What is Digg?136 Comments
- acex23, on 10/12/2007, -24/+100This is bullcrap. If Joe Anthony was a supporter he would have gladly given the site over for the cause. But instead he offers to "sell" it, for $39,000. And then accuses *them* of bullying. ironic.
- Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -32/+105After reading the TechPresident article:
http://techpresident.com/node/301
I have to say that I agree with the Obama camp on this one. They had Joe's profile shut down (and lost the 160,000 friends, they didn't steal them) and took control of the URL myspace.com/barackobama. According to MySpace's TOS, you're not allowed to impersonate anyone, and that includes setting up unofficial fan pages (even though MySpace only enforces that rule when there's a complaint from the actual person). So, the fact that there was an unofficial fan page out there with an official-sounding URL and 160,000 friends that could potentially misrepresent Obama -- yeah, that's a HUGE liability, and Obama's camp had the right to shut it down.
However, I also agree that Obama's camp was crazy-stupid not to buy the profile from Joe. $55k for an email list of 160,000 fired-up voters is quite a bargain, according to the article. The ground work had been laid, so they just needed to take control of the profile and make it official. Did you know that Hillary Clinton's MySpace profile only has 49k friends right now? And the official Obama profile only has 19k friends. They passed on a list of 160k fired-up Obama supporters. Unbelieveable.
Yes, it was a stupid, stupid mistake on the part of Team Obama, but they were fully within their rights to make it. But do you want to nominate this kind of incompetence as a candidate? - otheruser, on 10/12/2007, -15/+71Joe Anthony originally signed as a supporter, a volunteer. It's outrageous that he turned around and charged them with a $50,000 bill, for an account that did not technically belong to him.
Furthermore, all 160,000 people didn't sign-up because Anthony made a really nice myspace page (that's impossible), but because they wanted to support Obama. Even worse, they're not all "engaged activists" as Anthony claims, they're just people who signed up on myspace.
Lastly, Obama has nothing to do with compensation distribution. The fact that people are linking this incident directly to him is ludicrous. - Chickenlip, on 10/12/2007, -18/+49Guys ... if this guy was doing all this web-work out of the goodness of his heart, and truly unconditionally supported Barak, why didnt he just offer up the page for free?
Charlotte_Web makes a terrific point in his comment above:
the fact that there was an unofficial fan page out there with an official-sounding URL and 160,000 friends that could potentially misrepresent Obama
/end quote
Letting one person unaffiliated with the official campaign have the ability to sway 160,000 people is just playing russian roulette ... Now, Anthony all of a sudden deciding that his work was worth 50,000 is a bit dubious. He never ventured into his MySpace with with the thought he would make money off it someday ... He himself needs to realize the jeopardy he has put the campaign in, and do the right thing for the man he has worked so hard to bolster.
I think it's sad now, that he is running around telling everyone how he wont vote for Obama over this, and is using this to sway people to vote for someone else. It's quite an unfortunate situation, and I don't think that spending $50,000 would have been the right way to solve it. - aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -9/+33He didn't "offer" to sell it, the campaign came to him and ASKED him to name a price that would be fair compensation for converting an unofficial fan page into the official campaign site. Oh, and they didn't want to bring him on board, so he's giving up his hobby project to others for a one-time fee. I think it was fair for him to tell them his cost, as they REQUESTED it. I also think it's fair of them to say "no thanks."
- Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -12/+36AHAHAHA This is hilarious. Chalotteweb is being all nice and agreeable because he wants this to damage Obama, so he is presenting it in a friendly manner. Charllotte is one of the biggest apologists for Bush and the White house on digg currently.......XD (Look at his submission history and some of his comments if you want).
He couldn't help slip this in at the end... "But do you want to nominate this kind of incompetence as a candidate?" - MSF2, on 10/12/2007, -15/+34Obama's campaign manager probably made the final decision on this, so you shouldn't fault Obama for it.
