A few minutes ago, I saw this really nasty tweet from Medianama’s Nikhil Pahwa:
As would be expected, this got retweeted several times:
I was amused!
I mean Games2win, the Company that I run HAS a PR firm and it DOES and WILL send out ALL communication that is put out by the Company and its CEO to journalists!!! That’s their JOB!
Paradigm Shift has been Games2win’s agency for the past 5 years!
Errr – Isn’t that how Businesses and their CEO’s reach people???
Oh.. Do CEO’s go corner to corner, meeting journos to cover them?
Most importantly, and this is what I Replied to all the tweets:
‘Isn’t the JOB of Medianama (that pretends to be a journalistic outfit) to be concerned about the CONTENT of the message – and NOT THE MESSENGER’???
So, if my mail came directly to Nikhil with content would that be DIFFERENT than if the same news came via my PR agency???
Or will Nikhil also tell me what type of e-mail font and size I should use?
I was scratching my head at this UTTER BIZZARRE tweet and ‘hahahahahaha’ when it struck me like a thunderbolt!!
CHECK THIS OUT!!
Therodinhoods.com is now SERIOUSLY CLOSE to competing with medianama on many aspects as per Alexa!
NOTE – Alexa is old and outdated and something that I have made fun of – BUT neither Therodinhoods.com NOR medianama feature on google trends; so I took Alexa data – not to make definite media claims BUT to make this point:
IS PURE PURE JEALOUSY AND HEARTBURN THAT’S DRIVING NIKHIL PAHWA NUTS??
Check:
I have no clue what to make of this, but if this is the manner in which the so called ‘reputed’ blog sites of India behave, then GOD HELP US!!
I will bow my head low if I write bad stuff/wrong stuff/ etc and will accept all the criticisms of the world, but THIS??
hahahahahahahahahah?
Nikhil Pahwa – be a man. Be an entrepreneur. Fight the battle of audience, of content, of users, of traffic, of page views.
Don’t gossip and make sly remarks about ‘how’ people communicate, as long as they send meaningful stuff out.
*******
Abhishek Daga
LOL, there is a dialog in GURU movie, I cannot recollect the exact words but he says “jab log tumhare baare mei *something* so samajlo tarakhi karr rahe ho” So as u already understand this is part n parcel of success.
Harshad Ghodke
What are PR firms for? I think you should just ignore such people.
Harshad Ghodke
BTW, this gives me an idea to get all the free publicity…. Let’s write something nasty about Alok Kejriwal 😉
Gurpreet Singh Tikku
Nikhil Pahwa, Whoever You are……….Shame on you!!
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
🙂
Ashish Chandra Mishra
Hi Alok,
I know that you yourself know what is right and what is not so I will not dwell on what should be done. I’d just like to add my two cents by quoting Paramahansa Yogananda from two of his books. This will bring things into the right perspective.
“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you. The future will take care of itself……”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
“Making others happy, through kindness of speech and sincerity of right advice, is a sign of true greatness. To hurt another soul by sarcastic words, looks, or suggestions, is despicable.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Where There is Light: Insight and Inspiration for Meeting Life’s Challenges
I am perhaps one of your more recent followers, and I admire all your efforts in giving the right advice to budding entrepreneurs in the most succinct manner. As for NP, I need not say anything except you have helped his site improve its stats.
Godspeed.
Ashish
Nikhil Pahwa
Hi Alok, was asleep when you tweeted. A few things:
1. I just found it amusing that someone of your readership needs a PR agency to mail blog posts and I tweeted about it. It was an instinctive reaction and there was nothing nasty intended, nor was there a plan to put you down. It’s unusual for a PR agency to mail blog posts from CEOs, so I found it amusing. If you felt hurt about it – I apologise.
2. That particular tweet had (and has) nothing to do with MediaNama.com. It was my reaction. Also, to assume that it was out of jealously because therodinhoods is doing well is incorrect. I didn’t even consider therodinhoods or even medianama when I tweeted that.
3. Contrary to what you say, I’m not jealous, and this isn’t driving me “nuts”. Honestly, it doesn’t worry me if therodinhoods does better in traffic than MediaNama.com. Unlike what you claim, there is no heartburn there – I don’t worry about competition, and there are times when I have even offered to help (potentially) competing websites hire. If you help grow the ecosystem and it helps grow our industry, I wish you all the best and will support your initiatives.
4. At MediaNama, we don’t fight the battle of traffic and pageviews – we try and focus on what content and information is relevant to our audience. Traffic is not a consideration, neither is the competitions traffic.
There is no hate here, and no malicious intent. It wasn’t meant to be nasty, but I see now how it can appear to be nasty.
I apologise for that tweet – I didn’t mean to hurt your sentiments.
Nikhil
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Thanks for the note. RESPECT!
Gurpreet Singh Tikku
A Perfect case of Misunderstanding!!!
(Note to self) Don’t log on to FB before Meditation.
Nikhil……….Withdraw my words with Apologies for my kneejerk reaction!!
Sai Rodinhood Pothuri
Good… Bulletin Closed and now work on other issues
Thanks
Sai
Pranjal Sarawagi
Alok Sir,
One i would like to tell you please don’t take it seriously, people like “Nikhil Pahwa” .The reason why i am telling you as we have saying “Dogs keep on barking but we should not give a dam to them…”
And you will get many more people trying pull you down as they can see your success rate….so be dither because of cheap people.
