PatrickPretty.com

Category: Writing And Branding

  • BREAKING NEWS: Bowdoin Files Motion To Dismiss In Which He Acknowledges AdSurfDaily Was Illegal

    UPDATED 10:06 A.M. EDT (March 12, U.S.A.) Did Andy Bowdoin just sink AdSurfDaily’s ship — and also the ship of AdViewGlobal?

    In a court filing today, Bowdoin, the president of ASD, made a stunning acknowledgment that the company was operating illegally.

    Bowdoin’s acknowledgment came in the purported form of a motion to dismiss the forfeiture complaint against proceeds tied to the firm, which prosecutors said engaged in wire fraud, money-laundering, selling unregistered securities and operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme.

    “The defendant did not know or realize that his conduct was illegal until this instant case was filed against him,” Bowdoin said, referring to himself as “defendant.”

    Bowdoin contends in the pleading that the case is “quasi-criminal” and that he was denied due process and fair notice that his conduct was illegal.

    Bowdoin, however, is not a defendant in the forfeiture case. His self-filed pleading references the forfeiture case on its title page, but appears to be a response to a case that never was brought.

    For days, the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum has been applauding legal filings Bowdoin made last week and encouraging others to do the same.

    But today’s filing could cause Bowdoin’s remaining support to evaporate because of his concession that ASD was operating illegally. Bowdoin had spent months insisting ASD was legal and collected tens of millions of dollars from members last year, all the while advertising ASD as completely legal and above-board.

    Bowdoin now is acting as his own attorney. AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf with close ties to ASD, recently formed a private association and turned to a firm known as Pro Advocate Group  for advice.

    Karl Dahlstrom is associated with Pro Advocate Group.  In 1997, Dahlstrom was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in a securities scheme.

    Today’s filing by Bowdoin is potentially devastating both for ASD and AVG because of the concession that ASD was operating illegally. Prosecutors could claim the document has the effect of a signed confession.

    Bowdoin’s stepson is an AVG trustee. So is Gary Talbert, AVG’s chief executive officer and a former ASD executive. Chuck Osmin, a former ASD employee who testified for the firm at a hearing last year, also works for AVG. Nate Boyd, whom ASD members said once was a compliance officer for ASD, is listed as the “Protector” for the AVG association. Some of the Mods and members of Surf’s Up started a forum for AVG.

    Bowdoin’s pleadings today appear to attempt to manufacture a criminal defense out of whole cloth, by rewriting the history of the forfeiture case — a civil proceeding — and turning the case into something it never was: a criminal prosecution against Andy Bowdoin. The only defendants in the case to date are money and property prosecutors claim are the proceeds of a criminal enterprise.

    At the same time, today’s pleadings may be designed so potential ASD co-defendants in any criminal case that evolves will have a legal template for a self-filed defense. There have been reports that bank accounts owned by ASD members beyond Bowdoin have been seized in the past two weeks.

    Meanwhile, the cheerleading for Bowdoin at the Surf’s Up forum appears to be particularly unseemly now because today’s pleadings had everything to do with Andy Bowdoin, and nothing to do with the rank-and-file members who’d been asked to support him. The document does not cite the membership in a single place.

    Read today’s Bowdoin pleadings.

  • EDITORIAL: Arons Retracts Statements On Friedman

    Jack Arons, a Florida man sued for libel and slander last week by Dallas attorney Larry Friedman, announced today that he is retracting statements he made about Friedman on the Internet.

    “As far as Larry Friedman and his Law Firm is concerned I retract all statements made against them,” Arons said. He posted the retraction in online forums covering the AdSurfDaily case.

    “Although I can not change what course of actions that have taken place concerning my statements I will no longer post anything derogatory concerning him or his firm,” Arons said.

    Today we are renewing our call for Friedman to drop his lawsuit against Arons. At the same time, we call on Friedman to exercise judicious restraint and not to bulldoze Arons in any settlement negotiations.

    Meanwhile, we call on Friedman to fire the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust as a client. The de facto head of the Trust is severely damaging Friedman’s law brand. Friedman should fire the Trust and get his shingle out of harm’s way. Let the Trust litigate against Friedman if it so chooses. The Trust has no credibility. Members who funded the Trust say it also has no money and is operating in the red.

    Arons does not have a lawyer. He lives in the type of manufactured home that is common throughout Florida. He is not wealthy. Over the weekend, he worked on self-written, pro se drafts to fight Friedman’s lawsuit, asking for input from nonexpert forum posters.

    On Monday, he was served with papers designed to force him to travel from Tallahassee to Dallas at his expense to sit for a Friedman deposition on Thursday. Arons is at a monumental disadvantage. He has had no time to think and is ripe to be bulldozed.

    Larry Friedman should not bulldoze Jack Arons. To do so would be shameful, and yet a bulldozing is something some of his colleagues actually might applaud because this bulldozing would be a particularly wicked one. The pity-there-was-an-unoccupied-seat-on-the-sunken-lawyer-bus  joke is not a joke about a bus; it is a joke about bulldozers driven by attorneys.

    Friedman claims Arons is a menace because of Internet postings, while his de facto client openly is engaging in menacing behavior, complete with references to stalking and chasing people.

    Jack Arons is not the menace in this case; he was the convenient target because people were complaining to the Texas Bar about matters pertaining to the Trust, and Friedman blames Arons for stirring the pot.

    Friedman brought a Howitzer against a Web critic and sympathetic figure armed with a small peashooter. It was maximum overkill: Friedman sued in Dallas March 5. Arons was served in Florida March 7. On March 9, Arons was notified to appear in Dallas March 12 to provide a deposition to Friedman.

    In between, a person purporting to be “Bob Guenther,” the de facto head of the Trust, appears to have adopted the role of Friedman’s goon. In previous mentions of the purported Guenther, we described him as appearing to act as a bouncer. We’re using “goon” today because the purported Guenther now has referenced Arons’ 6-year-old daughter in a menacing forum post.

    That is the act of a goon, not a bouncer. We believe Friedman is appalled and perhaps even frightened by the behavior of his de facto client. It is our expectation that Friedman will fire his client. Not to do so is to turn a blind eye to the damage his brand is suffering at the hands of his client — something he was unwilling to do when it came to Jack Arons, a mere flea met by a Howitzer that could shoot from Texas to Florida.

  • Surf’s Up Deletion Raises Quid Pro Quo Questions

    Andy Bowdoin. Surf's Up quid pro quo?
    Andy Bowdoin. Surf's Up quid pro quo?

    UPDATED 1:22 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) Earlier this month a photo of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps holding a bong sparked a firestorm, which ultimately led to a public apology from the celebrated gold medalist. Phelps subsequently was fired by Kellogg Co. because it cherished its brand and didn’t want the cereal- and snack-eating children of America to believe it endorsed smoking marijuana.