But personally, even if it was Obama himself who did it, I agree with the decision. This guy was asking for way to much for a page that wasn't rightfully his to begin with, and I sure wouldn't want my donation to Obama's campaign to go to paying off some guy on Myspace. - thefirelane, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22>But do you want to nominate this kind of incompetence as a candidate?
After what we've been getting... yes. Screwing up a myspace profile is EXACTLY the level of incompetence I want. - OwdenBowden, on 10/12/2007, -12/+27Just in case:
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
5.01.01 What happened to the Obama profile?
Current mood: disappointed
Friends,
Many of you are probably wondering what happened to the Obama profile. The campaign, with the help of Myspace, have seized control of the profile without my consent, and are using it to refer traffic to a new profile they created. I have been blocked from having access to the profile. The campaign will probably have a different perspective on the events leading up to this, but until my personal profile is deleted, I'm going to take a stand on this. I believe what they did is just wrong, and someone should say something.
Here is an email I sent to Micah at techpresident.com. Any questions, let me know:
Thanks Micah,
I want to be careful about this, but also I think it's unfair that they deleted this community when they could have left it up as an unofficial fan site as it has been for the last two and a half years. The campaign may say that this was my decision, and this is not true.
I did want to be paid, if we were to continue working together . This was not an attempt to use this profile for commercial purposes. This was an attempt to keep working my ass off on this profile, for Barack Obama, and for the enormous community of supporters on Myspace.
Since January, as you may know, and as many in the Myspace community know, I've been working on the page around the clock. I started this profile in November of 2004 and it grew steadily since then. In January and February the media started to notice, and I began to work even harder because I reallized what an impact the Myspace could really have.
People were actually registering to vote, making contributions, asking questions, putting banners on their pages, etc. I know this because I constantly received emails about this, and I replied to every single one to thank them or point them in the right direction if they needed more information.
The campaign got involved in February and although at first it was very exciting, it quickly became clear that they just had no interest in me or my involvement. They only wanted to take control of the profile and get on with it. I bit the bullet for a while and kept working for the good of the campaign, but they quickly went from passive aggressive, to aggressive, and then eventually just rotten and dishonest.
For the past few weeks, the campaign decided it would be better if they just took control of the profile and we decided to try to come to some agreement. By this time, I didn't have quite as much respect for the campaign guys, and frankly felt like I was just being used. They knew about this profile the entire time, and really just waited until it got enough media coverage and friends request so they could step in and bully me out of it.
The last few weeks were just insane. They kept scheduling phone conferences with me, I would wake up early that day after barely sleeping the night before, I'd take time off work, etc. and each after another would be postponed at the last minute. This went on for weeks.
It got to the point where I didn't feel comfortable turning the profile over to the campaign unless they paid for it. This was largely symbolic. The same campaign that inspired me to work so hard to build this community, the same campaign whose underlying message stresses "the power of the individual to have an impact on politics", was constantly downplaying my role in this, bullying me, and a couple of other things that were just rotten and dishonest (specifically in connection with Myspace, and the campaign quashing a recent NPR interview about the profile).
In a conversation with Chris from the campaign last week or the week before, Chris suggested a one-time fee to transfer over the profile to them and that they discussed this with Myspace and they were agreeable with any arrangement we could work out. He did not suggest how much, or what sort of a fee. He did say that he needed it by the next morning so we scheduled another meeting and I stayed up all night working on a proposal that I thought would be fair to everyone. This was a positive conversation and he seemed sincere enough.
That meeting finally happened yesterday. It was clear at that time that there was no "one-time fee". I felt like it was a bit of a setup so that they could have a reason to take the profile without my consent.
I was accused of using this profile for commercial purposes. I was threatened that I would be responsible if the profile was deleted (they even followed up via email to be sure I knew it was my fault!) The conversation really was about them taking control of the profile. There was no counter offer, or anything to suggest that they had any intention of paying me anything at all.
