I really don’t like companies which go round with a big wooden stick and try to clear up what others say about them on the internet. There has been a thread running on the A4U forum for quite a while about a certain Adfero - “bringer of news”. I could go on and on about the troubles I had with them, but it is feeding time, so I will keep this brief, make sure people know it is out there, and publish any more that is needed later.
The key discussion boils down to Adfero’s claim that:
“DirectNews does provide unique content – we are very aware of the dangers of providing duplicate content to a website and ensure everything we do is unique.”
In our case, this was about 50% right - when the story was unique, it was because the incompetence was on such a grand scale that no-one else could match it. I repeat again (well, as said on A4U about 3 weeks ago, but since mysteriously disappeared), according to Adfero, the Costa Del Sol was in Morocco, and Granada was a spice island walled city in the Caribbean - these are the facts of the so-called news they provided to us.
The rest of the time, the stories were often directly taken from other press releases - any news company will do this to some extent, but there should always be some editing involved, but not in the case of Adfero - again, specifically, I refer to the story they gave us about new BA flights to Algiers, which matched the BA press release we got verbatim.
Adfero then say that they got other blog posters to take down their comments because stories were “unsubstantiated” - I can certainly feel the fresh blow of their censor’s axe coming down tough on anyone who doesn’t like them.
Well, this will not do - an internet company providing news in the 21st century should be able to take a bit of negative commentary on the chin, and should not have to threaten other blogs and forums which say things they don’t like.
Adfero, when you read this tomorrow, please take note that this blog is the personal opinion of James Avery, and relates to the former contract between yourselves and Flightmapping Ltd. The opinions are my own, but if you take issue, you can email ja @ jamesavery .co.uk.
Note - I should point out that the above comments refer to Adfero Ltd, and the Adfero DirectNews product. It does not relate to Adfero Group, a Washington DC based media agency.
[...] Has A4U been bullied by Adfero? Now I know this forum has to be moderated to prevent slanging matches and spam, but why has this thread about Adfero, which had some legitimate debate, had a number of comments about Adfero deleted? Meanwhile, Sean Hofer of Adfero is allowed to use the thread to defend his company - surely there are some double standards here? I know I’m not the only one here to have had a bad experience with Adfero (I’ve put brief details of this in my blog, more to follow when I’ve calmed down) - but they should not be allowed to go around censoring any comments posted by myself and others who have had a number of customer service or employment issues with them. This will not do - an internet company providing news in the 21st century should be able to take a bit of negative commentary on the chin, and should not have to threaten other blogs and forums which say things they dont like. Anyway, their lawyers have probably gone home by now, so please comment, tweet etc before they come back in the morning. Thanks, James __________________ James Avery Founder - Flightmapping.com. http://www.flightmapping.com/ It’s all about knowing where you are going. [...]
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[...] James Avery’s blog Transport stuff, general political rants, and a bit of music « Adfero DirectNews are incompetent - and if I can’t say it on A4U I’ll say it here [...]
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[...] sorry that my blog was out of action this afternoon — this had nothing to do with any kind of legal threat from Adfero (note that voice recognition calls them added zero, I think that sums up pretty well too!), I just [...]
Pingback by Sorry for the downtime « James Avery’s blog — March 31, 2009 @ 10:21 pm
Adfero or Direct News are just unbelievable incompetent. I was a client for about a year - we got out of our contract early as we threatened to sue them for breach of contract as so many of their articles had duplicate content. Their sales people offer rubbish promises like ‘ we’ll get you into Google News within a year’ . Utter baloney. Steer clear of Adfero. We use one of their competitors now who are a lot smaller, but their writing skills are far better and the news more original and relevant.
Comment by Mark Blake — April 21, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
Sorry for the delay in replying - need to get comment notifications turned back on (that’s all, didn’t have to run it past Adfero’s legal dept!).
Your story doesn’t surprise me at all, I have had other contacts via email, social networks etc who have said the same thing.
Comment by admin — May 18, 2009 @ 11:44 pm
We are currently considering a 12 month contract with Adfero, but after reading this blog it sounds like we need to do a bit more due diligence. Can anyone else recommend a few other companies, where you have had a better experience??.
Comment by Brian Schooler — July 14, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
Can anyone recommend another competitor, i want to get other quotes. Also how much were you paying for the service.
thanks
Comment by lodster — August 10, 2009 @ 10:09 am
hi,
i used to work for DirectNews and i can confirm that their “all stories are unique” claim is a load of
rubbbish. basically all you’re getting is a rehash of a story that’s broken earlier and has been found on a couple of sites through Google or another search engine - maybe with a silly sentence or providing some “unique context to the story” pasted as the last line.
