4 ms·

Red Herring awards: a scam?

84 points by abhimir 14y ago

DaniFong 14y ago
For what it's worth the US stage this year was a pretty professional production. Just viewing the pitches was worth the money. Notably, many of those that pitched -- including some competitors of ours, did not receive the award.
manys 14y ago
The name isn't enough of a clue?
- swang 14y ago
  Red Herring was actually a legitimate tech magazine at one time. It is brushed upon slightly at the beginning of the article. If you goto the Wikipedia article, the names line up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine)
PhrosTT 14y ago
I heard this about the Webby Awards as well... https://www.google.com/search?q=webby+awards+scam https://www.google.com/search?q=webby+awards+scam
pavel_lishin 14y ago
> When I attended the first time to present, I found a nearly empty room with five or six people and another entrepreneur presenting on stage. Next up, was me. Before I started, I just asked, “Who were the actual Red Herring judges?” No one raised their hands. Since it was only five others, I asked who they were with. They were all entrepreneurs waiting to present next. We then realized, there were NO judges and NO “esteemed panel.” I expected the "conference" to be lackluster and crappy, but I didn't expect that they would literally not even bother setting anything up for the awards. Amazing.
- jemka 14y ago
  That's what I found weird. >... a nearly empty room with five or six people and another entrepreneur presenting on stage. Next up, was me. Why was the first person even on the stage talking? There had to be an MC.
vincentchan 14y ago
They contacted me before saying if I'm willing to pay for the $3,000, I will get the top 100 award. It's a joke. But there are still so many companies willing to pay them every year in Asia. So sad.
drumdance 14y ago
Back in the late nineties a variation on this was for the scammer to call and say you'd be featured on some cable business show hosted by a big shot ex-politician. When they called me it was Casper Weinberger, but I remember hearing about other names too. The catch was that you had to pay the production costs of $15-25k. More info: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-954-461-2100/2 http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-954-461-2100/2 This is also a common charity tactic. They throw a big dinner party honoring some rich guy, then shake down all his friends to pay for tables at dinner.
- danielweber 14y ago
  I've been there. We had a new person in the office who didn't believe that such scams could exist, so for the lulz they were assigned to deal with the person. They could say whatever they wanted as long as they didn't agree to pay. The salesguy ended up screaming at our person who was just playing dumb. It's also the "Who's Who" scam, where they print your name in a book of important people and sell you the book, or the "You Won A Poetry Content" that Dave Barry had so much fun with. http://www.miamiherald.com/2007/07/22/165002/poetic-license-with-no-rhyme-or.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2007/07/22/165002/poetic-license-...
- johns 14y ago
  This still happens. Saw it last year at the company I was working for at the time.
- Evbn 14y ago
  1-954 a classic Fort Lauderdale area code. South Florida is like the Silicon Valley of scam businesses, with a gloried history.
- terrellm 14y ago
  We've had several of these companies approach our agriculture software company over the years. The key phrase to listen for is "scheduling fee" as that's what they call the $15k - $25k fee. The most recent pitch was last year and the special host was to be Terry Bradshaw.
sesqu 14y ago
Hmm. I recently saw a company advertize their Red Herring award, and my scam-sense was tingling. I did a little looking and decided the whole thing was a bit of a scam, but targeted at me, the potential impressee. I never considered the possibility of the company itself having been scammed.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
NelsonMinar 14y ago
TIL that Red Herring still exists. As an aside, the blog that's the source for this article (http://www.techinasia.com/ http://www.techinasia.com/) is a fantastic English language source for what's going on in the Asian tech startup scene. Lots of coverage of big companies like Sina Weibo, Baidu, Renren, etc. Also coverage of smaller stuff. There's a lot of innovation happening in Asia, particularly in China, and this is one of the few English language sources doing detailed reporting that I know of.
TylerE 14y ago
JD Power isn't much better. Supposedly they really do select based on quality, but it's setup so you have to pay MASSIVE fees if you ever want to acknowledge publicly that you've won.
kolya3 14y ago
The Red Herring magazine and brand was bought years ago. The brand was whored out to promote Dasar conferences. If you want some sad entertainment, read through any Valleywag/Gawker articles about working at Red Herring. Sad thing is all the stories are easily verifiable - just talk to any ex-employee.
alttag 14y ago
I'm amused by the irony of the name "Red Herring". Perhaps the idiom isn't familiar to non-native English speakers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring
- error54 14y ago
  I'm with you. I thought these were one of those "ironic" type awards similar to the Darwin awards or the razzies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Raspberry_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Raspberry_Award
- coenhyde 14y ago
  We use the term a lot in Australia. Seems to be of British origin?
- alizaki 14y ago
  Red Herring used to be a major tech magazine back in the day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine)
dhawalhs 14y ago
I googled "web awards" and all the top links required you to pay a "participation fee".
driverdan 14y ago
Why would anyone pay $3000 to attend a conference to receive an award, which in reality amounts to nothing? Your users don't care about some stupid online award they've never heard of. If the investors you're talking to care about it then it's time to find new investors.
- JoblessWonder 14y ago
  Ego most likely.
  - mattmanser 14y ago
    It's not even ego, it's external validation. You're not sure you're doing it right and then someone says you are. Powerful.
- gyardley 14y ago
  I remember being solicited for this in 2008, maybe 2009. While it was pretty obvious that I could 'win' the award by paying for a conference ticket, I considered it - just so I could send out the press release, put the logo on my web site, and drop the name in client presentations. I figured I might get more value out of it than the few thousand dollars it cost, since we were selling into ad agencies and they seemed to value awards very highly. I also figured they wouldn't know this particular award was meaningless. In the end I got a little too irritated by the sales guy's hard sell and passed, but I'm not certain it was a rational economic decision. Lots of ad technology companies trumpet their phony awards to the skies.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  False credentialing. You may or may not know it means nothing. Some of your customers won't. And those will be more susceptible to other scams. The 419ers operate off a similar logic -- it's a pre-screening for gullibility, cuts down on their sorting and selection task.
HyprMusic 14y ago
I used to work in a "multi-award winning" agency. They would pay extortionate amounts to win these awards given by people with absolutely no credibility in the industry. It wasn't an award, so much as an endorsement. The sad thing is, it used to work, clients lapped it up.