At this point there was no way I would turn this community over to them and would rather keep it as an unofficial site and keep doing what I've been doing. I expressed this, and they said that if I did not turn the profile over to them immediately, they would delete it and all of my hard work would go to waste. They reiterated this several times, and repeated "You are the one making the decision to kill this profile". In fact, I responded each time, that I have no plans to delete this profile, and that decision would be between them and Myspace. (I even added that he sounded like Bush telling congress/senate it was their decision not to fund the troops. How hypocritical is this!)
Finally, Chris from the campaign emailed me, indicating that Myspace needed my consent to give them access to the profile. I replied that Mypace did not have my consent to grant access to the profile to anyone.
An hour or so later, I was blocked from the profile and the content was altered to redirect traffic to the new, "Official" profile. Myspace has in fact granted access to the profile without my permission.
This was not about money and I don't believe that one person who has interacted with me via the Obama profile over the past couple of years would be able to say that my efforts were anything but sincere. This was about holding a campaign to their message, about acknowledging my work, and taking this community seriously.
I think I did the right thing. I wanted a fair outcome for everyone, but unfortunately that's not what happened. In fact, I think this was enormously offensive to both me and the Myspace community. I could understand Myspace/Newscorp doing this, but didn't think Obama's campaign could have the audacity to do such a thing.
Apparently the message here is, as an individual, if you have too big of an impact, you're just a liability.
This is how Obama lost my vote, and one of his strongest supporters.
Sincerely,
-Joe Anthony
p.s. Like I said, I'm passionate about this right now. All this work, all this progress is down the drain, and I'm absolutely heart-broken. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15He changed the password after he didn't get the 50K.
- noreturn, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14What gets me is that this pedantic little bitch is going to vote for someone else now. Like not wanting to pay 50,000 for a MySpace profile suddenly makes a candidate less fit to run a country.
- whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -6/+13@Chickenlip
Actually, after having read the creator's blog entry, I have to agree with him (if his story is true). The basic problem is that they repeatedly jerked him around and did exactly the opposite of what Obama uses as his campaign points. It's really easy to see how such a person could go from being an ardent supporter to being against Obama due to this kind of "do as I say, not as I do" mentality. - Psyael, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10"At the cost of losing 160,000 friends"
He shouldn't feel too bad. President Bush loses about 160,000 friends a month, you get my drift. - Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15The link to Joe Anthony's blog describing the situation:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=159248288&blogID=259712152 - CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@aboyd
What I am saying is, he literally used his full name as the URL, knowing full-well it would imply it was an official connection to Barack Obama, that's what I'm saying he had to have taken into account. Why do you think he started the MySpace page with Barack Obama's name in the first place? I know he wasn't running for president 2.5 years ago, I simply misspoke when I said "campaign site" referring to the current presidential campaign, I should have said "official Barack Obama site". Don't get too caught up on that part, because it really doesn't matter given the way events occurred. The whole reason he chose that URL, instead of supportbarackobama or anything like that, is simply because barackobama sounds more official, which is probably why even now when the campaign has an official MySpace page, his profile has more friends, which is why the campaign wants official control of the URL. - 5lack3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@nestafett
This is MYSPACE you're talking about... Over half of those 160,000 "supporters" you speak so highly of, are probably not even old enough to VOTE! Think about it. - JOrtiz8612, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I actually like Myspace and Facebook, but there are a lot of imbeciles on it. Then again, most people are imbeciles.
- loker269, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12well if he had been the first to bring up payment I would agree...but the fact the Obama campaign told him to name his price and then when he did they refused to negotiate and turned it all around to make it look like he was an extortionist...
I think it is all ridiculous and my vote for Obama is in jeopardy if he can not even handle dealing with a simple myspace page.
