Update: [Heart to Hear with Steve Gillmor]
Here you have a very vocal Steve Gillmor as it appears under contract with Adam Curry and Podshow. You have the same Steve Gillmor and some of his Gang writing about the show they are producing for Podshow and Curry on ZDNet.
To me that seems like a conflict of Interest. Does ZDNet endorse Podshow? Smells like funny money to me. Lets see if I got a paycheck to talk about technology that is followed by a lot of people on ZDNet, then lets assume I also get a paycheck to produce a show for a different company which in turn I then talk about on my original gig seems like a bit of a conflict.
Pretty convienent if you ask me. You have editors that get all the space they want on ZDNet writing about a show that they participate possibly for pay. Looks like free advertising to me. How do I sign up or a deal like that? I could use some nation wide free advertising how about you all.
I may be off base but I doubt Steve Gillmor does anything for Free and I am pretty sure Curry is paying all of the people associated with Podshow. Pretty nice arrangement but if you ask me it smell of a serious conflict of interest.
All of the individuals on the Gillmor gang have now lost some serious credibiity with me and I am suprised ZDNet puts up with it. [ZDNet]
Todd, You’ve shown real class by being standup on this.
This is the Todd Cochran we enjoy and believe in!
Good show and keep on truckin’!
Phil
A Heart to Heart with Steve Gillmor
Steve Gillmor and I had a nice conversation today, and I want to say straight up that my comments I made yesterday were off base. I retract the assertions that I made in the posting, and have a much keener understanding today of acceptable cross promotion, and what I interpreted to be a conflict of interest was in fact exactly the opposite.
Obviously Steve pulls the brightest minds in the business into his show, and are names that anyone that has been around tech for more than a week know. Having worked in an industry were I do not inter mingle one business with another, in fact am strictly prohibited from doing so led me into applying some of those rules unjustly to the multi-company relationship Steve enjoys and works very hard at staying transparent at.
So a heartfelt apology goes out to Steve and the Gillmor Gang participants. I am man enough to stand up and say I was absolutely off base and wrong on this one, and will work hard in the future to insure that if I have a concern to pick up the phone first.
To my readers and visitors of this site I appreciate your continued support and will work hard to make sure that everything you read on this site has the level of transparency that is required to keep your trust.
Todd…
Hey Todd:
I like you, but you are off base here. My suggestion is you stop trying to be the ethics police of the blog/podcast world and start working on your own podcast/site and how you present yourself.
Robin Good has some excellent posts recently on professional voiceover and writing services that you might consider using on your show. Take this as some friendly advice.
Anyway, Steve has offered to correct you by his phone and I hope you post how the contact goes after you call him. Your credibility is now under question by someone who has yet to be shown to be duplicitous in any way.
I don’t know who to address this to as it just says the posting is from Geeknews. So to whom this may concern, both Steve and I are easy to contact to check out your conspiracy theory. We have a policy of posting content and pointers to material that readers will find interesting, including show that I may or may not participate in…Have you listened to the podcast? Who are “you” who thinks ZDNet has a credibility problem because we blog about Gillmor Gang shows or even our own podcasts?