    Phelps is one of the most important athletes in the world. He can help companies sell products by the truckload and further instill their brands in the consciousness of buyers. Despite Phelps’ extraordinary accomplishments (eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics), his apology, his youth (he’s 23) and his magnetic drawing power, Kellogg’s said goodbye, issuing a special statement to do so.

    A photo of an Olympian smoking pot is “not consistent with the image of Kellogg,” the company said.

    Phelps was not charged with a crime and will not be. USA Swimming, the governing body for the sport in the United States, however, suspended him for three months.

    “This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” the organization said. “Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust.”

    Some Phelps’ sponsors stood by his side, while not marginalizing his conduct or making excuses for it.  No company will risk its reputation by running interference for Phelps.

    A Study In Contrast

    Now, compare the actions of USA Swimming and Kellogg’s to the actions of the Pro-AdSurfDaily “Surf’s Up” forum. (It may seem like a stretch, but it’s not: The Surf’s Up forum says it is comprised of professional business people with professional advertising needs, and ASD says is is a professional advertising company.)

    In August, ASD was accused of operating a wire-fraud and money-laundering operation whose central component was a $100 million Ponzi scheme that had money on deposit in at least three countries. Surf’s Up’s raison d’être — it’s reason for being — was to advocate for ASD and ASD President Andy Bowdoin, a convicted felon. Indeed, the site’s formal name is the ASD Member Advocates forum.

    Rarely in U.S. business does a professional entity make unrestrained cheerleading for a convicted felon involved in possible new felonies its signature calling. Most entities would be afraid of the stain spilling over or perhaps being drawn into a criminal investigation themselves. As a practical matter, there is little upside for an entity that associates itself with felons.

    Since its inception, Surf’s Up has been famous for deleting posts that painted ASD in an unflattering light. It also is famous for heckling and even banning posters who asked tough questions.

    But the site’s strangest act to date was to accept ASD’s official endorsement, which the embattled company issued publicly Nov. 27 on its Breaking News site. While most entities on earth would repudiate  the endorsement of a felon who has other felony charges possibly waiting in the wings, Surf’s Up embraced it. The endorsement came only days after a federal judge ruled that ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing last fall that it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme.

    Unlike Kellogg’s and USA Swimming — both of which issued special statements to distance themselves from a bong — Surf’s Up issued no such statement to distance itself from an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme.

    Within a couple of weeks of the endorsement, some of the Surf’s Up Mods were promoting AdViewGlobal (AVG), a new surf that shares an executive with ASD and a customer-service employee who testified for ASD at the Sept. 30-Oct. 1 evidentiary hearing.

    One of AVG’s first formal acts was to claim it had no ties to ASD, despite the executive it shared with ASD and despite the shared customer-service rep, who also doubled as a spokesman for AVG.

    AdViewGlobal says Quincy is its home.
    AdViewGlobal says Quincy is its home.

    And AVG made the “no ties” claim despite the appearance of AVG graphics on an ASD-controlled webroom, including a graphic that listed AVG’s address as 13 S Calhoun Street, Quincy, FL 32351, which also happens to be the street address for ASD.

    Most entities shy away even from the appearance of impropriety. Surf’s Up didn’t even do that. In fact, it cheered anew for another controversial surf: AVG.

    Could ASD’s endorsement of Surf’s Up been quid pro quo for its months-long loyal cheerleading and a reward for helping build a customer base for AVG?

    It sure looks that way, especially when Surf’s Up embraced the endorsement instead of repudiating it. And it really looks that way, considering the fact that some Surf’s Up Mods and members created a site to cheerlead for AVG shortly after receiving ASD’s endorsement.

    But it especially looks that way when Surf’s Up deletes posts such as this one (below) that appeared yesterday. The post was on the topic of a second forfeiture complaint that had been filed against assets tied to ASD (December) and Bowdoin’s decision (January) to give up his fight for assets seized in the first complaint in August (italics added):

    Anyone else think the “kids” Barb believes Andy may have been nobly protecting when he gave the members money to the government refers to the adult son and daughter-in-law of Faye Bowdoin? The government “went after” the property (homes and cars) of Mrs. Bowdoin’s adult son and daughter-in-law because the Harris’ home mortgage was paid off, and a car and boat were purchased, with ASD funds and funds withdrawn from AdSurfDaily’s Bank of America accounts and deposited into newly established accounts at Capital City National Bank in the name of a business named Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises. Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises was incorporated in Florida in June of 2008.

    Just in case Barb’s right, and she seems to have a close connection to the Bowdoin’s, if Andy was motivated to give up all claims to the members funds in order to protect George and Judy Harris, let’s see what the kids were up to, that caught the eye of the government:

    June l0, 2008
    George Harris and Faye Bowdoin opened a Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises bank account at Capital City National Bank (CCNB) using $l77,900.l2 withdrawn from AdSurfDaily’s Bank of America accounts.

    June ll, 2008
    Judy and George Harris purchase new car for $28,607.67 with funds in an ASD bank account at BOA; the vehicle owners are the Harris’s.

    June 23, 2008
    George Harris transferred $l57,2l6.79 from CCNB account to Citi Mortgage, to pay off the mortgage on the home he and Judy were buying.

    “Kids” George and Judy took money that had been “paid to the order of AdSurfDaily” by the members and used it as if it was their own. They didn’t have to use what was left of their personal income after they paid federal income taxes and FICA, like you and I would have to do.

    Andy may have been worried about those kids, but I’m saving my sympathy for the kids whose college funds were raided, or whose homes were foreclosed on.

    None of these actions — the establishment of an ASD cheerleading site, the acceptance of ASD’s endorsement, the establishment of a cheerleading site for AVG — is consistent with the actions of a professional business entity.

    All of the actions, however, are consistent with a pattern of misinforming and deceiving — of running interference for a criminal enterprise.

    It is beyond loathsome, but it’s business-as-usual at Surf’s Up.

  • Genesis Of The Utah ‘Indian’ Cases And Why They Could Spell Bad News For ASD Members Who Are Seeking Refunds

    Meet Curtis Richmond and the so-called “Arby’s Indians.”

    This stupefying drama actually started almost a decade before the fabled meeting inside an Arby’s restaurant in Provo, Utah, on April 18, 2003. The birth of Wampanoag Nation, Tribe of Grayhead, Wolf Band — a sham Utah “Indian” tribe not to be confused with a legitimate Massachusetts tribe with a similar name — dates back to the “Sovereign Citizen Movement” and “Patriot” eras of the 1990s in which Timothy McVeigh was making headlines for blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City and killing 168 people.

