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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 07/08/2010 : 22:04:38
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Ah, corporations and bloggers: what a wonderful combination.
PepsiCo (makers of Pepsi and Doritos and a host of other drinks and snacks) has a blog called "Food Frontiers." PepsiCo and Seed Media Group joined forces, and tried to move "Food Frontiers" to Seed's ScienceBlogs blog collective. ScienceBlogs already comprised 86 largely independent blogs (and more bloggers) which had, over years, built a reputation (generally) of integrity and interest.
And so most of the active "SciBlings" took this PepsiCo blog's entry into the collective as a clear conflict of interest, either journalistically or scientifically. Yes, Seed displays advertisements above and to the right of everyone's content, but "Food Frontiers" seemed like it was going to be advertising as content, and all riding upon the reputation that the other, non-corporate bloggers had built.
Earlier today (less than 48 hours after the news came out), Seed cancelled the deal. But it had already made international news, and prompted (in whole or in part) at least seven of the SciBlings to split.
Here is the fallout:
Blogs that have left the collective:
Blogs that are taking a break:
Blogs that haven't decided yet:
Blogs that aren't going anywhere:
Blogs pointing out the problems, but not apparently leaving:
Blogs that haven't mentioned the kerfluffle:
Blogs that probably don't care or don't know or just won't say:
Who could possibly tell?
There is now a ScienceBlogs Diaspora RSS feed, which combines the feeds of all the folks who have left.
By the way, this is very funny.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2010 : 01:45:32 [Permalink]
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What the f*** were they (Seed Media Group) thinking?
How did they expect things to go down?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2010 : 04:37:27 [Permalink]
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| Maybe everyone should have kept silent and stayed at ScienceBlogs. Then spent a few months bashing all PepsiCo products as poisonous frankenfoods produced by orphans chained in sweathops. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2010 : 05:08:05 [Permalink]
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| I don't drink Pepsi, but while at Dragon*Con I leaned to appreciate Doritos' "Fiery Habanero" tortilla chips. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/15/2010 : 05:55:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Maybe everyone should have kept silent and stayed at ScienceBlogs. Then spent a few months bashing all PepsiCo products as poisonous frankenfoods produced by orphans chained in sweathops.
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I dunno about the "orphan" part (a possibility?) but I have long considered the rest as "poisonous frankenfoods" and avoid them. My favorite snacks are a little dab of peanut butter on a soda cracker or if I have one, an avocado with a good, hot salsa that I can spoon up out of it's skin.
I read something about this at PZ's, where he showed subdued outrage at this commercial endeavor showing up at what is essentially a group of science/skeptic blogs. If I'd had a blog in there, I'd be pissed too!
on the other hand, it shows that the blogs are healthy and popular, otherwise PepsiCo's would never have made the attempt.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/15/2010 12:01:04 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2010 : 11:54:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
What the f*** were they (Seed Media Group) thinking? |
Apparently, they were thinking this:To sum up, we believe that a meaningful discussion about science and society in the 21st century requires that all players be at the table (with affiliations made clear), from all parts of the world, from every sector of society. And ScienceBlogs is where this is starting to happen. | How did they expect things to go down? |
It seems that expected that Pepsi would be welcomed in the spirit of diversity. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2010 : 13:01:35 [Permalink]
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And here I got the impression that Pepsi tried to pull a fast one using the reputation of science-blog to buy "scientific legitimacy" to their products.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2010 : 05:16:26 [Permalink]
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| Always be suspicious of Pepsi Cola and science, it was so named because it is an anagram of Episcopal. Though I will say it's better than the first name they had for it, "Brad's drink", which can only be anagramed into "birds drank". |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 07/16/2010 05:18:30 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 14:05:29 [Permalink]
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Just got this in PM box on facebook:
Eric Michael Johnson July 19 at 11:04am
My fellow primates,
After my decision to leave ScienceBlogs I received a wonderful response from across the blogosphere and will now be going on tour. Every Monday a different blog will be hosting my work and the first entry has just gone live.
"Scientific Ethics and the Myth of Stalin's Ape-Man Superwarriors."
Read it here: http://j.mp/apulO2
For those who would like to follow the tour by RSS you can click on this link: http://j.mp/dvYkYN or follow the #PDEx hashtag on Twitter.
Thanks for all of your e-mails and comments of support. It means a great deal to me. Nothing brings a writer more joy than to know that their work is being read and appreciated. My gratitude goes out to you all.
Cheers,
Eric |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 22:18:19 [Permalink]
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Allow me to summarize the updates since I first posted about this:Finally, what prompted me to update now is that A Blog Around the Clock has left for new digs with a huge post explaining a whole lot of stuff and offering insights into Sb of which I was completely unaware. If you're at all interested in what's going on at Sb, I urge you to take the time to read Coturnix's message.
Note also that Sb itself hasn't made a peep since they got rid of Pepsi. They're being unusually quiet, even though the founder of Seed started his own ScienceBlog on July 8. Go figure.
So, now 14 blogs have left the collective since the Pepsi kerfluffle, whether because of Pepsi or not. That's over 16%, which is a fairly huge number considering how many of other the blogs are simply not updating. They're getting close to the point where half the blogs will be, for all practical purposes, dead. This can't be good, and I expect that a few more blogs will move in the near future as a result of Coturnix leaving. It may just be a matter of time until PZ finds the motivation to move his truly massive comment base to some other site. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2010 : 23:05:07 [Permalink]
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| Good grief! She is blunt! |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2010 : 01:45:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Good grief! She is blunt! |
Good grief, indeed. And she still won't use apostrophes. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Colapocalypse