Before you say its ridiculous to be affected at the polls over myspace drama you have to look at the big picture...if he can not handle myspace then how can we expect him to handle running the US and all its horribly disfigured Bush foreign policies? - CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12Sorry, but this kid is full of *****, and he should be ashamed of himself. He took out the MySpace URL barackobamma knowing it would imply it was an official campaign site, there is no way he couldn't have taken that into consideration. I'm sure he was also fully aware of the MySpace TOS which clearly states that you are not allowed to impersonate any person or organization without their explicit consent (and who would consent to that without having some level of official control?), and even if he wasn't, that is a concept that should be obvious to anyone regardless of reading any agreement. MySpace usually won't enforce this rule unless there is a complaint filed, which in this case there obviously was. There was a lengthy process involved, and the Obama campaign did involve him from the beginning. Eventually they accused him of creating the profile for commercial gain, and even if that wasn't the original intent, their accusations turned out to be correct: once the Obama campaign filed the complaint, Joe immediately initiated negotiations for his payment!
The fact is, he had absolutely no right to expect monetary compensation for starting a profile on an online social network when he had no official connection to the campaign whatsoever. The fact that he is bitter personally because he put a lot of effort into it and thinks he should have been paid is totally irrelevant. If his only intention was truly to help the Obama campaign, he has failed miserably. He volunteered to create this MySpace page, except he never contacted the campaign to be officially involved, not to mention to get their consent. Then, when they want to officially take control of the profile, he insists they pay him, which they rightfully refused to do. So, because of his greed, the only option he left them was to get MySpace to delete his account in compliance with the TOS and redirect the URL to their official campaign profile.
Now, after already being greedy and screwing the Obama campaign out of a profile of 160,000 voters, he decides to be an ***** as well and give them bad press by whining about it and making them look like the "bad guy", even though he is the one that should be apologizing for being a complete idiot. - scottc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If they are his friends there is no need to pay anything for them, they will just re-friend him. I don't think 160,000 people were friending Joe. It would have been a nice gesture to pay Joe something for his work, though.
- Psyael, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Are you kidding me? You're going to be influenced at the polls because of MySpace drama?!
You might as well randomly pick a name and fill in the box. - Catsmacking, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@hdtvdust- Err...maybe because myspace has been getting a lot of publicity as of late and the Obama camp became increasingly worried that the guy had influence over 160,000 people? Just a thought.
- vann, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It's not clear how the events transpired exactly. In particular, it's not clear at what point Joe shut out the Obama campaign from the MySpace page. Since that was already listed as the "official" page in the MySpace candidate promo it is understandable why the Obama campaign would seek the most immediate way to regain control. And since the MySpace TOS allows for a person to control their own name, particularly those people of public interest, well, what else were they to do? Negotiate with Joe while he held the page hostage?
Frankly the whole thing sounds like much ago about nothing. The *only* thing Joe lost was the "/barackobama" URL. He did not lose one bit of his content or network. If, as he claims, this was all about helping the Obama campaign and not about his own self-aggrandizement then what does it matter if his "unofficial" Obama page now resides at another URL? Surely he is not claiming that part of the reason for his popularity was the fact that he was using the barackobama monkier. If so, it hardly seems fair to request $50k, especially if, as it seems, this amount was a prerequisite for the Obama campaign regaining access entirely. - 5lack3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6You're an idiot. You can not honestly be comparing the amount of work that it would take to increase gas mileage by 10 times with the amount of "hard work" that went into clicking the 'check all' box, then the 'Approve' button once a week or so.
- nukethewhales, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The guy volunteered to do this work. It's not like Obama's people stiffed him on a contract. When they wanted to take over as the OFFICIAL Obama space he asked them for $50,000.
- nukethewhales, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7So this just turned into a he says/he says thing.
Obama's campaign alleges that they offered him a full-time job, and that he changed the password on them and started asking for financial compensation. That doesn't sound like something a "volunteer" should do.
I don't know who to believe but the guy admits to asking for $50,000. That is a full year salary for something he did on his part time on myspace. My little sister can make a myspace page. - smackywentz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I just, I look at his profile, and I see it, and I just, can't... *****... stand.... MySpace. I really can't, the whole idea of it just, I wish to wipe it off the internet. If I ever get obscenely rich first I'll buy a Carver yacht, and then I'm going to buy MySpace and just utterly, and completely destroy it.
