Hi Gang!
Here's a mention of Phase2Media in the Adnet Discussion List which I subscribe to. By the way, does anyone yet know what Zulu is doing these days? I don't have a clue.
Okay, folks, enough tirades. I allowed Mr. Weiner to post
his tirade out of fairness, since Mr. Lattin intentionally
defamed Mr. Weiner's company earlier this spring with
false claims that were apparently completely fabricated.
Indeed, it now turns out that Mr. Lattin's earlier attempts
to defame MANY of his competitors all occurred at a time
when he was concealing the fact that a competitor,
Cybereps, owned an interest in his company (either an
outright 50% interest or an option to buy half or all of
the FGN entity). Only after he was caught in multiple
lies about Unique Media did he apologize; no other
apologies have ever been posted.
( egroups.com )
During the past few months, Mr. Lattin has generally
passed himself off as an independent party, praising
Cybereps as a great ad rep firm, while concealing the
financial interests shared by Cybereps and FGN.
(I do note that in one post, on April 18, Mr. Lattin
did state that "Cybereps and Myself have worked
together to create FGN," but based on other posts
by Mr. Lattin and partner Ben Evans, list members
could only have inferred that Cybereps had simply
agreed to sell ads for FGN, and not that Cybereps
had a direct financial interest in FGN. Later, in a May
18 post, he stated vaguely "I am involved with
Cybereps," but based on prior posts we all assumed
that he merely meant that Cybereps was selling space
for his Future Games Network sites, and not that
there was any joint venture with shared ownership.)
Later, Mr. Lattin "dissed" three more companies: Virtual
Music Vault, Transit Gloria Media, and Phase2Media
-- echoing my suspicions about these companies, but
again failing to disclose that he shared a direct financial
interest in competitor Cybereps.
( egroups.com )
This is important because these three firms do NOT
appear to compete with FGN, but they DO compete
with Cybereps -- yet Mr. Lattin concealed the shared
equity between the companies.
In yet another post, Mr. Lattin said he was passing along
an allegation that yet another company had not fulfilled
promises to its affiliate sites -- but I won't even name the
company since it appears that this claim, like the Unique
Media claim earlier, was completely unsupported by
any facts and was a complete fabrication intended to
damage a competitor and thereby help Cybereps look
good by comparison.
In a post on May 28, following discussion of Flycast's
IPO, Mr. Lattin trashed Flycast and praised Cybereps
as a better company.
( egroups.com )
In a post on April 27, Mr. Lattin "dissed" ah-ha.com's pay
per click program, and advised generally against sites
participating in any direct-response advertising.
Ironically, it seemed until today that Mr. Lattin's FGN and
Cybereps have done a reasonable job of selling ads for
their sites. I based this on the posts of one of the
company's affiliates, Ben Evans, who claimed as
recently as today that he has been satisfied with the
profits from this enterprise. That seems like great
praise, coming from an independent person.
But another surprise hit me today: it turns out that the
Internic registration for FGNETWORK.COM lists
this very same Ben Evans as the technical contact.
Apparently Ben Evans ALSO has a more direct role
in FGN and Cybereps than he has revealed in prior
posts (including his post today defending Mr. Lattin).
It seems clear that Mr. Evans and Mr. Lattin have
carefully coordinated their posts to make it appear
that FGN and Cybereps were getting independent,
outside praise -- but that has NEVER been the case.
They have been the ONLY people to praise these
two companies.
Unfortunately, the track records of Mr. Lattin and
Mr. Evans now leads me to urge web sites to avoid
FGN and Cybereps, and turn to other ad networks
without similar histories of defamation, serious
ethical lapses and poor judgment.
On a related note: Stop attacking or defending Mr.
Lattin on the grounds that his business is "only
two months old" (as Mr. Evans repeated again
today). Mr. Lattin has been posting to this list
under the name "Future Games Network" since
at least February 3, and the Internic registration
was filed (apparently by Mr. Evans) on February
4. According to my calendar, that's more than
FOUR months ago, not two months.
Don't do business with these con artists.
---------
PostScript: Mr. Lattin has twice this weekend tried to
post additional replies, but they have consisted of
personal attacks and non-responsive vague claims
about Cybereps. I have rejected these posts because
they were non-responsive.
I will be pleased to approve a single responsive post
from Mr. Lattin OR Mr. Evans OR another person
speaking on behalf of Cybereps -- whether it may be
a defense or an apology (or a combination of both)
but no future posts will be accepted from Mr. Lattin
or Mr. Evans to any of my mailing lists. They are liars
and cheats, and I will not them to use my lists to
defraud and defame others.
-- Mark J. Welch [Adbility's Web Publishers' Advertising Guide]
-- adbility.com
-- (925) 462-8483 voice - Pleasanton, California
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