    “Mr. [Dale] Stevens . . . had actually started the organization . . . some nine years before that meeting in Provo,” said U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot, in findings of fact and conclusions of law. “Curtis Richmond was admitted to the tribe, because, in the words of Mr. Stevens, he is a believer in fighting for liberty, not because of any heritage as a member of the Wampanoag Nation.”

    Friot ruled the tribe a “complete sham.” Richmond now is a central figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi litigation.

    The Arby’s meeting in April 2003 was important, though, because it established a date from which a bizarre conspiracy evolved that rattled nerves, subjected public officials, attorneys, investigators and bankers to monumental inconvenience and, ultimately, created the stage from which Curtis Richmond introduced himself  to a wider audience than just the folks back home in California. He has been a thorn in the side of the judiciary there, too, and was convicted in 2007 of criminal contempt of court for threatening federal judges.

    Richmond invokes authority of sham tribal "Supreme Court."
    Richmond invokes authority of sham tribal "Supreme Court."

    Richmond has never been linked to violence. But he has a deep and storied history of threatening federal judges in court filings. And he has drawn the attention — and ire — of banks in courts from coast to coast. Richmond, who is not an attorney and yet holds the unique distinction of having been banned from the practice of law in Colorado, became a player in a scheme in which he advised people who were being sued by banks for defaulting on credit-card debt to “assign” the debts to him.

    This was done by fiat, without the banks’ approval, and was designed to cripple their ability to collect on legitimate debts.  Richmond became embroiled in litigation, and turned to a sham arbitration panel and sham “Supreme Court”  set up by the sham “Indian” tribe to gum up the mix.

    Because the “tribe” itself also was embroiled in litigation — mostly against public servants in Utah — the state became the staging ground for litigation that only can be described as bizarre.

    In one case, for example, the “tribe” divined itself the authority to issue license plates. When a member was stopped by a deputy sheriff for having an illegal tag, litigation ensued that ultimately threatened the sanctity of the state and federal court systems and the government’s ability to prosecute criminals and provide public services.

    Not even the Utah Division of Child and Family Services was immune from tribal interference and harassment. Indeed, the tribe even divined itself the authority to intervene in family matters.

    “A good example of this pattern of racketeering activity would be Wampanoager [Name Deleted To Protect Privacy Of Children,]” victims in the case said. “[Name Deleted] applied for membership in the Wampanoag Nation on October 20, 2002.  His ‘application’ was received into evidence at trial as Exhibit 29. It reflects that Dale Stevens is the Tribal Chief, Thomas Smith is the Chief of Ministry of Justice and Terry Campbell is the Chief Minister of Law Enforcement.

    “[Name Deleted] later became embroiled in litigation with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services regarding his minor children. [Name Deleted] served Mr. Michael Atkin, a  representative of the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, by certified mail, with a demand for payment of $300,000.00, allegedly for breach of contract. This demand, termed a ‘Statement of Account[,]’ advises Atkin that he will be subject to binding arbitration to collect that debt.”

    Curtis Richmond, who is being called a “hero” on the Pro-ASD “Surf’s Up” forum, served as the “arbitrator” and approved the fraudulent $300,000 award.

    Curtis Richmond's signature as "arbitrator" for $300,000 award in family matter involving minor children.
    Curtis Richmond's signature as "arbitrator" for $300,000 award in family matter involving minor children.

    Justice Perverted

    “Insisting that their status as tribal members exempts them from state and local laws, Stevens and the other Wampanoagers engaged in a pattern of racketeering activities involving sham arbitrations before an entity known as the Western Arbitration Council,” said victims of the scheme, in court filings.

    “The Western Arbitration Council is a dba for a Utah corporation called the Order of White Light,” the victims continued. “The Order of White Light, in turn, claims to be a private ‘ecclesiastical corporation sole’ of which Thomas Smith is the ‘presiding patriarch.’

    “Stevens and the Wampanoagers obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent arbitration awards against local governmental officials, judges and prosecutors and then

    Richmond uses sham 'Indian Supreme Court' to overturn legitimate court rulings and threaten federal judges.
    Richmond uses sham 'Indian Supreme Court' to overturn legitimate court rulings and threaten federal judges.

    recorded those ‘awards’ as liens against the officials’ property, including the property of Uintah County, Utah, Uintah County Attorney Joan Stringham, former Uintah County Sheriff Hawkins and Uintah County Deputy Sheriff Laursen. The Wampanoagers did this in order to frustrate, harass, interfere with and obstruct local law enforcement so as to continue their respective commercial activities free of governmental regulation,” the victims said.

    All of this potentially spells bad news for ASD members.

    For scale, consider that the first filing in one of the Utah cases involving Richmond was entered on Aug. 11, 2004 — four and a half years ago. The most recent filing is dated Jan. 14, 2009, and the case file includes 321 separate entries, not taking entries that don’t qualify as formal filings into account.

    By comparision, the ASD case has 42 entries since it was opened in August 2008 — and was nearly litigated to conclusion before Richmond entered the fray. If the case drags on interminably — and if people expecting to petition the government for a refund from seized funds have to wait even longer — they can blame it on Curtis Richmond, “Professor” Patrick Moriarty and some of the members of the “Surf’s Up” forum who advocated a scorched-earth campaign against the government.

    A linchpin of the stragegy is to send demand letters to litigation opponents, judges and officers of the court by certified mail. The letters demand a specific course of conduct and include a compressed time frame in which the demand must be met. If the demand is not met or if the recipient ignores the letters, the practitioners claim a contract violation has occurred and seek astronomical judgments against the targets of the letters.

    If any of this sounds unreasonable and dangerous to you, consider you’re not alone in your concern. In one of the Utah cases, the recipients sued under federal racketeering and mail-fraud statutes — and won. On the eve of an “Indian” trial in Utah, Richmond tried to force Friot to recuse himself from the case, claiming that Friot couldn’t be fair because he “owes Curtis Richmond $30 million in Damages for Violating Curtis Richmond’s Sovereign & Constitutional Rights.”

    And Richmond piled on threats: “The Judge Disqualifies Himself Or He Will Face Criminal Charges,” he demanded.

    Friot refused to step down. He found that the “tribe” had engaged in racketeering and mail fraud, ordering more than $108,000 in damages to the victims.

  • Bowdoin/Madoff Comparison: Is It Fair?

    andybowdoinartLast night we received a note from a reader who had a bone to pick: He advised us, seemingly politely, that ASD was not an “autosurf.”  Rather, he said, it was a “manual surf.”

    There was a whiff of passive-aggressiveness in the note: He informed us that he did not desire to “address your blog” with the exception of informing us of the differences between a manual surf and an autosurf.