- dagamer34, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6To reward someone for using the likeness of your name is wrong in any sense. To not vote for someone because of this issue is even worse. If you think that one thing like this changes the ability of a candidate to be President, you have a few screws loose.
- Sh0cker, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7@otheruser
If he was republican it would be all his fault?
/sarcasm. - CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, he now has control of the original profile with all of the same friends, everything he claims to have worked so hard for, but it's a blank profile, and he no longer has the barackobama URL. So, everything is as it should be. I'm curious to see what he does with this profile that he claimed was worth $50,000 and put so much hard work into. He's talking about just deleting it, now that would be funny, considering he would be throwing away $50,000, right? I'm also interested in seeing how many of those "friends" drop out after finding out it wasn't an official site and migrate to the official one, there is already one comment on the blog post you link to saying they will do exactly that. We'll see...
- Homet, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Oh ***** it....comment abuse.
Our MySpace Experiment
by Joe Rospars
Wed May 02, 2007 at 04:18:06 PM PDT
Hi, I'm Joe Rospars and I'm the New Media Director at Barack Obama's campaign. There have been a lot of questions and comments in this community related to our MySpace profile, and so I wanted to come by and clarify how we got here and answer questions.
Our campaign started quickly. People around here say that this has been like building an airplane in mid-air, having already taken off. This is especially true of the New Media operation. While the campaign in general is going from zero to sixty, our team is at the same time charged with exploring the new ways we can build relationships between Barack and his supporters, and foster relationships among supporters themselves.
When it came to MySpace, we decided to take a leap. We decided to make the attempt to combine the organic support and community-building of a grassroots effort with the official campaign outreach efforts.
In many ways this mirrors what has happened on the campaign's own web site. On February 10th, the day Barack announced his candidacy in Springfield, we launched My.BarackObama.com has an unprecedented public utility for supporters.
Even on the campaign's own web site, the organizing efforts and community-building by the grassroots has outpaced the growth of the traditional campaign infrastructure. On the site, over 11,500 people have created their own blogs about everything from their issue priorities to their personal experience campaigning locally. Thousands of events have been planned using the events tool (social events, planning meetings, small fundraisers), and tens of thousands of people have RSVPed to these grassroots-driven gatherings.
And over 5,000 grassroots volunteer groups have been founded -- in many states, these groups will be the only organizational presence the campaign has. Even in the early states, staff organizers are hitting ground in places where volunteer groups have already been meeting and organizing. One of the first orders of business for new staff on the ground is getting to know the grassroots who have already started building the movement.
When it comes to MySpace, I'm not sure if a campaign of this size has ever teamed-up with a grassroots volunteer on this scale, but we wanted to give it a try.
Joe Anthony's great work was building community at the www.myspace.com/barackobama address, and so we contacted him.
At that point, the profile had about 40,000 friends, and to our delight, Joe agreed to work with us. Indeed, he seemed relieved to have some help -- he gave us the password, and we began to exchange content, work together, and continue growing this community from the ground-up. We created images that he (and others online) could post, and began going through the process of preparing the profile to be "official" by combing through the content and establishing a plan to ensure that everyone who tried to contact the campaign through the profile received an answer. (People wrote messages and comments in huge numbers, virtually all addressed to Barack or the campaign -- "Will you come speak at my graduation?", "Where do you stand on issue X?", "How can I help locally?", etc.)
We started talking to Joe about formalizing the arrangement, preserving his work building the community, and talking through how to preserve his involvement in the direction and development of the profile.
For a time, both the campaign and Joe had mutual access. Soon after, MySpace launched a promotional campaign to direct traffic to the official candidate pages. The campaign allowed MySpace to promote this unofficial profile because, strictly speaking, there was no official presence. And so MySpace began featuring the profile in candidate promotions -- and the friends and workload grew.
