1. We ignore the comments. But that will seem that anyone can say anything and get away with it. It is wrong.
2. We could engage in a war of words on Twitter. It seemed stupid to go that route.
3.Write the entire story and present how we felt about the whole thing. - That is what we did.
We did not consider SEO or link juice to setup a separate site. Our blog uses Posterous and to my knowledge Posterous does not support embeddable Twitter widgets. So we went the separate domain route. I was actually of the opinion that a post on our blog is better SEO. I posted this on social networks to publicize our response. I posted it on HN for a meaningful discussion which I think happened and I learnt some good things and some mistakes.
I definitely don't want the Australian - Indian racism debate anymore than you do. I think it is disgusting. We were attacked for no reason and we wanted to respond. It's Monday morning here in India and we are back to work on improving our Product.
Absolutely right about Australian-Indian racism debate. A lot of Indians doing very well here, and the last time something flared up, the news attracted a lot of unwanted attention to the nationals who have settled down here.
I'm sorry to have distracted people from a meaningful discussion. You have executed well, and this has to be discussed.
Not only was this annoying and sketchy, but it was totally unnecessary. We were no threat to them. They would have been better off doing just about anything else with their time.
Even though Freshdesk doesn't @reply everyone who mentions Zendesk (just those who are unhappy with it), and even though Zendesk is an "incumbent" (in the absurd Valley way where anything that's been around longer than a year is ancient), this still gives me a really bad impression of them (as does this whole PR stunt), and furthermore, they'd probably be better off building their product and figuring out how to best meet the needs of their current customers.
That's nonsense -- a variation on the "Field of Dreams" fallacy of "build it and they will come". Customer acquisition, which PR and marketing feed into, is absolutely essential.
In fact, your advice is the opposite of what most programmer-founded startups should do. You don't win by having a better product that nobody's heard of. And I think anyone that's been hanging around startup-y folks for a while can tell you about a handful of friends who misunderstood that point to their own peril.
All that this post really did for me was make me hear FreshBook's name again. In fact, the ZenDesk naming spat is more likely to make me actually remember the name. And that's probably enough that if my company is looking for a SaaS support tool in the future, that we'll give them a look as well. Which is assume is exactly what they were hoping for.
For all the talk of what they're doing to their pristine brand here and blah, blah, I don't think anyone serious is going to hold this move against them in a purchasing decision. Bringing in new infrastructure software is not done on a whim.
Over at Mixergy, about a year ago, the founder of a BabySitter service talked about how she sneaked into university campuses to post advertisements, all the time humming the "mission impossible" tune to keep her in the right mental frame.
It becomes spamming when you insert an ad for your stuff in a personal place like on the windshield of someone's car, or in someone's twitter client's @ inbox, unless you think it's something they'll legitimately want to hear because they need help that you can offer (this is rare). Predatory customer acquisition from your competitors via spamming is well on the other side of the line. Combined with this reaction site which uses tactics that would be at home in a political smear campaign, and I'm fairly certain that this is a company I don't want to ever do business with.
I'm fairly certain that this is
a company I don't want to ever do business with.
On a personal level, I loath getting spam as much as everybody else, so please don't spam me!
I don't know about that - my thinking is that if blackhat is the only way to get something to succeed, It's probably not a very good idea anyway, and I'm probably better off spending my time doing something different.
Aussie here. Australia has in the recent years acquired a bad reputation when it comes to its treatment of immigrant populations, for e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_Indians_in_Aus....
If you truly care about avoiding an "Australians enjoy India bashing" meme, then make sure to hold Christian Marth (@cloudgroupsyd) accountable to his tweet, and other Aussies who say things like this. It belies an insensitivity toward other cultures, and we should really address this seriously.
My original tweet was an off the cuff remark, I didn't like Freshdesk's choice of name and I still don't. It's nothing against the founders, the product or anything else. And it sure as heck isn't some dodgy conspiracy aimed at ensuring that Zendesk succeeds....
There used to be a time when a gentle jibe in the ribs between friendly groups included off-colour remarks making fun of race. I grew up in that environment in Malaysia. The only problem is on the internet, you are not anyone's friend, and there is no nuance at all.
The whole point of highlighting this exchange, the surrounding publicity, the custom url/etc is to raise the profile and get people to pick sides to generate discussion.
This PR technique is as old as the sex tape and about exhausted as it gets. It's the online equivalent of reading "britney spears vs lindsay lohan".
However, it doesn't detract the truth of what he said. In fact, even as I deconstruct it, I still find myself siding with FreshDesk. Mind control at its best.
I'm aware of Freshdesk because they made a retaliation website in response to something stupid that somebody said on Twitter. It doesn't inspire confidence in their ability to provide help desk software. They are spending time worrying about what other people think of them and say about them instead of just rocking out their product. I'm not impressed by that at all.
I know and so am I (aware). But that's the point. You are aware and so are others. And a % of those people don't feel the same way and they have exposure now that they didn't have before. Net it will be a win. Not the strategy for everyone of course but in this case it's a win.
which was just created yesterday (12/3/11):
Domain ID:D164025278-LROR
Domain Name:RIPOFFORNOT.ORG
Created On:03-Dec-2011 14:26:48 UTC
One judgment I can make is that the cloudgroupsyd comment was xenophobic on its face. I wouldn't stand for that, defend it or excuse it. If there's any kind of software in this world that ranks high on the Global Village factor it's the kind with Desk in the name. The kind of attitude that permits someone to utter stuff like that publicly is toxic to this environment.