    Because we received this note shortly after publishing a graphic showing Andy Bowdoin, Bernard Madoff and Arthur Nadel in the same image, we wondered if the reader actually had a bigger bone to pick but didn’t want to acknowledge it. He didn’t want to “address your blog,” after all. (View the graphic.)

    We have received many such notes since August. Lots of them have been passive-aggressive in nature — poison arrows and bitter sarcasm delivered with a smile — and some were just plain aggressive. Virtually all of them tried to change the subject in some way and deflect from the core issues. We’ve been told that our “little blog” was universally reviled, told that we had “no right” to write about ASD because we weren’t members and, in the next breath, told that people who really understand how the world works recognize the ASD case for what it is: an attempt by the government to trample on people’s rights.

    ‘Win-At-All-Costs’ Strategy Backfired: ASD Members Destroyed Firm’s Already-Fleeting Credibility

    If you were the owner of an Internet program in almost unimaginable trouble with the government — so much trouble that prosecutors wanted to seize your property and sell it at auction — would you want members trying to “help” your case by insulting or trying to intimidate prosecutors, federal judges and other people who had the power to make a difference?

    Would you want Kool-Aid campaigns to Bill O’Reilly or petition drives aimed at getting politicians to endorse Ponzi schemes during an election year that coincided with an economic crisis? (Talk about a mixed message.) Would you want members trying to influence public opinion by sending chain letters to reporters? Would you want people repeating claims that a deal with a penny-stock company was going to pump $200 million into ASD? Would you want people filing complaints and trying to have a TV station charged with “deceptive business practices” for broadcasting news unflattering to ASD?

    And how about certified-mail campaigns right out of a sham Utah “Indian” tribe’s playbook — a tribe purportedy founded inside an Arby’s restaurant? Finally, would you want people filing complaints with the Office of Inspector General at the Justice Department before there had been a single finding of fact in the case?

    If you want to be taken seriously, you wouldn’t want any of these things. So why encourage them?

    What’s more, why invite even more scrutiny of ASD? The firm and its own out-of-control members destroyed the only chance ASD had to be viewed as a progressive, professional advertising company with a sharp, well-honed message and a well-oiled PR operation.

    Nothing that ASD or its members did was consistent with professionalism. The messages couldn’t possibly have been more at odds with themselves.

    Here is how a professional communications company would have addressed a monumental crisis:

    We emphatically deny the government’s assertions and look forward to explaining our business model to the Court. We are confident these issues will be resolved to our satisfaction and that we’ll continue to provide an extraordinary value and opportunity to our worldwide customer base.

    Compare that simple message to the ultimate messages.

    Back to last night’s note . . .

    The AdSurfDaily case does not hinge on whether ASD was a manual surf or an autosurf. We acknowledge that ASD participants had to click on an object to see the next ad. We have written about this, pointing out that a young girl videotaped clicking on ASD ads said it was so simple a six-year-old could do it. In the same video, the supervising adult implied that Facebook was a paid ASD advertiser. Lots of ASD members were capable of doing or saying anything to get the sale.

    The term “autosurf” generally has come to mean a surf site that loads ads in a rotator and pays people “rebates” to view them. The term is used in virtually all litigation involving similar businesses, so we’re comfortable with it. Readers seem to know what “autosurf” litigation is about, and ASD would be in the same trouble if it offered “rebates” but operated as what commonly is known as a manual traffic exchange.

    As we noted above, the note was polite. But we can’t help but wonder why the reader had the need to define ASD as a manual surf at this late date. It impressed us as yet another bid to change the subject. Andy Bowdoin already has surrendered claims to the lion’s share of the seized assets, and the court has acknowledged his motion to withdraw the claims.

    For all intents and purposes, the forfeiture element of the case is over, and the government has won.

    The Bowdoin/Madoff/Nadel Graphic

    Let us know if you think it was fair or unfair by leaving a comment.

    We believe it is fair for the following reasons:

    • All three men are implicated in big-dollar Ponzi schemes.
    • All three men have close ties to Florida.
    • All three men are in their 70s.
    • Ponzi schemes are very much in the news.
    • A $100 million Ponzi scheme should not be viewed as a minor event simply because there are larger Ponzi schemes.
    • Incredible sums of wealth were destroyed.
    • Although it is true the government intervened in the Bowdoin case before the Ponzi collapsed, it is equally true that it didn’t intervene in the Madoff/Nadel cases — much to the dismay of investors who lost fortunes.
    • Madoff, despite the fact he is Public Enemy No. 1, is said to be cooperating with investigators. If true, it does not minimize the crime or make it any less repulsive — but it is something Bowdoin didn’t do. To say Bowdoin’s approach was cynical is to understate his method. He encouraged members to send in testimonials while shielding them from important facts. He then relied on members to testify at the evidentiary hearing, while notifying the court that he intended to take the 5th.
    • Prosecuors allege in all three cases that company funds were diverted to fuel personal spending, including luxury spending for things such as automobiles. Prosecutors also allege that company funds were directed to family members and that extravagant purchases were made.

    So, make your case: Fair or unfair? We are always pleased to publish dissenting opinions.

  • Follow-Up: No Autosurf Cure For Struggling Newspapers

    Our site has been serving more pages, fueled in large measure by readers’ interest in the AdSurfDaily case and our reports on Ponzi fraud and securities fraud.

    We got a mention in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last week (and later on Google News, which picked up the P-I column) in response to our column on whether the paper could save itself by employing the autosurf business model.

    Lots of people want folks to believe that autosurfing is a perfect machine that cures all financial ills. We asked why a famous newspaper such as the Post-Intelligencer, at death’s door, wasn’t installing an autosurf script to save itself if this purportedly curative model was all it was cracked up to be.

    After all, the P-I actually is a professional advertising business, one with an actual product — not a company that pretends to be a professional advertising business, as is the practice of virtually all autosurfs. The P-I employs professional sales people, professional accountants, professional designers, professional artists, professional writers — people who know advertising inside and out.

    Why not leverage its marketplace advantages and existing readership base and enter the autosurf business? To hear autosurf operators tell it, thousands of small business owners in Greater Seattle — and the entire audience of the newspaper — could earn handsome sums if the paper installed a script that rotates ads that people click on to earn “rebates.”

    So easy a six-year-old could do it!

    The P-I, according to autosurf operators, could keep 50 percent of the take and use the money to subsidize the print publication, save lots of jobs, save money for a Rainy Day and make Hearst’s balance sheet the envy of Wall Street.

    We speculated that the P-I, even at death’s door, didn’t install a surf script because it had no interest at all in harming people and destroying the credibility it had accumulated through its storied history. People getting harmed is perhaps the most common result of the autosurf trade.

    The notion that the paper even would consider a surf model always was just plain silly. But we raised the question because lots of people would have you believe there is something noble about the model, something magical, something curative.

