Hypocritical Morons vs. Joel Comm
Posted on April 21st, 2008 in Funny, Retards
Nickycakes would like to start this fun little article out by letting you know who Joel Comm is. He’s a walking infomercial. Visiting his site (which isn’t even worth a linkback) will present you with 6 different e-products with pictures superimposed onto a box of some sort, to make it look like it’s an actual material good. He’s an e-book peddler, basically. And as almost everyone with half a brain in this industry knows, “make money” e-books are worthless. If the information they contained had any value, they’d be picked up by a regular publisher and sold in stores, period. But that’s not the point of this story.
The story begins with Joel marketing his “make money online” e-book, which he normally sells to idiots from Digital Point forums for $97 per copy (lol) at the reduced price of $9.95 (still not even close to worth it). The only catch is, when you buy the book, the fine print says you’ll be automatically subscribed to his $29.95 per month newsletter. Wow, the guy had an epiphany and somehow was bestowed with a brief flash of good market sense! It would be short lived, however.
When he announced the new pricing scheme and new version of his e-book, John Chow, Zac Johnson, and other idiots who have lost enough credibility to stoop as low as promoting scammy e-books on their sites with a straight face, all gave it the douchebag stamp of approval without realizing that there was a recurring fee involved.
When people started taking their advice and actually ordering that crap, they soon realized they were being charged an outrageous monthly fee and naturally whined up a storm, even though it was their own fault for not reading what they were buying and running off the “waste money online” cliff like lemmings. John Chow, Zac Johnson, and others, made blog posts saying how they would have NEVER promoted this product had they known the real deal.
Now up until this point, Joel Comm had done nothing wrong. His pricing structure was completely legit. There’s absolutely NOTHING legally wrong with how he was selling his product. But he made a fatal error. He admitted he was somehow in the wrong and changed his sales page around, and offered refunds to people who were too stupid to read what they were buying. Now people really DO think he has tried to scam people (which he really hasn’t). He should have just defended his position, especially in an industry like internet/affiliate marketing, and here’s why:
HALF THE DAMN OFFERS ON AFFILIATE NETWORKS HAVE A “FREE” TRIAL FOLLOWED BY A HEFTY MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION FEE. It’s absolutely hilarious to hear self-proclaimed “super affiliates” getting on this guy’s case when they’ve no-doubt promoted plenty of products with the EXACT SAME PRICING STRUCTURE. How do you think they can afford to pay you $30 for every person who signs up for a $1.99 trial bottle of hoodia? Honestly, folks, get a grip on reality here.
Cakes, out.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
A lot of marketers and affilaites lack integrity. That’s why we have white hat, black hat, and gray hat designations.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
those “designations” don’t mean anything.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Nicky you lay it straight, I like it.
Personally though. I think this was a huge linkbait scheme. Seriously, as if Joel didn’t know that he was going to get crapped on for having a monthly fee. Then those guys promote it the book and then write another article about how he’s a great guy for saying he made a mistake.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Your absolutely right man. He should have defended his position but normally ebook peddlers tend to pussy out and that’s exactly what he did. As for the people/bloggers who endorsed this shit, makes me sick.
Then they also came back and told the readers they fucked up too. Grow some balls, read the fine print for crying out loud before you promote something, and just be straight forward. How fucking hard is this shit? Makes me wonder how many of these people rode the short bus back in school.
BTW — Picking up COD4 tomorrow so will probably be hitting you up for a little schooling action. Peace.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
hell yeah ruck, nickycakes is my xbox live id
April 21st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
cakes is maaaad. Cakes do you know of a good batch watermarking software 4 free.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
@mubin: i think virtualdub can do it
April 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
have u been using that to game ‘youtube’
April 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
not personally, no
April 21st, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Me thinks they knew and so did Joel. Linkbait, promo, pr.. call if what you want, but I bet you $100 he has sold a mountain of that book just because of all the ruckus.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Great article cakes!! My brother luemob told me about you!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Cakes, joel comm knew what the hell he was doing and I’m not buying this oh I screwed up bit for one second. He’s milking the cow for all its worth and its all part of his plan. Comm is not a newbie marketer - he had to have known this would blow up. He prob figured hed have made thousands by then and a majority of those people wouldn’t ask for their money back. Its a bs publicity stunt and john chow, zac johnson etc are all his partners in crime.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 am
Yeah, that guy (Comm) is a tool. I regretably bought “The Adsense Code” over a year ago b/c a client i was working on adsense website for wanted me to read it. (It’s actually what started me off in AM.)
But the book is 99% common sense, and you can tell that guy is full of himself. There is nothing in that book that you can read on problogger or some other sites for free.
Like i said, Joel Comm is a tool.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 am
Damn, that’s one funny post. I just stumbled upon this blog because someone was bashing you on another IM blog (not going to give them play here). I was really pissed when I got a crapload of those emails in my inbox. I keep on those lists to see the latest crappy low tactics so I can be sure not to fall for them. Almost all IM ebooks prey on people who want money for nothing. It is really too bad that these dbags are so successful.
MB
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 am
There is a school of thought that promotes all publicity is good for business.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:03 am
“A lot of marketers and affilaites lack integrity. That’s why we have white hat, black hat, and gray hat designations.”
~ are you funking serious Troy!? your comment outs you as an a$$hat
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Hey Troy, what exactly do you think “white hat, black hat and gray hat” actually means?
I’ll tell you - nothing.
Instead of wasting time with ridiculous comments like that, how about going back to DP where you belong?
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
“HALF THE DAMN OFFERS ON AFFILIATE NETWORKS HAVE A “FREE” TRIAL FOLLOWED BY A HEFTY MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION FEE”
I made almost this exact same point on Chow’s site (I visit occasionally to read the comments for a laugh). Wanna guess if that comment showed up?
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
One word linkbait!!! He did nothing wrong at all but all those promoters aka super affiliate choke.. I don’t know why but they all wanna stay the good and angel guy in this story…I’m sure they knew about it.. would they promote it for only 3$ ????? I’m sure they will have their piece of cake on the monthly fee. Come on it ‘s like ringtones story. They probably getting paid 15$ for every subscription monthly!!!!
They just didn’t expect those kind of reaction!!!!
The e-book was the cake the real deal was the monthly fee!!! Marketing 101 .. it is legal but not ethic to push a automatic subscription…
We have no idea what they were saying behind close door !!!!
But I could imagine their face
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Hey man,
You dont have the right to call people stupid, sometimes YOU DO stupid things,
I have bought his ebook and didn’t pay attention to the offer thingy and now I’m getting my money back and keeping the ebook. Now who’s dumb??
Peace out
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
@hassan:
YOU for buying a fucking e-book in the first place. Moron.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Dude, What the Fuck is wrong with you?
You’re so fucking immature and think you’re the king of the internet… I hope someone burns down your house you Shit head.
And yeah FUCK OFF
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Hassan, were you one of the contestants on Joel Comm’s The Next Internet Millionaire show?
My only regret about that show was that Jon said he knew who the winner was and could have leaked it but didn’t. I was really hoping he had leaked it so that somebody could have a made a site announcing who the winner was, and then people collectively could have made it rank #2 on google for The Next Internet Millionare. Ofcourse, Comm would have sued, bitch that he is, but the sheer hilarity would have been worth it. To have the winner leaked and spread through the Internet after just the first episode…damn why wasn’t that done…
April 28th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Nicky — Com’on dude! It’s noob-screw — if the noobs spread their bottom bare for Joel to push it in, then so be it.
The honor is in the dollar kid!
April 28th, 2008 at 3:12 am
sorry dude but that goes against everything this blog stands for