links to other criminal results and even offered to do the interview over and be less specific and say "criminal" instead of "drug dealer". I told him the merits of the story were still true, we could still show that Pete shared google results with a criminal, and we even put him in touch with the person who worked at the company who found the results. Instead he posted the article implying it might not be true, and said when he asked us about it "we went silent". I followed up with him after and he said that he didn't seem my emails (even though he answered some of them)...

We were worried that people would feel the same way, but in general we only got good responses from the interview. We signed a lot of people up, too.

That said we've been careful to be much more specific in the future. We don't want to mislead people especially since it could hurt our brand. The truth is, Pete's results were a mess and it was hurting him. He shared a name with several criminals. There really was a drug-related article about a Pete Kistler but we can't find it (we never thought to keep it)--so now we only say "criminals" and link to the articles we HAVE found

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