    If the print edition of the P-I dies, it will die with its nobility, its honor, its rich history of service and value intact.  So will a lot of print publications that also have websites and the same marketplace advantages as the P-I.

    Good people get hurt — good people lose jobs — when one technological age ends and another begins. Some people will recover quickly. Others will recover as the overall economy improves. There are no guarantees that the salary levels they once enjoyed will be reached again.

    People perhaps will have to learn new skills and find new ways to compete. They might have to work twice as hard to earn half as much money. The reality is that legitimate wealth can be created only through legitimate effort. It is possible, of course, to accumulate large sums of money through illegitimate effort, but it’s not legitimate wealth; it is the proceeds of a crime.

    Legitimate Firms Won’t Drink From The Autosurf Well

    The New York Times yesterday carried a story about upheaval at America’s top newspapers. The Times interviewed editors and publishers. Not a single one of them even mentioned the word “autosurf.”

    When the ailing newspaper business isn’t willing to take the autosurf cure to save itself, it gives people contemplating spending money with a surf lots of useful information.

    Elsewhere yesterday, though, plenty of autosurf operators were telling the Web-viewing public that advertising riches were right around the corner if only business owners — advertisers — would plunk down sums ranging from $6 to $9,500.

    Advertisers simply could view other advertisers’ ads for 10 minutes a day, and receive back a daily “rebate” ranging from 1 percent to 12 percent. In short order — at daily interest rates that would cripple banks — the advertisers would receive back 100 percent of their ad spend and profits in excess of the spend.

    Some of the autosurf sites excitedly tell advertisers not to worry, that they don’t have to buy anything from the other advertisers. The only thing they have to do is view ads.

    Yes, “Look at the ads but don’t worry about buying anything” is part of the autosurf sales pitch — a pitch that normally includes tortured construction after tortured construction, messages at odds with themselves. Don’t people already know they don’t have to buy anything if they choose to look at an ad — in an autosurf or elsewhere?

    Viewers of the autosurfs are called “qualified consumers,” members of a highly appealing “captive audience.” A new wrinkle is to give them important-sounding titles such as “Account Executive” and “VIP.”  The surf’s gambit is that you’re dumber than a box of rocks and actually will be overcome with joy to become a qualified consumer and account executive yourself — perhaps even one with VIP status for an additional fee.

    Should you do any of these things, of course, the knowledge that you don’t have to buy anything from anybody is certain only to add to your joy. This means, of course, that nobody has to buy anything from you, either. Everyone just sits around clicking on ads. Fabulous profits stream in so long as you continue to purchase ads while not worrying about buying or selling anything.

    Sometimes the surfs say things such as, “Better than Google!” or “Is this the new Microsoft?” or “Web 3.0 has arrived!” or they’re “Revolutionizing” advertising or they have a “Unique” revenue-sharing model.

    What the autosurf operators don’t tell prospects is that the U.S. government views them as purveyors of unregistered securities that are taking money from incoming investors to pay older investors — the classic Ponzi set-up. And they don’t tell prospects that federal prosecutors never have lost a Ponzi case against an autosurf.

    They also won’t tell prospects that some of their autosurf colleagues set up the business by installing a simple script, throw up some graphics, pay people for a while to keep new money coming in — and then run with large sums of cash, only to set up shop elsewhere and repeat the scam.

    No television station will touch the autosurf model. No radio station will touch the autosurf model. No dying newspaper will touch the autosurf model, not even to save jobs. It is the exclusive province of scam artists and practiced hucksters — as well it should be.

    They Read It In The Newspaper

    The big news in the autosurf world last week was the surrender to forfeiture of Andy Bowdoin and AdSurfDaily, which gave up its claims to tens of millions of dollars seized by the government in August amid wire-fraud, money-laundering and Ponzi allegations.

    Members read about it in the newspaper — and on websites and Blogs. ASD didn’t announce its capitulation on its Breaking News website.

    It also didn’t announce that a second forfeiture complaint had been filed last month to seize other assets tied to the firm. Members again read about it in the newspaper — and on websites and Blogs. The St. Petersburg Times has done some fine reporting on the ASD case.

    Among the property the government seeks in the second forfeiture complaint is a home whose mortgage allegedly was retired with $157,000 in Ponzi proceeds; it’s the home Andy Bowdoin’s stepson shares with his wife. Prosecutors said the couple also obtained a 2008 Honda CRV with Ponzi proceeds.

    On June 10 and June 11 alone, prosecutors said, Bowdoin family members used nearly $240,000 in Ponzi proceeds to make personal purchases. The purchases were made just days after a company rally in Las Vegas had concluded. Millions of dollars were collected at the rally.

    Prosecutors also noted that Andy Bowdoin bought a $50,000 Lincoln shortly after another multimillion-dollar rally in Miami, and that ASD funds were used to purchase a 20-foot Triton Cabana boat, jet skis, trailers — and another car, an Acura.

    The December forfeiture complaint also cites a claim that Russian hackers stole $1 million from the company and that Bowdoin didn’t call the police or other authorites to report the theft. In addition, it paints a picture of ASD insider’s plotting ways to steal even more money.

    Insiders already had removed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company, thus making ASD even more of a Ponzi, prosecutors said. “Ad packs” were given away like cash, and rank-and-file members — unbeknownst to them — were shouldering the burden to pay for all of the insider manipulations.

    ASD’s experience should have been a huge setback to the autosurf trade — you know, the trade that pitches a miracle cure for small businesses.

    But the surf operators are a resilient bunch who’ve reportedly taken their show on the road, locating surf sites in Panama and Uruguay. The cure is portable it seems, and yet we can’t cite a single example of a prominent company willing to stake it reputation and bet the value of its brand by taking a drink from the well.

  • Seattle Post-Intelligencer Imperiled: Could It Use The Autosurf Model To Save Itself?

    Yesterday we wrote about the U.S. unemployment rate surging to 7.2 percent, the highest since 1993. Today we’ll start with the news that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of America’s great newspapers, has been put up for sale by Hearst.

    Our purpose for this post is twofold: To send our respect to staff members who may be confronting job losses in a poor economy, and to show the situation in Seattle demonstrates that there are no miracle cures in the publishing/advertising business.

    If no buyer for the Post-Intelligencer is found within 60 days, the property may become a Web-only publication “with a greatly reduced staff,” Hearst said.

    “A complete shutdown of all operations” even is possible, Hearst said. “In no case will Hearst continue to publish the P-I in printed form following the conclusion of this process.”

    High Print Truths

    The bitter truth about print publishing is that many publishers can’t sell enough advertising to sustain traditional operations. Print circulation, meanwhile, is falling across the board because readers prefer to get their news from the Web. The two major newspapers in Detroit — the Free Press and the Detroit News, for instance, have slashed home delivery to just three days a week.

