Posts tagged as: blogola

How did FON's advisors disclose their relationship?

This FON story may turn out to be an important step in the world of tech blogging, so let's take a close look at the way FON's advisory board disclosed their relationship when they posted after FON's announcement on Sunday. The members are listed on Fon's site.

• Esther Dyson doesn't appear to have written about FON at all after the announcement.
• Neither did Jerry Michalski.
• Dan Gillmor:
  "Late last year, Martin, a serial entrepreneur, invited me to join the U.S. advisory board for his new company. ... I joined the advisory board without asking whether there would be any financial reward. (The answer, it later turned out, was that there might be, depending on how the company did in the marketplace.) I believed in Martin and I believed in the idea of a bottom-up (with some top-down help) network that could have a real impact."
• Joi Ito:
  "I blogged about FON earlier when I joined the advisory board, but FON is an innovative company that is starting a movement to allow people who have Internet access to create wifi hotspots.
• Ethan Zuckerman:
  "I’m a member of FON’s board of US Advisors and have agreed to advise FON on moving into Africa when the company’s sufficiently mature. Between this relationship and my pre-existing friendship with Martin (all mentioned by way of disclosure), I’m not exactly objective about the topic of FON. But I do think FON’s potentially incredibly important for the developing world and that’s largely why I agreed to get involved with the project."
  Ethan has followed up with a long post about this issue and a new disclosure policy he has adopted.
• I couldn't find a blog for Andrew Rasiej.
• Rebecca MacKinnon:
  "(Disclosure: I am a member of FON's U.S. board of advisors) ... Last but not least, a few more disclaimers and clarifications. I've been pretty critical of Google lately. Now they are investing in a company whose board I'm on, and from which I may receive some equity. Nonetheless I have no intention of being any less outspoken about Google's recent forays into China's censorship quagmire. Nobody has asked me to moderate my statements and I have no intention of doing so. I would resign from the board before compromising on my beliefs."
• David Isenberg:
  "I met Martin when I was invited to Madrid on the first anniversary of the train bombing, last March 11. He organized the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security that I participated in. We produced a good statement there on the role of the Internet in democracy. I wrote a little bio of Martin here. I am proud to be a member of FON's US Advisory Board, but more than a bit nervous about how ready the FON implementation is for the general public. The idea, though, is wonderful. And the implementation will benefit from a culture of openness, transparency and receptiveness to suggestions from all quarters."
  David posted a reaction to the WSJ story yesterday.
• David Weinberger:
  "Disclosure: I'm on the US board of advisors. ... Follow up to the disclosure statement above: The US advisory board for Fon has been working unusually closely with Martin and Fon's tiny staff. Martin has been unusually transparent about the process. The advisors are working on this because we believe in the power of wifi and the importance of getting it to places that purely economically motivated players will put last. The advisors are being financially compensated, but we haven't discussed the terms; that's not our primary motivation. Since I sometimes write about Google and Skype, you should know that they've invested in a company that I apparently have some financial stake in. "
• Wendy Seltzer: "FON is a startup, of which I'm on the board of advisors, that aims to put wireless internet everywhere by linking sharing and commercial installations. "

FON fuss may have been blogola

I couldn't figure out the explosion of postings on FON that took over Tech Memeorandum on Monday. Now the WSJ has a story claiming that FON may have primed the blogosphere pump by putting some key tech bloggers on the payroll through an advisory board. Were all of the bloggers who posted on this story on the take? Of course not. Did some members of this advisory board post about FON without disclosing their financial relationship? The WSJ thinks so, and that could be very bad. I smell Forbes and BusinessWeek cover stories at the least. Even worse, this is an election year, and both the Democrats and the Republicans would love to change the subject to someone outside of Congress being paid off.

(via Paul Kedrosky)

Update: I've written an extensive post on just what was said by the bloggers involved. The result of this research has caused me to strikethrough the words "the payroll through" above.