[Starsmom]

QUOTE:

QUOTE;

Name: Yung
Dog's Name: Joy
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 380

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delayed response. I was home over the weekend and yesterday nursing a cold and I haven't had the energy to read through everything.

The article written by Lucas was to review a product by one of the sponsors for Petguide.com which is owned by VS. If you have concerns about this, please create a new thread and we can discuss about it there. Thanks!
__________________

I may be stepping into a big pile of poo, but here goes...

OK, so the cutsie pet story written by a VS employee was actually a thinly veiled promotion for a sponsor of another VS holding. Have I got that right? Why didn't Lacus/VS make the business connection in the opening line in the first place? The story must of had the approval of management before it was posted. I think it's offensive to our paying vendors struggling in this tough economy for the new ownership of SM to come through the back door and post a front page ad on a product for another of VS holdings. How about posting front page ads for our paying vendors and let everyone know what they carry? In the future can we expect to see ads on our home page for other VS companies?

I am NOT trying to tell VS how to run it's business as implied in the other thread. I just think there has been a miss guided opportunity for VS to be up front with its SM members, and underestimated their intelligence and sensibilities.

 

[KAG]

Excellent post, Marsha. Brava!
xoxoxoxoxo

 

[Snowbody]

QUOTE:

QUOTE;

Name: Yung
Dog's Name: Joy
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 380

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delayed response. I was home over the weekend and yesterday nursing a cold and I haven't had the energy to read through everything.

The article written by Lucas was to review a product by one of the sponsors for Petguide.com which is owned by VS. If you have concerns about this, please create a new thread and we can discuss about it there. Thanks!
__________________

I may be stepping into a big pile of poo, but here goes...

OK, so the cutsie pet story written by a VS employee was actually a thinly veiled promotion for a sponsor of another VS holding. Have I got that right? Why didn't Lacus/VS make the business connection in the opening line in the first place? The story must of had the approval of management before it was posted. I think it's offensive to our paying vendors struggling in this tough economy for the new ownership of SM to come through the back door and post a front page ad on a product for another of VS holdings. How about posting front page ads for our paying vendors and let everyone know what they carry? In the future can we expect to see ads on our home page for other VS companies?

I am NOT trying to tell VS how to run it's business as implied in the other thread. I just think there has been a miss guided opportunity for VS to be up front with its SM members, and underestimated their intelligence and sensibilities.

:goodpostITTO, plus what I wrote in the other thread.

 

[Administrator]

The article posted on the homepage was written by one of our staff members in reviewing a product that one of the sponsors gave to us to try out. I don't get where this sentiment of us trying to pull a fast one on the community is coming from. The very first line of the article that I posted says "one of the guys here at VS."

As for this line:

"I think it's offensive to our paying vendors struggling in this tough economy for the new ownership of SM to come through the back door and post a front page ad on a product for another of VS holdings. How about posting front page ads for our paying vendors and let everyone know what they carry? In the future can we expect to see ads on our home page for other VS companies?"

I disagree with this entirely. Firstly, we're not new ownership here anymore so the notion that we're new here and trying to do something sneaky is way off base. We've been here for a year now and have worked pretty closely with the community on all matters. As for helping out the vendors here, have some of you actually spoken to the vendors on SM find out what they're paying right now for the privileges they receive? I have worked closely with all the existing vendors to honor the agreement that Joe had in place prior to us coming onboard. I think if you guys talked to some of our vendors, you will find out that we have been VERY VERY gracious to them since we have come on board.

Will you see product reviews on the home page in the future? Yes. This should be a good thing because it means that we're becoming more successful at bringing in sponsors that align closer to the values of the community and MAY even allow us to rely less on the Google ads that were/are a source of anger for many users. This is what many people suggested to me in private. But now that we're doing it, even that is making people unhappy.

 

[Hunter's Mom]

Perhaps there can be a compromise here. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to get rid of the google ads because there are simply too many headaches with them and too many chances that broker or mill websites will appear and mislead someone new to our community. If what Yung says is accurate (I only say this Yung because I am not sure how many of these types of supporters we would need to truly extinguish the google ads) then we should be supporting advertisers whose values and products are more akin to what we want for our dogs and what we support.

Perhaps some felt that this was a story about a VS employee's relationship with his dog and it involved one product of this company, not a story about the product. Perhaps some didn't connect the title with it being a paid advertisement because it was not in the standard form of the banner that we are used to. Also, on the home page all that is seen is the actual story part of the advertisement and not any part of the advertisement itself and quite possibly this was seen as misleading.

I'm thinking that a solution to this could be that the phrase "paid advertisement" or "a review" could appear in the title so that it would not deceive. Or, if not in the title, perhaps in the first line of the story/anctidote/lesson.

It is true that Yung and his VS gang have been hear a year and while it was not a complete seamless transition (but what is) they have been very open to member suggestions, problems, and complaints. Credit must be given where it is due

 

[The A Team]

I read the original thread soon after it appeared and there were no responses at that time. I was kind of speechless about it at the time so I just left it alone. Glad to see I wasn't the only one who didn't "get it". I still don't, but I guess it doesn't really matter when it comes down to it, does it.

 

[k/c mom]

Perhaps there can be a compromise here. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to get rid of the google ads because there are simply too many headaches with them and too many chances that broker or mill websites will appear and mislead someone new to our community. If what Yung says is accurate (I only say this Yung because I am not sure how many of these types of supporters we would need to truly extinguish the google ads) then we should be supporting advertisers whose values and products are more akin to what we want for our dogs and what we support.

Perhaps some felt that this was a story about a VS employee's relationship with his dog and it involved one product of this company, not a story about the product. Perhaps some didn't connect the title with it being a paid advertisement because it was not in the standard form of the banner that we are used to. Also, on the home page all that is seen is the actual story part of the advertisement and not any part of the advertisement itself and quite possibly this was seen as misleading.

I'm thinking that a solution to this could be that the phrase "paid advertisement" or "a review" could appear in the title so that it would not deceive. Or, if not in the title, perhaps in the first line of the story/anctidote/lesson.

It is true that Yung and his VS gang have been hear a year and while it was not a complete seamless transition (but what is) they have been very open to member suggestions, problems, and complaints. Credit must be given where it is due

Gosh, you sure have a gift of saying things in such a diplomatic, non-confrontational style. :aktion033:

And it's nice to see something positive said about VS for a change.

 

[Snowbody]

I agree with Sher about Erin's post. Well said!
Erin you touched on what I was trying to say with my "call a spade a spade" reference. For instance, when I read the New York Times, sometimes I will come across a lot of info about, say, a foreign country or a certain issue. Sort of looks like the rest of the news stories, but kind of not. Then I look up to the top right and it says "Paid Advertisement." Then I know. It doesn't mean I won't read it or learn from it, it just means that I know why it was placed there and can make my own decision. Maybe it's called transparency.
In my posts on this subject, I'm not trying to bash VS.As Yung knows I've been supportive and active in trying to bring things to his attention and also praise things that improve. I'm just giving my opinion of something that troubled me. I feel a lot better knowing that this could be a trade off from those awful Google ads for pups. I really had not thought of it that way. I also have no idea what is set up with vendors nor really care. I just had a visceral feeling, when I read and saw the size of that original thread. Again,just my opinion and I think there's room for discourse.