We knew Joe had a full-time job already, and, early on, we floated the idea of moving to Chicago to work for us full-time (potential staffers were moving to Chicago and join the team at that time, and there were openings). I totally agree when Chris Bowers says that the New Media/online outreach efforts of campaigns should be a priority -- and we have built an operation here in Chicago and in the early states that reflects that posture.
But Joe seemed to prefer to volunteer part-time from the outside with the campaign to continue building the community. He said he was honored to help out, and we were honored to work with him. We worked through the complications that arose: letting Joe know that he shouldn't work on the site from work, educated him about the rules governing campaign promotion of official Senate material, etc. Joe was right with us, and things continued down the path towards making this unofficial community into an official space run with help from volunteers.
As we progressed, we began to work-up paperwork that would codify this arrangement -- ensuring that the campaign would have full access (what if someone put up an obscene comment during the day while Joe was at work?), and assuming the liability burden (legally, ethically, and politically) for what happened on the site.
At the same time, though, the community had skyrocketed. Nobody expected the grassroots to respond this campaign in such large numbers the way they have, and the rapid growth of the MySpace profile once the MySpace Impact Channel began promoting the various candidates is yet another example of the appeal of Barack. We were well over 100,000 friends, and the burden of administering such a profile became immense.
Unfortunately, at that point, Joe changed the password on the profile, and didn't give us the new one, like he had done in the past. This changed the previous dynamic, and we could no longer access the profile at a moment's notice if need be. We asked Joe what was needed to restore access, and subsequently we received the list of itemized financial requests that have been discussed elsewhere.
This made us uncomfortable. Every day, MySpace was driving tens of thousands of people to the page on the premise that this was more or less our "official" presence -- yet we had no access to the content on the page, and no ability to be responsive to the thousands of messages coming in from supporters seeking information or action from the campaign.
We talked to Joe and made clear that we truly wanted to incorporate the community into the campaign's official presence, but that if these financial demands were a precursor to the campaign having access at all, that we would need to start with an official profile separately and have MySpace promote that instead.
And so it became clear that we needed to have MySpace point people at something we had at least basic access to -- immediately. In MySpace, politicians, musicians, and other public figures have the right to their own name (www.myspace.com/barackobama, www.myspace.com/hillaryclinton, etc.), and so we asked MySpace for use of that URL and to ensure that any promotion of "official" profiles for candidates be directed to the new profile our team created.
The community of the 160,000 still exists, and we've made sure that MySpace will let Joe have access to the community he helped build. And we hope we can continue to work with him to make that as effective as it can be.
At the end of the day, this is all new for everyone -- this Joe, that Joe, and everyone participating or commenting on it. We're flying by the seat of our pants, and establishing new ways of doing things every day. We're going to try new things, and sometimes it's going to work, and sometimes it's not going to work. That's the cost and that's the risk of experimenting. Joe launched this profile for all the right reasons, and for a while grew it with us.
But the ultimate purpose is building a community around the idea that ordinary people can come together and affect change in this country. Barack Obama is the candidate I believe can transform the process and make that change happen.
And, to the extent that more and more people every day come to that same conclusion, my bet is that both profiles will continue to grow.
Cross-posted at BarackObama.com and MyDD.com - Psyael, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6So if he's had this Obama profile since 2004, what was he creating it for?