Nothing too bad with that tho - most web stories work like that, but their sales pitch is maybe misleading.
the guys who write the stories are paid peanuts, really as low as you can get for a professional job in London, and in my time i wrote as many as 30+ stories in a day. Each about 180-220 words long. So the stories are really just churned out as quick as possible, and the product is a load of sh*t often as a result - as you guys have found out it seems!
I found it an absolutely awful company to work for, in my opinino they’re just trying to exploit graduates’ desperation to get into journalism, and then force them to produce as much tosh as they can, filled with a few keywords akwardly sledgehammered into the text (maybe that was just when i wrote them, but i dont think so…).
They give absolutely nothing back in terms of T&Cs until after you’ve done a year in their journalism sweatshop, when they fund your entry to the NCTJ exam (which is a good bonus i suppose)
Their sales technique is often quite odd, as having attended set-up meetings, i found the account managers very often promise to deliver completely unachievable targets in terms of content.
So a client will say, “can we have five news stories a day on Portuguese flights?”
and, from my memory, account managers normally reply “yes” straight away - even though it’s not actually possible to do produce five a day unless you start sending over random stories involving a Portuguese pilot, or a funny incident on a plane involving a Portuguese-speaking lady (for example)
Comment by realtor — August 20, 2009 @ 10:29 am
I’m glad to see that someone is finally speaking out. Now working for a proper, high quality publisher, I look back and wonder how Adfero actually survives. I now get decent feedback for my work, which is edited by trained, experienced editors and, although sometimes written within pressured time limits, delivered exactly as the client has been promised. It is truly original content (by which I mean that I call people up for exclusive comment and check all facts) and not a rewrite of a news story I have found published in more than one place online, which is what I was told to do at Adfero. In my opinion, Adfero’s practices are appalling, and so are the work conditions. I was miserable the whole time I worked there, and felt completely exploited. I considered organising some union action against them and was told by the union that this would be valid considering the conditions we worked under. However, I bottled out at the last minute as I felt bad for all the younger staff there who were straight from uni, and as James says, desperate to get their first year of journalism experience. Plus, journalism isn’t the most unionised of professions so most people weren’t even members of the NUJ. The clients are being lied to about the quality of the content, which cannot possibly be of a high standard due to the ridiculous number of articles employees are expected to produce each day. The staff are being taken advantage of due to their youth, inexperience and good nature. It’s time more people spoke out.
Comment by Kate H — August 25, 2009 @ 9:48 am
agree with everything kate h said.
Just to make the point clear:
The sales pitch is a load of sh*t.
You get your articles from a grossly underpaid 21-year-old (17k a year in london), who’ll normally be extremely disillusioned and be doing about 25-30 similar-length articles a day. They find your stories normally by typing a relevant search into Google, and then quickly rewording one of the other articles that comes up - & then often putting in a crass one-liner containing your keyword at the end.
If that’s what you want then fine, but completely forget about all this “unique”, and “team of content producers” bollox!
Comment by realtor — September 1, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
maybe grossly underpaid is a bit harsh there, but there can’t be many fulltime jobs that pay that little in london, especially office jobs…
Comment by realtor — September 1, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
I also worked for DirectNews and can completely back up what the other ex-employees have said. If you’re a client considering using Adfero - please don’t. The content you are getting is a load of tripe and who can blame the overqualified writers for producing such utter tosh when the working conditions are abysmal? Adfero is literally a sweatshop for stories, writers have on average ten minutes to research and write an article and there are very few checks in place. Added to this the meagre pay, total absence of perks and the fact that you are often not allowed to take a single day off for months at a stretch because everyone is so overworked and there is no effective cover policy in place, it is easy to see why DirectNews can only deliver a very low quality product, something that most of the good-natured and exploited journalists can only look back on with horror once their skills are far better appreciated elsewhere.
Comment by Lucie — September 7, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
James, thanks so much for posting this. I was about to put money into this and now I won’t. can you or anyone else help with a smaller outfit like the one Mark Blake talked about in April? you know anyone working for that company should set up with a couple of colleagues and cut out the middleman, do the job well and get properly paid for it. But great that people speak up about this stuff. As consumers of business or consumer stuff we have ultimate power, if only we realised it, to force the right thing to happen. This is a step in the right direction, thanks again James and others.
Comment by David Gordon — September 14, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
David, sorry I really can’t comment any more. The point of my post was to warn people about the specific dangers of using Adfero direct news. It isn’t really my position to recommend someone else if they turn out to be just as bad! I can only suggest you do your due diligence, and decide accordingly.
Comment by admin — September 23, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
I think it is quite entertaining that people, who I am assuming consider themselves to be good business people, reject an idea because of a couple of, what seem to me as being, bitter comments from a companies ex-journalists.
When a company has a high staffing level and in turn large client base then there are going to be times when people do not get a level of service they require, and maybe in some instances unfairly do not get (which my point is not arguing)
Are you all suddenly going to stop using Microsoft packages because for the last 20+ years they have exploited everything and everyone it touches! ask yourself that one!
