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If you run a contest as a startup, don't be dishonest. JPEGmini scammed me.
- mrpollo 14y agothat's pretty much why i dont enter any contests online, they all seem dishonest to me
- massarog 14y agoOnly reason why I entered was because I was using their service, saw the contest, and I needed a camera upgrade. Checked the entries and no one had really entered, so I entered, and won....or so I thought.
- dasil003 14y agoI actually just won a hotel stay and dinner in a tweet contest: https://twitter.com/CarnabyLondon/status/220192719958581248 https://twitter.com/CarnabyLondon/status/220192719958581248 But then again, it's not some unknown startup, it's a local marketing initiative and I can meet the organizers face to face just around the corner.
- dfxm12 14y agoI've entered plenty of "(re)tweet this to win" type contests. The barrier to entry is incredibly low, and I've won enough times to keep myself encouraged. If your time is so valuable that taking the time to (re)tweet something will be a drag, or if your twitter account has some intrinsic worth that could be brought down by this type of tweet, then yes, there's no reason to enter, but then again, if you meet either of these criteria, you probably don't even need to enter contests...
- gkoberger 14y agoMore importantly -- why do you think your followers' time is so invaluable?
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoWell... a tweet saying "I saved space with some app" is probably not any less valuable to your followers than one saying "Mmmmm... fried cheese... [insert instagram pic here]". I see a lot more useless food tweets than I do contest tweets. Edit: full disclosure... I frequently tweet food pics and almost never tweet content entries. :)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- massarog 14y agoIf you legitimately win something and then are scammed out of it you would be pretty upset too. It's no longer about the camera for me though, I'll never get it. It is more about the integrity of the company.
- ernst3 14y agoI was referring to the "I saved x MB" tweets. "I saved x%" would make more sense.
- dasil003 14y agoMy guess is the person who "won" was somehow affiliated with the company so they didn't actually have to give one away.
- massarog 14y agoEither that, or the fact that they have 130k+ followers (vs my 84 followers) so the company thinks they'll get free promotion from them.
- sequoia 14y agoHave you proof or are you just tossing another unfounded accusation on the pile?
- dasil003 14y agoThe latter. But to be fair, only my accusation is unfounded, the OA seems legit.
- hullo 14y agoThere's absolutely zero evidence in your post that you were "scammed". At worst they don't seem to understand their own rules, which is far from uncommon & not a "scam".
- dasil003 14y agoYou are far too trusting. When people start spewing this nonsensical BS and then go dark, nine times out of ten you've been had.
- vandershraaf 14y agoAre you saying they 'accidentally' scammed him? Wow
- bashbash 14y agoIt sounds to me like 'understanding their own rules' isn't the only problem here. Perhaps a lesson in counting tweets correctly.
- dfxm12 14y agoThe other lesson here is if you are going to run a "dishonest contest", decide the winner via a "random" drawing and not something objective.
- mparlane 14y agoJPEGmini is oozing with professionalism. "Save disk space with JPEGmini for Mac, tweet you savings". I would honestly stay clear of such a company, and not just based on their scammy contests.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoYou would write off an entire company based on one misspelling?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kkt262 14y agoYou should write a blog post or something and get some SEO juice on there so when people search for them they will find out how shitty of a company they are.
- hcarvalhoalves 14y agoI wish people didn't used Twitter for contests, it's not transparent and you can't audit it. You can just have a bunch of bots retweet you, or anyone can claim you delete a tweet, etc.
- ben0x539 14y agoI wish people didn't participate in contests on twitter because I read twitter to see what my friends are up to, and not which products they are using.
- urbanjunkie 14y agoI have a second twitter account that is followed only by me for this kind of bullshit. If more people did the same, we'd get fewer companies encouraging Twitter pollution, and consequently fewer children crying about how they got 'scammed' on HN.
- sequoia 14y agoThey had a contest, you didn't win, he-said she-said and you post it to HN. I'm sorry you didn't win but I don't really see what the point of this post is- shaming this company for... what? Giving away a camera? Without more solid proof you should withdraw your accusations. How do I know you didn't tweet more than once? More importantly, how did they "scam" you? Did you lose money in this transaction? Shame on the HN community for piling on this company (which I've never heard of) based on such scant evidence.
- hullo 14y agoGiven how rapidly I was downvoted for saying the same thing, I have a feeling (but no evidence!) that the "community" hasn't really driven this post to the #1 slot.
- stevenkovar 14y agoAfter seeing this, I certainly will use one of their competitors if I need a similar service.
- sequoia 14y agoBe my guest. I have no dog in this fight- don't even own a mac. :p
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- massarog 14y agoSolid proof was sent to the company several times. They chose to ignore it and even claim that I violated their rules by entering multiple times, which I never did. I have 84 followers, what good what it do for me to tweet the same thing many times when the goal of the contest was to get the most retweets on one tweet? I tweeted once from their app and got 15 retweets on that single tweet.