The next time someone gains celebrity, remind me to quickly make a MySpace in their name and then sell it to them later for cash. - CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6No, this guy's work is whatever his actual job is. He did this in his spare time as a volunteer, because he liked Barack Obama. Creating a MySpace profile does not cost money. Getting that many friends may have taken a considerable amount of time and effort (questionable), but there is no reason campaign money should have been used to pay this guy after the fact. I know if I knew my donated money to the campaign went to pay for this dude's MySpace profile I would not be happy (and yes, I have contributed money to the campaign). If he wanted to be paid for his work helping the campaign, he should have accepted their offer to work with them, the fact that he refused, and instead asked them for $50,000 makes it obvious just how much effort he was really willing to put in, and how much he just wanted to cash in when he saw the opportunity. Now that they refused his asinine offer, he feels hurt, that they had some kind of financial obligation to compensate him to say "thank you". Well, no, I don't think so. Why couldn't he just hand over the URL and be praised for that and thanked for that instead of insisting on being paid? If I was in his situation I would be honored to be offered the opportunity to officially take part in the campaign. That's the issue here.
- jayfarer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6It's ***** MYSPACE.
I can't believe people are treating this like it's a real issue. Some of you are actually going to decide your vote for the democratic candidate based on his campaign's ***** MYSPACE POLICY. - CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8They already have an official MySpace page, as well as an official Facebook page in addition to the social network maintained by barackobama.com. This guy insisting the campaign pay him for official control of the barackobama MySpace URL is borderline extortion. If he really wanted to help the cause, he would have gladly handed it over. Instead, he insisted they pay him for his effort, which you should note he volunteered by creating the profile unofficially in the first place.
Think about it this way: once they pay this dude for a MySpace profile, they will open the floodgates to a barrage of others who will insist they also be paid for starting similar unofficial (not the unofficial) profiles, social networks, Websites, etc. If they don't get their money, they will protest, saying the campaign does not support volunteers, saying "this guy got X amount of money!". They would be setting a precedent that is completely out of their control, and never should have happened in the first place. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9He may have had good intentions originally, but I really don't think rewarding cybersquatters who use your likeness and try to come off as an official representative should be rewarded. It sucks, but I can't really fault a campaign being worried about this.
- CosmicBratt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Obama called him to discuss the situation..here's Joe's blog about it:
TC from Barack Obama (!!!)
I just received a phone call from Barack Obama himself.
He expressed his appreciation and we agreed that there is something to be learned by everyone involved at this point. (Frankly, I was a little surprised by the call, and was too nervous to remember any exact quotes)
I assured him that this is just a horrible thing that happened and obviously he wasn't responsible and shouldn't be held responsible. It's his campaign that perhaps mismanaged this whole thing. He of course stands by his campaign, but again. . . much to be learned by all.
I'm sure he has mixed feelings in speaking with me about this, but it was nice of him to call, and quite an honor to finally speak to him!
I guess I have mixed feelings as well, but it was still a great honor.
I urge you all to consider this situation carefully. It'll take time for me to work this out and decide if I will personally continue to support Obama, regardless of how I feel about his campaign's handling of this situation.
It's not right what they did to me and this profile, but it's also wrong to let this change your views of Barack Obama as a candidate.
After all it was Obama that inspired me to do all this.
What a day. I'll keep you posted. . . .
link: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=159248288&blogID=260260883&MyToken=40f977c1-7570-4a3b-9502-e3db12401b6c - Homet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/2/175343/2220
This is the official response from Joe Rospars as posted on Daily Kos.
Just so you know I'm on Joe Anthony's side. I'm posting this for informational purposes only. - 5lack3r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7This guy is a jack-ass!! If he is such a "supporter" of Obama, then he should have at least come up with a REASONABLE price, if not just handed it over to the man himself upon request. Just another useless ***** out there trying to make money off of someone else's name.
I am a personal contributor to the Obama campaign (as I hope most of you are as well), and I would be plenty pissed off if I found out that he was squandering our contributed money on a GOD DAMN MYSPACE PAGE!! Come on people... grow up, and get real. Myspace is stupid as ***** to begin with... To think that damn page is somehow actually WORTH that much money is just ridiculous. What an absolute ass-wipe.