I feel that the Adfero Direct News concept is fantastic - in order to employ a semi-decent content editor would cost me upwards of 25k and with reference to the content they produce - I dont expect them to be on the front line in Iraq giving me unique reports!!
The solution is cheap - if they want to pay peanuts and employ monkeys, fair enough, as long as the content saves me time, gets me seo recognition and keeps the cost down then who am I to argue with someone who was bright enough to have the idea in the first place.
Back to my reference to Microsoft - do you think that Bill Gates became the power and money magnate he did from being nice, paying fairly and sprinkling everything with fairy dust!!!
Wake up people - if you have been “exploited” then more the fool you, you probably didnt have the writing talents in the first place, and if you are a business person that rejects the idea because you dont like the way they treat staff then you are an idiot….period!
I make a lot of money from the service that I have feed 6 websites - it costs me what it does but have a direct roi ratio of 6:1 - need i say more!!
YOUR LOSS!!
Comment by GMH — October 29, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
My original reason for stopping using Adfero was because the service was terrible. It is only since then that staff have come forward to vent their complaints. Most businesses don’t have the time to go round vetting the individual business practices of every company they trade with, but if a business wants to stop working with a supplier because they view them as unethical, then fair enough.
As is so often the case, businesses which treat their staff poorly also have contempt for their customers. If Adfero works for you, then fine - in our case, the return was nothing like 6:1, and any ‘value’ from supposedly providing unique content was negated by the amount of duplication going on in the stories.
Comment by admin — October 31, 2009 @ 12:34 am
The growth of content production has caused the bigger companies to fail as they don’t appreciate that this is our lively hoods they are messing about wih. Dupe is death we all know that and I had a bad experience when someone with a heavier linkweight than mine published my content. I have worked with a company called purecontent for a while now and have had a much better experience as they seem to be web people and are all from a web publishing background. http://www.purecontent.com. I read about them on Doug Scotts blog.
Comment by Darren — November 13, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
GMH
“I think it is quite entertaining that people, who I am assuming consider themselves to be good business people, reject an idea because of a couple of, what seem to me as being, bitter comments from a companies ex-journalists.
When a company has a high staffing level and in turn large client base then there are going to be times when people do not get a level of service they require, and maybe in some instances unfairly do not get (which my point is not arguing)”
i am glad that your experience is different, but a lot of people don’t seem to enthralled by the service. Yes the comments were bitter, as Adfero are a very exploitative employer, and so you’re naturally going to feel bitter towards them as an ex-employee. But i think the comments from ex-employees help explain why a reasonably high proportion clients are so unhappy with the customer service they’re given by Adfero, and the unremitting contracts they’re locked into.
“Are you all suddenly going to stop using Microsoft packages because for the last 20+ years they have exploited everything and everyone it touches! ask yourself that one!”
But Microsoft don’t exploit all their employees. Microsoft packages don’t get rewritten everyday and then plonked on the front page of your company’s public-facing website also, so potentially embittered Microsoft employees aren’t such a concern.
“I feel that the Adfero Direct News concept is fantastic - in order to employ a semi-decent content editor would cost me upwards of 25k and with reference to the content they produce - I dont expect them to be on the front line in Iraq giving me unique reports!!”
You can get cheaper and better alternatives elsewhere, according to a lot of people. But fair enough if you feel the service does what you want
“Back to my reference to Microsoft - do you think that Bill Gates became the power and money magnate he did from being nice, paying fairly and sprinkling everything with fairy dust!!!”
What has Bill Gates personal wealth got to do with anything? Adfero barely breaks even, so i don’t think it’s owners are quite in the Bill Gates realm yet. Also, it’s great that you judge a potential service company by how poorly it treats its employees - the worse, the better in yoru opinion?
“Wake up people - if you have been “exploited” then more the fool you, you probably didnt have the writing talents in the first place”
So everyone who works there “probably has no talent as a writer”!! I don’t have any talent, as a writer, but plenty of my colleagues had a lot of talent. Why are you trying to use some wild and moronic generalisation as justification for Adfero’s exploitational employment practices?
Your obviously someone who doesn’t care about making a reasoned argument, but rather are more interested in spewing a load of sales-oriented stupid crap, so i can see while Adfero’s content would appeal to you.
Comment by realtor — November 27, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
I wish I’d found this a few months ago. I signed up and have found all the problems outlined above. Pathetic standard of writing, hideous mistakes (Yorkeshire was described as a Continent in one!) and even articles promoting rival websites! When I dared to complain, I was berated for having an agressive tone and informed no one senior would call me. Its been, without doubt, the biggest waste of marketing budget I’ve experineced in 14 years in travel industry marketing roles.
Any one considering it, please don’t do it.
Comment by SW — December 10, 2009 @ 10:59 pm