84 points by abhimir 14y ago

For what it's worth the US stage this year was a pretty professional production. Just viewing the pitches was worth the money. Notably, many of those that pitched -- including some competitors of ours, did not receive the award.

manys 14y ago

The name isn't enough of a clue?

swang 14y ago
Red Herring was actually a legitimate tech magazine at one time. It is brushed upon slightly at the beginning of the article. If you goto the Wikipedia article, the names line up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine)

PhrosTT 14y ago

I heard this about the Webby Awards as well... https://www.google.com/search?q=webby+awards+scam https://www.google.com/search?q=webby+awards+scam

pavel_lishin 14y ago

> When I attended the first time to present, I found a nearly empty room with five or six people and another entrepreneur presenting on stage. Next up, was me. Before I started, I just asked, “Who were the actual Red Herring judges?” No one raised their hands. Since it was only five others, I asked who they were with. They were all entrepreneurs waiting to present next. We then realized, there were NO judges and NO “esteemed panel.” I expected the "conference" to be lackluster and crappy, but I didn't expect that they would literally not even bother setting anything up for the awards. Amazing.

jemka 14y ago
That's what I found weird. >... a nearly empty room with five or six people and another entrepreneur presenting on stage. Next up, was me. Why was the first person even on the stage talking? There had to be an MC.

vincentchan 14y ago

They contacted me before saying if I'm willing to pay for the $3,000, I will get the top 100 award. It's a joke. But there are still so many companies willing to pay them every year in Asia. So sad.

drumdance 14y ago

Back in the late nineties a variation on this was for the scammer to call and say you'd be featured on some cable business show hosted by a big shot ex-politician. When they called me it was Casper Weinberger, but I remember hearing about other names too. The catch was that you had to pay the production costs of $15-25k. More info: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-954-461-2100/2 http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-954-461-2100/2 This is also a common charity tactic. They throw a big dinner party honoring some rich guy, then shake down all his friends to pay for tables at dinner.