Rupesh Kumar Shah
Great Reply Nikhil. Ur reply reflects your maturity. Hugely impressed
Tushar Kanwar
Alok,
I saw this tweet when it went out, and all I read into it was that it was highly unusual for a PR agency to send out CEO blog posts. Even where I have seen this happen, it’s usually been the case that the CEO himself isnt very clued into or connected to the blogosphere and needs the PR machinery to publicise the posts, both of which I’m reasonably sure you are not.
Your response though, stringing along a conspiracy theory involving MediaNama, is a little OTT (particularly your choice of words) and borderline libelous to the work Nikhil does. That you chose to do it on a forum controlled by yourself makes you a Internet bully, and little else.
Expected a calmer, more mature response to a seemingly harmless remark.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
1. Tushar, first and foremost, therodinhoods is equally my social media site as is Nikhi’s Medianama.com
So there is a complete level playing field. No one bullies no one. Sorry.
2. Now, consider these two links:
https://games2winmedia.com IS my Company’s ‘blog site’. It carries ‘blogs’ almost always written by me and on topics that cover many interesting aspects (not only blowing our trumpet) but of industry facts and analyses.
Example – A never before revealed analysis of what is under the hood of the #1 iTunes game in the world
https://games2winmedia.com/2012/06/14/the-5-tipping-point-metrics-th…
This ‘BLOG POST’ (and I state in capitals to clearly explain the meaning of the blog posts context) IS NOT hosted on therodinhoods.wpengine.com because I believe it deserves to be on the games2win business blog.
Now, this blog will be heavily marketed by Paradigm Shift to the media at large, including to Medianama!
I do not see any other ‘negative’ in that?
On the contrary, there are many journalists who are not on social media and on my twitter and linkedin profiles. How are they expected to receive this blog post of the CEO?
– Almost all my personal blogs are being carried in mainstream media (Economic Times) and sites like afaqs.com etc.
Consider this section – https://www.afaqs.com/community/blog/index.html?bloggerID=6
It alone has 40+ blog posts, including subjects like ‘When CEO’s lie; the 5 facebook blunders etc etc’
It also carries the articles of the Economic Times ‘with’ a narration – ‘this appeared in the ET…’
This shows how media and media houses are fusing – they want good content, irrespective of who wrote it/carried it.
These ‘blog posts’ are appreciated by media and they want to be spoon fed these posts on a regular basis!
So, tell me, what is wrong with the same?
Finally, since you claim to have so much experience in PR, you will agree that:
– If a journalist knows the CEO/Company well, he or she politely informs that Company’s PR machine is not to burden him or her with updates because he/she has direct feeds. My friends Malvika Sanghvi and others have done this regularly!
– An overarching question is – why should the messenger matter? If indeed content is what decides the verdict of what was sent?
I eagerly await your response on my reply!!
Alok
Tushar Kanwar
Alok,
My contention was that if you saw this tweet, why did you not respond and bring up this matter directly with NP on twitter itself, rather than go to town here on your own site?
Again, I didnt “claim so much experience in PR”, I was merely commenting on what I have seen happen over the years. I clearly stated the reasons why I felt using the PR machinery to publicize blog posts was unusual – surely you’d agree that the best content spreads and speaks for itself?
Tushar
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Tushar,
I really appreciate you for following up.
1. I went to town because NP went to town with a magaphone before me!
Tweeting ‘hahahaha’ to 6800+ highly influential followers on twitter was in no way an ‘inquiry’ to ask me ‘alok – why do you send blogs via pr guys’? ( as you will see above, that tweet of his got retweeted several times, and some, by some really nasty folks)
You don’t ‘hahahahahaha’ someone publicly and then expect an sms from him.
Even if NP had tweeted “I wonder why Alok Kejriwal uses PR guys for his blogs”, I would have replied via tweets. But ‘hahahahahaha’ will make me pull out my missiles for sure.
2. Let me quote your OWN example here!
When (like a fool), I sent 400+ tweets to the players of parking frenzy – YOU WERE SO POLITE in telling me to use a # !!!!
I first replied saying ‘oh yeah, silly me’ and then actually spent 2 days in setting up @2winfounder just for that (2 days because twitter banned me as a spammer and I had to raise a ticket to get it reactivated)
I mean I learnt about my foolishness via you over twitter – BUT NEVER did you make fun of me!
3. Let me quote Shylock here (when he is asked why does he behave the way he does)
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh?
if you poison us, do we not die?
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge.
If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
The last line is important:
Shylock tells Salarino that ‘he will even better the punishment, not just replicate it’.
I ask – if a journalist can make fun of an entrepreneur, why can’t the same be reversed and with more effect?
Vijay Khubchandani
@Alok, I totally agree with you.. I am not sure that the public apology from Nikhil would have ever come if you would have smsed him your concern.. :))
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Check out this post – https://www.quora.com/Startups-in-India/Why-is-Medianamas-Nikhil-Pawha-trying-to-behave-like-a-Startup-Power-Broker-Or-is-he-just-an-attention-seeker-jealous-of-all-the-changemakers-he-is-covering