My own disclaimer, I don’t read JPG, nor had I heard of it before this. Not a very good way to get noticed I have to say.
Tom sent me a link to Derek’s Blog where Dereck tells his side of the story. On first read, my gut reaction was "damn that other guy is a dick". I then read Heather’s post, and thought, "Wow, that’s some serious crap to pull on someone."
I then tracked down Paul’s blog, and found the post where he attempts to smooth things over. In reading his completely impersonal account I was reminded of my reading of Cluetrain (I should read that again, soon) where they talk about business communications being more than shoving information out the door, treating consumers as mindless or stupid (paraphrasing here), rather than simply holding a conversation with them. I’m reminded of the Intel Pentium 90 debacle and how Intel had handled it.
From this it sounds like Dereck got it.
"In one evening, Paul removed issues 1-6 from the JPG website, removed Heather from the About page, and deleted the “Letter from the Editors” that had lived on the site since day one. Paul informed me that we were inventing a new story about how JPG came to be that was all about 8020. He told me not to speak of that walk in Buena Vista, my wife, or anything that came before 8020."
From this, it’s clear Paul doesn’t
"The first version of JPG Magazine was created by the husband and wife team of Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ. It was a quarterly printed publication devoted to brave new photography that took submissions over the internet and printed on good old fashioned paper. It was edited by Derek and Heather, printed in digest format, and sold through Lulu.com."
First version? So JPG magazine is nothing like JPG magazine? I don’t think Microsoft (though they might want to) disavows knowledge of Windows ME, 3.11, etc… Instead simply saying, "we did some stuff before, but really it’s all about this new thing" Not to mention it sounds from Dereck’s blog that he had a major hand in JPG Magazine 2.0, so unless they’re on 3.0 it seems a bit disingenuous to cut them out like they had no part in this new version.
To be honest the concern over titles has surfaced in my own mind with the ventures that Tom and I undertake. He’s the CEO of 360Conferences, and I’d be lying if a stray worry about the above happening to us didn’t cross my mind. I’ve even brought it up and we’ve talked about it, including the time on the Metrolink (Tom knows). I can only hope our friendship and for that matter our business ethics and opinions on how business should work, keep this type of seriously shitty behavior from ever surfacing at 360Conferences.
Apple anounced iTunes Plus today and, I’ll be damned it’s kinda cool, limited as all get out, but the potential is promising.