    Elsewhere, The Albuquerque Journal will stop home deliveries to 30 communities around the state and take the paper off newsstands in those communities.

    And did you know The Christian Science Monitor  is becoming a Web-only publication?

    On the magazine front, U.S. News & World Report is dialing down print operations and transitioning toward a Web-focused model.

    Name a U.S. city, and you’ll find a struggling print publisher. In some cases, tourniquets applied earlier in bids to stop profuse bleeding are failing. Layoffs are common. The next sad call could be to the coroner to make the pronouncement.

    Both major Chicago papers are bleeding, and even the New York Times is not immune from the disease that is killing mass-produced print. The Times is not exactly flush with cash.

    No Miracle Cures

    Our heart goes out to the P-I employees. The print world finds itself in a battle to remain relevant, the same sort of battle blacksmiths confronted when cars replaced horses. We are well-acquainted with this battle.

    Now, let’s switch gears a bit to make a point that may seem off-topic in the context of this post.

    You’ve read some very famous names above. Indeed, some of the finest journalists in the world work for these publications. Some of the best salespeople — people who know advertising inside and out and through and through — work for these publications. Some of the best known companies in the United States advertise in these publications.

    If there were any merit at all to the autosurf advertising model, these publishing companies would be employing it to raise badly need cash or even to save themselves. Beyond that, though, they’d be doing it even if times were good as a means of  generating Rainy Day cash.

    Take U.S. News & World Report, for example. Its website gets 7 million unique hits monthly, and the number is on the rise. Readers are there for the editorial because they value it. Imagine a publishing/advertising company with a tremendous number of existing visitors installing an autosurf script.

    Such a company wouldn’t even have to fret over creating traffic from scratch because the volume already would be there. At the same time, the company wouldn’t have to start from scratch to build a brand because its existing brand already is well-known.

    Imagine Matt Drudge installing an autosurf script with his incredible traffic volume.

    So, why isn’t Drudge doing it? Why isn’t U.S. News & World Report doing it? Why isn’t the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, at death’s door, doing it? All of the companies have an existing product that readers love. All of them have enviable website traffic volume.

    Could it be they’re not doing it because the autosurf model — which often is pitched as the “new” way and the product of visionary thinking — is contemptible on its face, perhaps even criminal?

    The plain answer is yes. If the model had any merit at all, existing companies with well-known brands, loyal website viewers and loyal advertisers already would be employing it — using their economies of scale and the talents of in-house editors, writers, designers, webmasters and salespeople to crush amateur autosurf competitors like a bug.

    Stacking Myths

    A recent development in the autosurf world is to position paid-to-surf sites as social-networking outlets, the ushers of the Web 3.0 Age.

    Why, then, haven’t MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks installed their own autosurf scripts? After all, these leading-edge companies and their tens of millions of members could be swimming in cash –  if the autosurf operators using the “rebate” model can be believed, that is.

    Every time I see an autosurf claim it’s a professional advertising business I want to gag. I’ve spent the lion’s share of my career working for print publications — publications that employ top sales people, people who belong to professional trade associations and live to read Advertising Age and the vital publications of their occupation.

    Did federal agents seize even one copy of Advertising Age inside the offices of AdSurfDaily Inc., the Quincy, Fla., company accused of selling unregistered securities by calling them “advertisements” and operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme? Did ASD belong to a single local, statewide or national advertising trade association? Did Andy Bowdoin, its owner, understand advertising metrics or have a career-honed sense of what major national brands require before they’ll plunk down even a single dollar to make an ad purchase?

    ASD’s lack of a glossy Media Kit, audited circulation and polished PR skills would be deal-breakers for mainstream national brands. So would its inability to control its own message. Promoters’ ads for the company didn’t sell the value of the advertising; they sold the value of the income opportunity, often with outrageous excess.

    And when a lawyer appears in a video alongside the company owner to assure participants that everything is perfectly legal — well, not only would it raise eyebrows in the legitimate advertising world, it would cause media buyers to cling to their wallets.

    In all your years on this planet, did the local newspaper or media outlet ever have a need to reassure you that your purchases were legal? Did they ever promise you you’d get back all the money for your ad purchase and a profit of 25 percent — even if your product didn’t sell — by simply spending six minutes a day viewing ads they publish?

    I’ve worked side by side with editors and reporters and photographers who work their tails off to give readers the best possible publication. One of my former publishers was famous for saying, “You serve your advertisers best by serving your readers first” — in other words, the editorial team creates a product that educates, enlightens and informs readers, which in turn equips the sales staff with a powerful tool and creates the value for advertisers.

    Did you know that print consumers are like sports fans? They believe they own their hometown publications, just as sports fans believe they own their hometown teams. You should be in the newsroom when readers start calling because a production error resulted in “Cathy” being left out of the Comics section in the morning paper.

    Point is, the vessel through which ads are delivered must have value to readers and advertisers. It’s the publishing world’s raison d’être. A newspaper exists to make money. The publication is the vessel through which readers find information they value — a story about a tax hike and how residents are fighting it, or the ad from Staples.

    One of the great myths about autosurfs is that they somehow can entice major advertisers to spend big dollars running banner/display/text ads in the members’ area because of the value of the autosurf’s “captive” audience.

    Built into this theory is the assumption that big advertisers wouldn’t want to be actual participants in the autosurfs and qualify for big rebates: They’d only want people to see their ads as they signed into their autosurf accounts — or, if the advertiser did choose to advertise in the actual rotator, it wouldn’t want a rebate check; it would just want people to see their ads.

    In other words, this theoretical upperclass of advertisers would forgo their rebate profits so profits could be equitably distributed to the underclass of advertisers, a new form of Socialistic advertising.

    The people selling the system, by the way, all claim to be capitalists.

    It is complete bunk — the “captive” audience isn’t there because it’s drawn by an enthralling editorial product that readers or viewers crave; it’s there because it’s being paid a fee to be there. Main Street, big-dollar advertisers want legitimate prospects, not prospects who are being paid to assume the role of prospects.

    Besides, no major advertiser wants to damage its brand by participating in something unseemly — a Ponzi scheme, for instance. Media buyers also need verifiable, audited evidence of viewership — the sort that Nielsen and Audit Bureau of Circulations provide to ensure ad dollars are being spent wisely. Autosurfs aren’t keen on disclosure, particulary audited disclosure.

    The lack of an editorial product — or, in the TV sense, programming — is an autosurf deal-breaker for major advertisers. People surfing for a fee are not an attractive audience. People don’t watch “American Idol” for a fee; they watch it because they love it and it has meaning to them, which is what creates the value for advertisers.

