{"id":1713,"date":"2010-02-11T09:47:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T16:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pdxtc.com\/wpblog\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2014-12-04T13:16:35","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T20:16:35","slug":"peak-studios-boulder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pdxtc.com\/wpblog\/viruses-and-scams\/peak-studios-boulder\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Studios Boulder Co. | Blackmail Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received a “threatening” email yesterday from Jeremy Wyss at Peak Studios that I just have to share here after posting it last night on Twittter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spurred on by ReTweets from internet marketers like Todd Mintz<\/a>, Greg Boser<\/a>, Aaron Chronster<\/a>,\u00a0 David Mihm <\/a> Michael Dorausch<\/a> (OK, sorry, that’s too much work, but here are dozens more<\/a> )\u00a0 I ended up getting over 500 visitors to my old 2008 post from the Retweets alone in one night.<\/p>\n

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Now I’m not really<\/span> the vindictive type, and I’m not always this<\/span> petty, but God dammit I know when I’m right, and I’m not gonna back down here. Besides, it’s too important that our industry stop “search marketing firms”\u00a0 like this from damaging their clients.<\/p>\n

Much like some high profile marketers I know of, like\u00a0 Shoemoney<\/a>,\u00a0 SugarRae<\/a> and Michael Gray<\/a>, I don’t\u00a0 generally like to\u00a0 “call out ”\u00a0 other peoples behavior unnecessarily. But when they totally DESERVE it, or they’re complete and total idiots, I’m not afraid to let it rip, and this is one of those times.<\/p>\n

Just minutes ago, the “axe fell” and this guy emailed the contact info of a bunch of domains he researched, some of which are my clients, some affiliates, (and some I’ve never even heard of) with a vague, non-specific and unsigned “warning” about me.\u00a0 (Score one for John Andrews<\/a> here by the way, who told me a couple of years ago I was crazy to keep client references showing on my site. Guess you were right, John.)<\/p>\n

A Quick History<\/strong>
\nWay back in October of 2008, Peak Studios sent some badly spun forum spam for their “search marketing services”\u00a0 to the search marketing forum<\/a> which I’m a moderator for, over at SEMpdx<\/a>.\u00a0 I thought it was sort of funny, so I Twittered it.<\/p>\n

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When I phoned Peak,\u00a0 not only didn’t see anything “wrong” with it,\u00a0 he defended it,\u00a0 and didn’t even see the irony. (Anyone that knows me realizes I believe there’s a time and place for spam, but that sure wasn’t it! \ud83d\ude09 <\/em>We hung up sort of agreeing to disagree, and I dropped it, thinking “this guy just doesn’t get it”!\u00a0
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A couple hours later, this guy, the owner of Peak Studios,\u00a0 actually then phoned the number on the SEMpdx website and spoke to both\u00a0 Kent Lewis<\/a> (the past president) AND to Ben Lloyd<\/a> (the current president, where he DEMANDED that I take down my Tweet or else!\u00a0 Seriously!<\/p>\n

When Ben told me, I was so ticked off that I wrote a post over at SEMpdx there about the ignorance of\u00a0 the\u00a0 Peak Studios forum spam<\/a> activity, titling it “Spam is in the Eye of the Beholder”.<\/p>\n

Just to clarify, this is the Peak Studios I’m referring to…
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