Teach42

Stephen Downes called Sue and I out today, accusing us of being on the take under the table.

Are Steve Dembo and Sue Waters getting paid to promote a commercial product? Was Dembo being paid when he started plugging it on his site back in early April? I don’t care if people want to make a little money, but let’s keep the advertising content in the edublogosphere clearly labeled as such, OK? Because, as it stands now, I can’t trust anything Sue Waters and Steve Dembo write - and that’s an unhappy state to be in.

First of all, I’m flattered that he seems to consider me a trustworthy source. It’s a backhanded compliment, but I’ll take it

Seriously though, while I’ll let Sue speak for herself, I thought I’d just make things really clear right here.

No, I have never been paid by MyStudiyo in any way shape or form. They have not given me a dime, a premium account, heck they haven’t even offered to spring for a custom theme on the house! In fact, now that I think about it, maybe I’m getting ripped off here!

Quite simply, I’m a fan of their site. That’s why I created the EduBlogger Quiz. I thought they had a great formula that I wanted to test out myself and encourage other people to try. That’s all. After I posted that on the blog, the developers got a hold of me asked me if I had any suggestions for improving the site. I shared my ideas with them, some of which have actually been implemented. When they told me about the contest and asked me to judge, I agreed to do it because I thought it would help drive awareness of a site that I was a fan of.

That’s it! Nothing more insidious than that.

*whew* Feels good to get that off my chest

In fact, so long as I’m at it, let’s clear the air about a few other things.

I’m also a big fan of PollEverywhere.com. I use them at conferences pretty often, I’ve given them a TON of feedback and ideas for how they could tweak their product to make it more pertinent to educators, and helped them organize an educational pilot program. In return, I have not received any money at all. They WERE kind enough to hook me up with an account with unlimited votes when they created their new account structure. I usually mention that at conferences, but so long as we’re on the subject of full disclosure, might as well mention it!

Hmmm… I guess there’s one more thing I could disclose. I do have a link to Bluehost in my sidebar and I occasionally mention them on the blog. Well, whenever I link to them, I do include my affiliate information. If somebody happens to sign up for an account through that link, I get a kickback of $65. However, I’m a big enough evangelist of them that I always wind up telling people about the kickback, and letting them know that they should sign up even if they DON’T use my link (previous link is without affiliate information)! As I’ve blogged about before, I couldn’t possibly be happier with my hosting company and recommend them every chance I get.

Well, that’s about it. However, if you ever unsure about whether there’s something shifty going on, don’t hesitate to ask. My life is an open book!

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI