Luc Latulippe

The fallout from the big stink we made about theispot's 38 blogs (more were found after that post, I'm not sure what the exact count is now) has been that they've decided to take the blogs and social bookmarking profiles down. I've clicked on a few and most seem to gone or on the outs.

Jami Giovanopoulos and Dave Tabler (theispot's Vice President, and Head of Sales, respectively) have effectively skirted the issue here, which is that we caught them red-handed doing two things:

1. Using blogs and social bookmarks to artificially inflate their site's statistics. And the only reason to fudge your site stats is so that you can convince your advertisers (that is, us illustrators) that you're worth the money you charge for your service.
2. Writing "blog entries" about illustrators without their awareness or permission, and without letting them have editorial say over what was being written about them. This was all done on the sly.

They claimed initially that they were just using these Spam Blogs (that's the correct term, or Spamdexing if you prefer) as extra marketing tools. That is a load of crap. If they thought these Spam Blogs were such a great idea, such a brilliant marketing device, they'd have done a better job of convincing us about them and wouldn't have announced that they were taking them offline.

Many people have emailed me saying taking the blogs down seems like an admission of guilt on their part, and I have to say I agree with that.

Companies like theispot and other online portfolios — as well as reps and agencies — are answerable to YOU when enter into a partnership with them. And it's exactly that: a partnership. You do things together, you agree on things together. But ultimately, it's YOUR career, so the decisions are ultimately your own as well. You can defer to their experience on certain things, if their track record can back it up. And ideally, over time, you build trust and a stronger relationship, and can relax a bit more. But never forget that this is all about business.

So keep your eyes and ears open kids, and don't be afraid of holding people's feet to the fire when they are in a position of making big promises to you. It's your career, your work, your reputation. You absolutely deserve to know what's going on, and there is nothing unreasonable about demanding results.