- alttab 14y agoWere all 15 retweets from other people with unique histories and no way affiliated to your identity?
- DarrenMills 14y agoI'm sorry this happened to you, but I don't think the power of crowd sourcing should destroy a small start-up based on what still may be a misunderstanding. Hell, perhaps this will gain them some needed attention.
- brown9-2 14y agoIs the "retweet" count on the bottom of Twitter's web UI authoritative? The company's response makes it sound like they also counted some other kind of retweet, which maybe was quoting someone's tweet instead of pressing the Retweet button.
- massarog 14y agoThe winner never had any retweets on his actual tweets. People did quote his tweet, and as stated in our emails back and forth, he had 13 mentions while I had 15 retweets.
- revdinosaur 14y agoAlso, correct me if I'm wrong, retweets by users with private accounts are not added to that count.
- zmoazeni 14y agoOP has explained his side, which is compelling. JPEGmini tweeted "You have only seen one side of the story" https://twitter.com/jpegmini/status/222433391025459200 https://twitter.com/jpegmini/status/222433391025459200 At what point does he-said/she-said matter for a company? How much is negative publicity worth to an early startup? 1) OP is completely legit, which paints JPEGmini in a bad light. Give him a camera and let it go quietly, and get some kudos for giving out two cameras. 2) OP is not legit, which with his compelling argument will still have people thinking something is fishy. Give him a camera and let it go quietly, and get some kudos for giving out two cameras. For $850, I think winning the kudos would be far more important than a company trying to prove somebody wrong. Sounds like pride is getting in the way here. Chalk up the the drawing as a lesson-learned and figure out a less ambiguous way to deal with the next one.
- ben0x539 14y agoI bet the company already regrets giving out the first camera, given the low turnout.
- ajross 14y agoThis is exactly it. Obviously the purpose to this silly contest is marketing. How is that served by getting into a public fight with one of your users?
- mseebach 14y agoThere's an obvious slippery slope you don't want to go down: Just shelling out to shut up any random guy with a dropbox account or even be bullied into responding publicly to said random guy. Assuming, of course, you're sure you did everything right. We have, as you point out, only heard one side of the story. Right now, the fallout, as in negative publicity, is pretty limited. The guy comes off as bitter and with an axe to grind. If you're in the market for the product and you come across this thread or the current five clicktivists on twitter, are you going to steer clear of the product? Of course, they shouldn't be smug or arrogant if they happen to be forced to respond later, but ignoring at this stage is definitely the right strategy IMO.
- 14y ago
- tlrobinson 14y agoI won't offer any sympathy to people who spam their followers with companies' advertisements.
- ernst3 14y agoOk, how does this makes sense? The relative savings are interesting, not the absolute. Tried the open source PackJPG ( http://www.elektronik.htw-aalen.de/packjpg/ http://www.elektronik.htw-aalen.de/packjpg/ ) I just ran on a few images. It says avrg. comp. ratio : 78.28 % . And the author answers (my) emails and didn't scam me. /edit: ok, i don't get what their software does. It is not a new codec, so is it possible that their software is superior to imagick convert -quality 85 ? Any technical details? The whole product seems highly dubious. The PackJPG thing is "lossless" as it does can restore the original jpg.
- wmf 14y agoHere's the key: "an image quality detector ... to determine the maximum amount of compression which can be applied to each individual photo without causing visible artifacts." ( http://www.jpegmini.com/main/technology http://www.jpegmini.com/main/technology ) So they can detect that, say, the image looks the same at quality 30 as it does at quality 85, then they compress it at 30 which saves space. Sure, you could have done the same thing by eye, but they're doing it automatically. See also http://link.aip.org/link/doi/10.1117/12.872231 http://link.aip.org/link/doi/10.1117/12.872231
- corkill 14y ago"I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that the winner has 130k+ followers and I have only 84." Lol if you had put that at the very start of the article, not the very end would of being obvious why they screwed you/tried to get some more publicity, front page of hacker news now. Funny thing is they sound like lame people, but there product sounds useful. So in effect your probably helping them now, much more than those 15 retweets did.
- rhizome 14y agoI dunno, "all the image quality and none of the filesize" sets off my snake-oil alarms.
- rosser 14y agoYou know, I'm generally a fairly sympathetic guy. I've been screwed over enough times in my life to know how it feels, and to be able to feel for the next poor sod who gets screwed over in his turn. That said, I'm starting to get really tired of people trying to leverage HN into being their grievance du jour fixificator. Sometimes, it's appropriate, as the people who could do something about the problem are here, or reachable quickly through here. The prospect of being shamed before the HN community is probably a very effective motivator for companies who've been engaged in hinky behavior to clean up their acts, too. But the simple fact is, HN isn't your mommy, and it isn't the police; we aren't here to hold your hand, and we aren't here to fix your problems for you. People are coming here, crying that "someone on the internet was naughty!" over increasingly trivial bullshit like this, and I, for one, am finding it more and more a waste of time and bandwidth.