Suppose the recipient is trying something underhanded—does that make it okay?
Edit: correct an attribution.
FreshDesk is executing the standard modus operandi of upstart against an incumbent."
Agree. Compete.com numbers (no bashing please) show 1.28 million monthly for zendesk to 2.4k for freshdesk. Should be interesting to revisit this in 3 to 6 months and see what has happened.
1. You can host a separate site on its own IP (and, even better, an IP in a different C subnet than their main site) and point links from that domain to the home domain. Thus link juice gets passed to home domain in a roundabout manner.
As far as the domain becoming irrelevant in two weeks time: it doesn't matter. If it gets some coverage and links from authoritative sources (ala Hacker News, which doesn't nofollow), the domain will gain authority and that authority gets passed on to the other domains it links out to.
2. Buzz. As larrys pointed out, ripoffornot.com is a great, controversial domain name. That alone could inspire a bit more buzz, which -- generally -- means more authority getting passed to the site via links (see point 1) or via social sharing.
3. Highly targeted. When someone searches for zendesk vs. freshdesk, this domain has an extremely high chance of ranking. It uses both terms extensively and includes a bit table comparing the two services. Good for users, great for bots. more over it's attention grabbing and reads well.
4. Reputation Management. Having an influential person talking smack about your brand is obviously not a good thing. What happens if that negative review starts ranking for you name or, even worse, the term "[Brand] Ripoff" starts showing up in google instant results.
No good.
Freshdesk is owning this bit of bad press. When someone searches for "freshdesk ripoff" or something similar there's a good chance this domain will show up because it's targeted (see point 3) more than a blog post could be.
All of those factors mean that this domain is telling one helluva compelling story. People like stories and are happy to spread them around.
This is the best compromise. A separate site to discuss the situation. With many links to the main product site to pass through some of the domain authority as well.
- We're definitely not racist, don't have an anti-Indian angle . In fact my fellow Editor, @Krishnan is Indian. And for all I care he could be an Indian-African-Martian mix, he is there for what he knows, not where he comes from.
- Ben is a syndicated contributor, and as such he expresses his opinion, which we may or may not agree with. As Editor, I select which of his - and other authors' - posts we publish, and I try to filter out bias - probably not 100% successfully.
- CloudAve can't control what guest authors say on Twitter. All we can do, and again, try really hard is make sure what gets published on our site is unbiased, and hopefully valuable information.
- Personally I find his attack Tweet and the lack of disclosure of his past involvement with ZenDesk unfortunate. I even tried to make light fun of it, saying Freshdesk is actually a rip-off of FreshBooks, which in turn is a rip-off of Fresh Choice. Apparently some did not get the irony, taking my tweet literally, even though Fresh Choice is a restaurant chain. Go figure ...
- In the grand scheme of things this tweet was a mistake, yet Ben continues to write (mostly) insightful posts, of which we get to cherry-pick and so far our readers seem to like it.
- Kudos to FreshDesk for turning this into a PR coup - I suppose this incident brought them more visibility than they would have gained in months without it. Furthermore, now Ben will feel compelled to actually review their product:-)
Anybody who brushes off FreshDesk because of its Indian roots is doing FreshDesk a favour. This is a sharp mind at work and it is lethal.
FreshDesk is executing the standard modus operandi of upstart against an incumbent.
Jobs is a master at it (I'm Apple I'm Microsoft), Calacanis too (remember the SEO controversy, and then the Angel controversy?), and Girish is in the same league. The idea is to frame everything as a controversy, and linkbaits people into discussing it.
Notice how a custom domain is used and it is a mini website, not just a blog post? It is a custom website intended to fuel controversy and will drive a lot of SEO juice from bloggers all over the world. Sit back and watch its PageRank explode.
Girish is also running very hungry by executing a social media campaign. People may not buy from Twitter, but it buys mindshare. It will be a matter of time before FreshDesk gets a good recall rate, as long as it acts heads above other people. The name itself enjoys co-recognition from Freshbooks as well as ZenDesk.
Don't forget, Girish comes with a Zoho pedigree, and this is a company that has bootstrapped itself in India and no one would say the software is anything but world-class.
As for ZenDesk, Girish has stuck a fork into Ben Keepes for the lack of disclosure (by the way, I've been a long time reader of CloudAve, always insightful, even if [I now have to perceived it as potentially] biased), and then masterfully weaves ZenDesk CEO's twitter reply with the overtly racist overtone that cloudavesyd (onya Aussies) "Indian cowboys"-tweet. Note that mikkelsvane wasn't party to the "Indian cowboys" comment, but the way it is put, mikkelsvane sounded like he was in agreement (although to anyone who pays close attention to this type of things, he clearly was talking about something else).
Girish, if you are reading - I'm in Australia, if you could - please don't turn this into a wider "Australians enjoy India bashing meme". We already have a hard time here, and race doesn't factor much if at all in business.
As for ZenDesk, the important thing is to stay above the fray, establish their incumbency, but emphasize their own underdoggedness. Both can play the jingoist game and appeal to emotions.