Congrats to team Obama on making the right decision here!! I will go and create a worthless myspace page now just so that I can add the real Obama. His page will be back to where it was in no time... - p0tent1al, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=159248288&blogID=260260883&MyToken=480a6c02-eb26-466f-a9d2-968b2ac57e2a
It seems that since then, Barack has actually called the guy. No word on whether or not he apologized though. I hope he submits an apology and gets this worked out. Because if he can't get this worked out, how do we expect him to run a freakin country. Hold up on judgement on this guy for now guys, not until we hear something from him. - 5lack3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@crimsonblur
Very well put! OBAMA in '08!!! - Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9The only reason they asked for a price was because he started becoming a little b**** about the whole thing. When his spoiled @$$ wanted $39,000 they felt like they had to been taken advantage of and decided to just take over(which they had the right to do from the start). Remember, this page was being presented(by myspace) as the Barack Obama page, you don't want some random internet nerd you have never met having full control over a webpage with 160,000 friends representing you, to huge of liability.
- m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6RTFA, the new one has 17K+ already
- mwolfzorn, on 10/12/2007, -9/+12I think the whole thing is ridiculous... Why does he think he deserves $50,000 for his work over 2 years? He acts like he should be paid for having a fan website. You chose to make this MySpace page on your free time. If I make a fan page on MySpace for someone and get a bunch of friends should I get paid for it?
He also acts like he did a bunch of work for the MySpace page. Honestly what could he have done? Changed the style maybe every month, and posted blog updates? He didn't go out and friend those 160,000 people, they friended him because they thought it was the official Obama MySpace page... - onebit, on 10/12/2007, -8/+11Obama is a cheap, bastard. $50,000 for 160,000 friends. That's 31 cents per friend. About the same cost as sending everyone a postal letter.
Also note, Obama did not even try to negotiate a lower price. - nukethewhales, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6How much of those 160,000 supporters do you think can be attributed to this guy and not to Obama? Don't forget it was two years of part time work on myspace. And for this he wants the average year's salary for someone who graduated with a degree in Computer Science?
- RaggTopp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Joe Anthony is a douchebag..........he wanted $39K for "his extensive work on the site."
IT'S A MYSPACE PAGE YOU ASSHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know webdesigners that barely make that in a YEAR, and you think that's how much you should get for your MYSPACE PAGE!??!?????
This guy is just an exploitive jerk. If there's anything that makes the Obama campaign look bad, it's his dishonorable behavior. He gives a bad name to Obama supporters. - otheruser, on 10/12/2007, -14/+16$50,000 for a myspace page that your originally created with the intent of volunteering?
I'm sorry, but he is asking for WAY too much. Had Anthony been more reasonable, and straightforward (how about telling them you wanted money from the start), they would have cooperated.
This guy is just looking for money, and since he didn't get it, he's going to whine. - m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6maybe not at first, but he turned into one
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@mwolfzorn
"If I make a fan page on MySpace for someone and get a bunch of friends should I get paid for it?"
It depends. What if you'd prefer to keep the page as an unofficial fan page and not sell it or give it away? That's what happened here -- he did not intend to sell it. They came to him and ASKED him to sell it. They wanted to convert it to an official page, not Joe.
I can also answer your question from a personal perspective, as your hypothetical situation happened to me in real life. I had a Web site that I maintained for EIGHT years. It was (and is) my pride & joy. Someone came around asking to buy it up. I had never even considered selling. At least, not with that domain. So I thought hard. I'd lose all my email addresses. I'd lose all the pages I wrote. I'd lose all the links I'd built up. If I wanted to stay involved, I'd have to start a new site over from scratch and repeat my eight years of work. Considering all of that, I said my selling price was $75,000. I apologized, as I knew that the site didn't have a revenue stream that would justify the price. But I was factoring in the cost of me simply letting go of years of work, which was a BIG DEAL to me.
I have two other sites that I've worked on for a year or so each. Both sites are PITA. I would sell either for $1000. Of course, those are not the sites that people find valuable. It's their right to like or hate the prices I have in mind, but it's also my right to set those prices, and to make some prices high because my personal investments are valuable to me. -
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