- stevenkovar 14y agoI believe the intended takeaway is 'if you find need of this company's product, use their competitors' instead.'
- iamdann 14y agoAnd yet posts like these usually get right to the top of the front page. People will continue to treat HN like mommy when HN continues to act like mommy.
- eshrews 14y agoSome of the issues that have come to light on HN have been genuine, but in this case I feel like this guy has spent more time complaining than he did participating in the contest... They scammed you out of what? 5, maybe 10, minutes of your time?
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoAccording to his report they scammed him out of a D510 didn't they?
- true_religion 14y ago
- TheAmazingIdiot 14y agoMassarog: People regularly shit on me. So what you didn't get a camera for a tweet. Leave it alone and go find something more important to do with your time. CublicleNinja: No, I do not. It's a damned contest. He lost. A guy who runs his own advertising company can easily afford a camera. Note I am not running around wising his pain.
- CubicleNinjas 14y agoSo, your life is pain, and you wish said pain on others? Gotcha.
- tamal 14y agoLet's do about five minutes of fact-checking: @tommytrc won it with http://twitter.com/tommytrc/status/220161069958705152 http://twitter.com/tommytrc/status/220161069958705152 There was one API retweet and 14 unofficial retweets: https://twitter.com/typertist/status/220268257163214849 https://twitter.com/typertist/status/220268257163214849 https://twitter.com/JuliaRosien/status/220171309785690112 https://twitter.com/JuliaRosien/status/220171309785690112 https://twitter.com/TarlovCyst/status/220252912251699200 https://twitter.com/TarlovCyst/status/220252912251699200 https://twitter.com/joycecherrier/status/220220366088454144 https://twitter.com/joycecherrier/status/220220366088454144 https://twitter.com/level343/status/220201521369989123 https://twitter.com/level343/status/220201521369989123 https://twitter.com/mmangen/status/220186571012444161 https://twitter.com/mmangen/status/220186571012444161 https://twitter.com/SEOcopy/status/220185232802975745 https://twitter.com/SEOcopy/status/220185232802975745 https://twitter.com/arkarthick/status/220180186136719362 https://twitter.com/arkarthick/status/220180186136719362 https://twitter.com/JohnLusher/status/220179206485712896 https://twitter.com/JohnLusher/status/220179206485712896 https://twitter.com/purplehayz/status/220174864634482692 https://twitter.com/purplehayz/status/220174864634482692 https://twitter.com/JuliaRosien/status/220171309785690112 https://twitter.com/JuliaRosien/status/220171309785690112 https://twitter.com/roncallari/status/220165178401099777 https://twitter.com/roncallari/status/220165178401099777 https://twitter.com/ShellyKramer/status/220162599696859136 https://twitter.com/ShellyKramer/status/220162599696859136 https://twitter.com/SarahRobinson/status/220162544600485889 https://twitter.com/SarahRobinson/status/220162544600485889 But @arkarthick's tweet was API retweeted once, brining the total to 16. Looks like @tommytrc won fair and square, sorry.
- massarog 14y agoHere you go, https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/Just%20saved%2029.4%20MB%20thanks%20to%20%40JPEGmini%20for%20mac!%20 https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/Just%20saved%2029.4%2... Don't count tommytrc, or JustIs that tweeted twice. 13 total. Edit: Looks like I missed the direct retweet, so 14 total.
- tamal 14y agoI accidentally duplicated a status as well (@JuliaRosien). I don't know why you're discounting @typerist's tweet, yes she tweeted twice but it doesn't mean both are excluded, it's only counted once. So by my count you're tied at 15 retweets each.
- rwhitman 14y agoSigh, if only you knew how many startup sweepstakes have no actual prize...
- KenCochrane 14y agoWhat do that say "There's no such thing as bad publicity", I guess this company is going to JPEGmini, is about to find out. They are getting way more publicity then they thought, but the wrong type.. Too bad, looks like a nice camera.
- alincatalin90 14y agoThis guys tried to promote their product with a "fake" contest! I really hate this types of "startups"! As somebody already wrote - use their competitors insead!
- cstrat 14y agoAccording to the rules you were supposed to add a few words to the default tweet which you didn't... I still think it is unfair that they weren't honest - the least they could have done was post a ladder with ranking so you could where you sat. It might have cleared the air a bit? If they say you were disqualified then you would have realised much earlier...
- danvideo 14y agoI noticed something odd on the JPEGmini homepage. They have a before/after scan over, as illustration of what the product does, but in the source it looks like they are linking to images of the similar size. Here are the files and sizes referred to in the source: 272K preview-rolands.lakis.jpg 247K preview-rolands.lakis2.jpg 248K preview-rolands.lakis2_mini.jpg 276K preview-rolands.lakis_mini.jpg I suppose they could have just screengrabbed both images, but that seems to defeat the point...
- hub_ 14y agoAll of this for a Nikon camera.... The cheap one.
- thedeuce 14y agoJPEGmini appear to be scumbags