danielweber 14y ago
I've been there. We had a new person in the office who didn't believe that such scams could exist, so for the lulz they were assigned to deal with the person. They could say whatever they wanted as long as they didn't agree to pay. The salesguy ended up screaming at our person who was just playing dumb. It's also the "Who's Who" scam, where they print your name in a book of important people and sell you the book, or the "You Won A Poetry Content" that Dave Barry had so much fun with. http://www.miamiherald.com/2007/07/22/165002/poetic-license-with-no-rhyme-or.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2007/07/22/165002/poetic-license-...
johns 14y ago
This still happens. Saw it last year at the company I was working for at the time.
Evbn 14y ago
1-954 a classic Fort Lauderdale area code. South Florida is like the Silicon Valley of scam businesses, with a gloried history.
terrellm 14y ago
We've had several of these companies approach our agriculture software company over the years. The key phrase to listen for is "scheduling fee" as that's what they call the $15k - $25k fee. The most recent pitch was last year and the special host was to be Terry Bradshaw.

sesqu 14y ago

Hmm. I recently saw a company advertize their Red Herring award, and my scam-sense was tingling. I did a little looking and decided the whole thing was a bit of a scam, but targeted at me, the potential impressee. I never considered the possibility of the company itself having been scammed.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

NelsonMinar 14y ago

TIL that Red Herring still exists. As an aside, the blog that's the source for this article (http://www.techinasia.com/ http://www.techinasia.com/) is a fantastic English language source for what's going on in the Asian tech startup scene. Lots of coverage of big companies like Sina Weibo, Baidu, Renren, etc. Also coverage of smaller stuff. There's a lot of innovation happening in Asia, particularly in China, and this is one of the few English language sources doing detailed reporting that I know of.

TylerE 14y ago

JD Power isn't much better. Supposedly they really do select based on quality, but it's setup so you have to pay MASSIVE fees if you ever want to acknowledge publicly that you've won.

kolya3 14y ago

The Red Herring magazine and brand was bought years ago. The brand was whored out to promote Dasar conferences. If you want some sad entertainment, read through any Valleywag/Gawker articles about working at Red Herring. Sad thing is all the stories are easily verifiable - just talk to any ex-employee.

alttag 14y ago

I'm amused by the irony of the name "Red Herring". Perhaps the idiom isn't familiar to non-native English speakers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

error54 14y ago
I'm with you. I thought these were one of those "ironic" type awards similar to the Darwin awards or the razzies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Raspberry_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Raspberry_Award
coenhyde 14y ago
We use the term a lot in Australia. Seems to be of British origin?
alizaki 14y ago
Red Herring used to be a major tech magazine back in the day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Herring_(magazine)

dhawalhs 14y ago

I googled "web awards" and all the top links required you to pay a "participation fee".

driverdan 14y ago

Why would anyone pay $3000 to attend a conference to receive an award, which in reality amounts to nothing? Your users don't care about some stupid online award they've never heard of. If the investors you're talking to care about it then it's time to find new investors.

JoblessWonder 14y ago
Ego most likely.
- mattmanser 14y ago
  It's not even ego, it's external validation. You're not sure you're doing it right and then someone says you are. Powerful.
gyardley 14y ago
I remember being solicited for this in 2008, maybe 2009. While it was pretty obvious that I could 'win' the award by paying for a conference ticket, I considered it - just so I could send out the press release, put the logo on my web site, and drop the name in client presentations. I figured I might get more value out of it than the few thousand dollars it cost, since we were selling into ad agencies and they seemed to value awards very highly. I also figured they wouldn't know this particular award was meaningless. In the end I got a little too irritated by the sales guy's hard sell and passed, but I'm not certain it was a rational economic decision. Lots of ad technology companies trumpet their phony awards to the skies.
dredmorbius 14y ago
False credentialing. You may or may not know it means nothing. Some of your customers won't. And those will be more susceptible to other scams. The 419ers operate off a similar logic -- it's a pre-screening for gullibility, cuts down on their sorting and selection task.

HyprMusic 14y ago

I used to work in a "multi-award winning" agency. They would pay extortionate amounts to win these awards given by people with absolutely no credibility in the industry. It wasn't an award, so much as an endorsement. The sad thing is, it used to work, clients lapped it up.