Mysterious New Web Marketing Magazine - Website Services Magazine
Last week I got a magazine in the mail called Website Services. I never subscribed to this magazine, it just came out of the blue. Looked like a pretty cool new mag at first, but as I started browsing a few of the articles, a few things struck me as very strange. First of all, nearly all the articles include no byline. I know of very few magazines that don't give credit to their writers. I also noticed quite a few spelling and grammatical errors in the few articles I read. Don't get me wrong, this blog is full of typos, but I also don't claim to be a professional magazine, nor do I employ a professional editor to review my work.
Upon further review, I found that most of the ads in the magazine are from 7Search.com and their family of websites/services. Hmmm...interesting...a quick check shows that websiteservices.com is hosted at 208.237.254.7 and seven search is hosted on the same ip block at 208.237.254.40...coincidence? Or how about their blog, which it looks like they're trying to update regularly with real content, but all the posts are by "administrator". No real blogger posts as administrator, couldn't they at least make up a name for their blogger?
What's up with this new magazine? Is it just a marketing gimmick by the 7search gang or is there more to it? Whoever it is, do they have something to hide?
Upon further review, I found that most of the ads in the magazine are from 7Search.com and their family of websites/services. Hmmm...interesting...a quick check shows that websiteservices.com is hosted at 208.237.254.7 and seven search is hosted on the same ip block at 208.237.254.40...coincidence? Or how about their blog, which it looks like they're trying to update regularly with real content, but all the posts are by "administrator". No real blogger posts as administrator, couldn't they at least make up a name for their blogger?
What's up with this new magazine? Is it just a marketing gimmick by the 7search gang or is there more to it? Whoever it is, do they have something to hide?
posted by Dave @ 12:08 AM
4 Comments:
At 7:51 AM,
Andy Beal said…
Just finished reading the magazine on the way back from SES. I noticed the lack of bylines and also wondered about whether I was reading just one huge advertorial. I noticed none of the articles referenced any companies or quotes from any professionals.
At 4:00 PM,
Website Services said…
Hi Dave...
I'm Pete Prestipino, the Managing Editor of Website Services Magazine, and YES, we are affiliated with 7Search but it's much less mysterious than you may think. We've actually never hidden the fact that we're related - in fact, we had a booth at SES and we were right next to the 7Search booth. We're new in the publishing arena so we've made a few mistakes along the way (Yes Andy, lack of bylines and yes Andy, few quotes from experts but with good reason - see below). The reason we created the magazine was becuase it is simply an alternate business for us. We're not trying to be a "Industry Standard" or "Revenue" just a source of practical information without all the hype and name dropping typically associated with such publications. We'll actually have quite a few "experts" in 'Net business including several SES panelists including Paul Bruemmer of Bruce Clay Inc. and Chris Boggs of G3Group. We've had thousands of new subscribers since our launch at Ad:tech in New York and the reponse thus far has been overwhelmingly positive. I do encourage your blog readers to visit our site (you were kind enough to include a link above) and see for themselves if the content "advertorial" or informational. Thanks!
At 4:19 PM,
Dave said…
Thanks for the clarification, Pete. I didn't claim to know anything, just that it seemed a little suspcious. Speaking of Revenue, are they affiliated with Linkshare? Because it seems like every article quotes one of the Messers (Steve or Heidi). Yeah, they're rich now that they sold Linkshare, and they must know somehting about affiliate marketing but they aren't the end all be alls of Affiliate marketing.
At 7:12 PM,
Website Services said…
I have no idea if LinkShare has a role in Revenue. As in other industries - just like SEO - the significant players all seem to know one another - so it's certainly possible. I did meet Nick Smith in New York last month and I know that he and his editor Lisa Picarelli are very serious about providing the best information they can about the affiliate industry - and as such it's hard to not mention LinkShare.
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