    Moreover, people don’t read the newspaper or magazine for a fee or perform Google, Yahoo and MSN searches for a fee. They do it because the outlets have meaning to them. They need information. Advertisements are packaged with the information, whether the publication is print or digital.

    In all the discussion about autosurfs, I have never — not one single time — seen an operator brag about the quality of the editorial product. They can’t: There is no editorial product. Participants are there to view ads for a fee. The more you put into the autosurf, the more you “earn” by clicking on ads.

    Major advertisers wouldn’t know if a viewer paid $10 to view ads or $10,000. They wouldn’t know if you’re 13 years old or 73. Owing to unaudited viewership, major advertisers wouldn’t know if the autosurf had 100 members or 100,000. They wouldn’t know if bots were making the clicks to make the autosurf appear to have more members than it actually did.

    About the only thing major advertisers would know about you if they decided to sit through a surfing session is that you’re willing to view ads for a 1 percent (or higher) daily kickback — and apparently are extraordinarily interested in MLMs, cash-gifting programs, miracle potions and overnight-cash systems.

    $100 (Or Less) The Only ‘Credential’ Needed

    Anyone can acquire an autosurf script. They’re even available for free. No one has to have a single credential beyond a script — hardly a credential — to open an autosurf. What you need is a domain name and hosting account, $100 or less, someone who can throw up a few graphics, and access to a payment processor and a bank account. Set the script to the rebate percentage you choose, and start shouting from the rooftops.

    A few significant MLM promoters and side-dealers later, you’re sitting on a pile of money and in possession of your very own Ponzi scheme.

    So, the next time someone asks you to join an autosurf — the next time someone tells you that you’ll get back 100 percent of the total of your ad spend and emerge with a profit whether or not you make a single sale — ask yourself why the Seattle Post-Intelligencer isn’t starting an autosurf as a means of neutralizing the grim reaper and saving itself.

    Could it be that business ethics actually exist in this world and that reponsible companies actually take them seriously?

    If the paper started an autosurf tomorrow and followed the ASD model, it could generate tens of millions of dollars in a matter of weeks. By including a disclaimer that rebates weren’t guaranteed — only ad views were guaranteed — it could pocket huge sums of money and use it to save the print publication and all those jobs.

    Such things are possible in the fantasy world of the autosurf, which considers only the revenue side of the ledger and kites itself the authority to induce people to join by plying them with rebates — and then erasing accrued rebate liabilities by invoking disclaimers when the Ponzi math becomes unbearable.

    Next ask yourself why prominent, healthy companies — companies you know and love — aren’t running autosurfs. Ask yourself why Google, one of the biggest ad companies on earth and one with an enviable balance sheet, unrivaled traffic and a magical brand name — isn’t doing it.

    Could it be because these legitimate companies actually care about you — and what you think about them?

    To better times, P-I staff. We’ll be thinking about you.

  • Prosecutors Turn Up The Heat On Madoff

    Ponzi schemes almost always have insiders, and sometimes the insiders may not even know they’re insiders.

    In an extraordinary revelation, federal prosecutors said this afternoon that Bernard Madoff took overt steps to distribute bonuses to preferred family,  friends and employees after he realized the Ponzi he created was crashing down around him

    “[When] the defendant’s office desk was searched, investigators found approximately 100 signed checks totaling more than approximately $173 million, ready to be sent out,” said prosecutors Marc Litt and Lisa A. Baroni.

    The assertions were made in a letter to Judge Ronald L. Ellis.

    “The only thing that prevented the defendant from executing his plan to dissipate these assets was his arrest by the FBI on December 11,” Litt and Baroni said. The letter was signed by Litt, under the authority of  Acting U.S. Attorney Lev. L. Dassin of the Southern District of New York.

    Today’s letter by prosecutors marked the first public disclosure that Madoff already had drafted and signed checks, a situation that could have led to an even greater calamity had the checks been mailed and cashed.

    Prosecutors earlier had said only that Madoff had discussed distributing up to $300 million to preferred individuals.

    Here is the  letter from prosecutors.

    Had the preferred parties received and deposited the checks, Madoff’s assets would have been depleted by $173 million, putting family members, friends and employees in the position of getting sued to disgorge illegal profits.

    Prosecutors said earlier this week that Madoff and his wife, Ruth, sent more than $1 million in jewelry and other items to friends and family after his arrest. The government viewed it as a bail violation, saying Madoff should be jailed.

    Madoff’s attorney, Ira Sorkin, explained Madoff’s behavior as an innocent mistake.

    Today’s filing by prosecutors makes it clear that the government believes home-detention with electronic monitoring weren’t enough to keep Madoff in line while awaiting trial. The gloves are off, and prosecutors now are playing hardball.

    “The nature and circumstances of the offense charged are unprecedented,” prosecutors told the judge. “The defendant has admitted to perpetrating one of the largest, if not the largest, Ponzi schemes in history — a scheme that required the defendant to lie routinely to thousands of people and a scheme which has caused extraordinary damage to individuals, families and institutions all over the world.”

  • Blagojevich Subject Of Debut RateMyVanity.com Poll

    Rod Blagojevich
    Rod Blagojevich

    He’s the governor who won’t go away, despite allegations he tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Obama.

    Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois is the subject of the debut poll on RateMyVanity.com. So, if you’ve been following the Blagojevich saga and have a few minutes, visit the site and cast your vote. You’ll be asked to select a choice that best describes your perception of the governor’s vanity.

    We don’t anticipate heavy traffic in these early days. But we plan to build the site over time and make it a daily stopping point for people who enjoy following the news. The site was inspired by the Bernard Madoff Ponzi case.

    We’ll be adding additional content today. As it stands, some dummy posts still are in place. We’ve been testing systems and tweaking things. More tweaking will follow. Dummy content will be removed as fresh content fills in the holes. We left the dummy content in place for now so readers can get a better feel for the site.

    RateMyVanity.com mostly will cover newsmakers from the worlds of politics, media, entertainment and sports. We’ll mix in other stories and polls from time to time. The idea is to get a sense of how the public views the vanity of people in the news.

    We have two separate designs for the site and will be switching back and forth in the early days, based on what readers ultimately prefer. The articles will be short, with a hint of an “attitude.”

    Readers can leave comments. Some polls will have a feature than permits users to enter their own assessment of the newsmakers’ vanity, if they aren’t satisfied with the choices we provide.

    The site is using WordPress 2.7, the latest version. We’ve had to do some tweaking and anticipate some additional tweaks. Our plan is to provide lots of fresh content, based on what Americans are talking about.

    Visit Rate My Vanity.

  • AdViewGlobal, AdGateWorld Brands Leveraged To Sell Cash-Gifting, Other Programs; Pitches Also Use Tony Robbins’ Name

    It’s hard to imagine that motivational speaker Anthony Robbins would be pleased to learn his carefully cultivated brand name is being leveraged to sell highly questionable online-income opportunities such as cash-gifting programs.

    Robbins, however, has company — and it’s the sort of company that adds an extra layer of dubiousness to the drip-drop dilution of the Robbins’ brand: The brands of AdGateWorld and AdViewGlobal also are being used to harvest traffic to “opportunities” that appear to have nothing to do with the autosurf companies.

    AdGateWorld and AdViewGlobal are autosurf companies that surfaced in the wake of the alleged $100 million AdSurfDaily autosurf Ponzi scheme. The U.S. government takes a dim view of the autosurf business model, saying it’s a back-door way of selling securities without a license — while using money from new investors to pay redemptions requested by earlier investors: the classic Ponzi set-up.

    At the same time, the government also cautions against participating in cash-gifting programs, many of which use an illegal pyramid model and trade on get-rich-quick dreams.

    This is one of those bizarre things that happens only online. Autosurfs have been under public scrutiny in the aftermath of the well-publicized August seizure of ASD’s assets.

    Promoters of cash-gifting and MLM-style programs now appear to be trading on ASD’s pain — and the names of new autosurfs that have surfaced since the ASD asset seizure  — to harvest traffic and route dollars to their own questionable opportunities.

    Last night and this morning we noticed that some promoters of cash-gifting and other questionable programs have been using keywords such as “Ad View Global” and “Ad Gate World” to drive traffic to their video presentations. The autosurf names appear in headlines on the video sites, but the videos themselves don’t talk about the autosurfs.

    People who anticipate viewing an autosurf pitch instead are greeted with a cash-gifting pitch or a pitch for another MLM-style program.

    Robbins’ name also is being used in an apparent bid to siphon traffic that originates with autosurf- or business-opportunity-related keywords, and, in at least one case, is being used in an actual video ad for a cash-gifting program. We also noticed Robbins’ likeness in video stills whose headlines suggested the videos were about autosurfs.

    This morning we viewed a video with a headline of “Ad Gate World Create[s] the 4 Hour Work Week.” The video was about a cash-gifting program, not the Ad Gate World autosurf program. Robbins’ name was scrolled in the opening frames of the video.

    A woman who appeared in the video declared she’d found her nirvana through cash-gifting:

    “Cash-gifting is the way to go — hands down,” she told viewers. “This is what I want to do, like forever, now.”

    Like him or not, Tony Robbins has worked hard to cultivate a unique brand identity. Last year he sued Stephen Pierce, an Internet Marketer, amid allegations that Pierce was leveraging the Robbins’ brand without authorization.

    Read about the Robbins/Pierce lawsuit on TMZ.com.

    “[Robbins] carefully limits and vigorously protects and defends the good will and value of Robbins’ name, reputation and image,” Robbins said in the lawsuit.

    Some promoters of highly questionable programs are really pushing things by associating Robbins’ brand with their “opportunities.” This is one of the reasons large segments of the public view Internet Marketing as a cesspool.

    It’s painful to watch.

  • Enjoy WordPress Blogging? Try Elegant Themes

    If you enjoy WordPress blogging and are looking for ways to expand your online presence in 2009 while implementing a clean, fresh look, ElegantThemes may be a choice suited for you.

    First, though, let’s get you qualified: Elegant Themes is a membership site that provides attractive WordPress themes. You’ll need a core understanding of WordPress. You shouldn’t join Elegant Themes unless you have some WordPress experience or intend to gain it in the coming year.

    Skills you’ll need include the ability to download themes and plug-ins and upload them to your server. Occasionally you’ll need the ability to copy-and-paste code. If you’re already a Blogger these skills likely are second nature to you. If you’re inexperienced, expect to spend some time learning WordPress basics. The WordPress interface is user-friendly. Until a few weeks ago we had virtually no experience with WordPress, but now can’t imagine a world without it.

    One of the first things we noticed about Elegant Themes is that it provides psd files — for Photoshop — in its download packs, meaning you can use Photoshop to fashion a logo for your site.

    But Elegant Themes also provided a blank logo. If you don’t have Photoshop, you can edit the blank logo with a free program such as paint.net to create your own site logo. This is a big plus, because an average Blogger may not own Photoshop. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with paint.net if you don’t own Photoshop and have been looking for ways to make your own logos.

    As of this writing, ElegantThemes charges $19.95 for a one-year subscription via PayPal. Our purchasing experience was seamless, meaning there were no glitches and we were routed instantly to where we needed to be after purchase.

    There are 17 eye-catching themes available for download at the site. More will be added, and we anticipate they will have great curb appeal.  The owner impresses us as a hard-working designer. Elegant Themes provides a members’ Support Forum, so let’s talk about that for a moment.

    We have asked three questions in the forum. Each question was addressed promptly — by the owner and a fellow forum member. We were impressed by the swiftness of the responses, especially because we posed our questions on a weekend.

    What made the responses particularly memorable, though, was the thoroughness. We encountered a glitch with one of the themes — an alignment problem. This problem was caused by the recent upgrade of WordPress to version 2.7. A fellow member provided a solution — a code snippet — right in the forum, and the owner incorporated the fix into the theme within a matter of hours.

    In reading forum threads, we noticed other examples of members and the owner providing code snippets to fix individual issues. Issues, of course, are inevitable, regardless of the Blogging platform you choose. One of the great things about WordPress is that the user base is large and the documentation is thorough. When issues do arise, there is a worldwide knowledge base from which to glean answers. The Elegant Themes members’ Support Forum has added to this WordPress knowledge base, a big plus.

    We have done considerable shopping for WordPress themes. Many are available for free — the theme on the Patrick Pretty Blog is known as “Visionary,” for example. You’ll find no shortage of free themes if you enter the WordPress world.

    But we also did some shopping for paid themes. A good number of highly qualified WordPress designers offer paid themes. The range runs the gamut from “should have just used a free theme” to “we’d gladly have paid more for the theme.”

    Pricing at Elegant Themes is on the low end of what we viewed online and is more than fair. For a $19.95 annual subscription, we received access to 17 very attractive themes. We’ve seen membership sites that charge as much as $299 for a year’s subscription — while having fewer selections than Elegant Themes.

    As always, though, we encourage you to do your own shopping. For our money, Elegant Themes has provided exceptional value.

    Visit Elegant Themes.

    In the weeks ahead we plan to upgrade a couple of sites with themes from Elegant Themes. On Wednesday, we are launching RateMyVanity.com, and we’re using a theme from Elegant Themes on the site.

    rmvscreenshot

    We find Elegant Themes to be fresh and new. Our experience on the members’ Support Forum has been a positive one, and we get the sense the owner works hard to maximize value for members. The themes alone were worth the low price of admission.

    Visit Elegant Themes.