[Peter Fogwill]

We are taking about a window cleaning Magazine here, and besides they won't have know about the write up until after they paid the money for the advertising.  Seriously though how do you know what happened behind the scenes when a certain product got slagged off?  And why did Ettore not sort out the problem with the rubber instead of throwing their weight about?  I know for a fact they didn't.  And what would you do with joe bloggs article?

Peter

[WCE]

To be honest this is a difficult one to answer simply because I don't  know what you said about the rubber. I think it depends what you put for example when PWC did the pole issue they said that they felt the Brodex pole was let down by a rather poor quality brush. There were no lawsuits or Brodex trying to throw their weight around if however PWC had said that the brush was rubbish and must of been built by a bunch of idiots who are unqualified then the outcome would more than likely be different. (no offence intended brodex). I think it depends on whats said and because I do not know what happened between Ettore and yourself means I cant really comment not knowing all the facts
 

[Peter Fogwill]

All I did was explain to people a fault that I had found with the rubber, how they could recognise if the fault was with the particular rubber they were using, and how they could overcome the fault if they wanted to, and told them how the fault was occurring during manufacture.  I had maybe a year before this explained it to Ettore, told them what was going wrong in manufacturing, offered to prove what I was saying was genuine, but they weren't interested.  For this they threatened to pull the plug on advertising money, or I shut up.  I did keep quiet about it after that in the particular place I was talking about it, not for Ettore's sake, after all they could have fixed the problem, instead they lost most of their market share in the squeegee rubber market.  I also didn't want to see someone else loosing quite a bit of money because of me.

Peter

[TennetClean]

Cheers for that sanity, you did however fail to answer any of the arguments.

As long as we are truthful in our facts, and are clear about our opinions nobody can sue us for anything.

Truthful in your facts eh? as opposed to what - untruthful in your facts? lol a fact is a fact, it cant be truthful or untruthful.  I see we're in for top quality english in the shiner.

But anyway, i dont think you understand.  YOU may consider an article reasonable, but a company may consider it libelus.  Even if they dont they may just want to shut you up by slapping a lawsuit on you.  What i'm saying is, how are you going to defend that?  Will you use your credit card that your paying for the mag on?  I'd get a few more card applications in quick if I were you matey.  Capital one are good.

The worst a company can do when we express an opinion on their product, or present a factual account during a test that they disagree with is to pull their advert

I think you may find that pulling their advert is probably the LEAST they will do not the worst.

LOL this should be good.  Please do an article about crash testing and if it was tampered with or not in issue 1.   

peter is talking good sense here, i for one would be very interested to know how you would handle this situation.  WOULD you print a product review that was critical to an advertiser and therefore lose the income, or would you just not print it.  I think I know what the answer would be, and whoops! there goes the independence you hold so dear.

The fact is, the second you accept adverts from companys you are then NOT independent any more and open to accusations of bias.

Also, you didnt answer my question - can I join the team or not? You said anyone could join if they wanted.  Or is it only open to an elite?

[WCE]

I believe if worded correctly then any review would be printed. I don't believe that a supplier would have reason to pull their adverts. I used the example of the motoring section of a newspaper before but another example is that of TV. There have been countless instances where a product has been given a poor review but the makers continue to advertise on that station. In our local paper Tuesday is the day where we have the foodie section. The Restaurant that was reviewed last week was a long standing advertiser. The reviewer slated the place saying that the service was slow and in HIS opinion it could be improved. He described his starter as bland but said the main course was ok however, the desert was straight out of the 70's had been done before. In short he gave the place 3 stars out of 5 and said he needs to improve. This week they still have their advert in the paper and have in fact changed the wording to highlight the fact they have a new improved menu. They could of done what you said but they didn't why? Because the same restaurant also features regularly in the news section where they receive great publicity and they have also received great reviews in the readers reviews section. They know that you can't please everyone all of the time and like all companies worth their salt that there is always room for improvement and welcome all feedback good or bad

[TennetClean]

I don't believe that a supplier would have reason to pull their adverts

No offense matey but peter has just given you a perfect example where it DID happen, of course theyd do that again LOL, any supplier i mean.

And to be honest its not rocket science, its pretty obvious that a supplier would do that LOL.

You are on about a national newspaper LOL that aint the same thing.  This is a window cleaning mag, do you think they will lose all there sales if they dont advertise with you? LOL how have they managed to stay afloat so far I wonder.

sorry matey, but everybody knows that you cant be independent at the same time as taking suppliers money.  You will be open to accusations of bias.

[WCE]

I don't believe that a supplier would have reason to pull their adverts

No offense matey but peter has just given you a perfect example where it DID happen, of course theyd do that again LOL, any supplier i mean.


Not really, I explained previously I don't know what he said about Ettore so it is hard to say why they pulled their advert. If we had had a review which said that supplier x was crap, their products crap and just generally run them down with out explanation then I could fully understand them pulling advertising. If however a review mentions some shortcomings in a product but it written in a constructive manner then I really cant see their being a problem. Anyway one of the ideas we are considering is maybe having a review that is done by two separate reviewers a sort of two in one review. One could love a product, the other hate it. That would be interesting. What would the suppliers do then?

sorry matey, but everybody knows that you cant be independent at the same time as taking suppliers money.  You will be open to accusations of bias.

 
There are millions of magazines large and small who are doing exactly what we aim to do and they all carry advertising and no one has ever accused them of bias. What about Which magazine. Anyway It's not just suppliers money we'll take anybodies money who wishes to advertise without exception!

[Peter Fogwill]

Like I said earlier we are talking about a window cleaning magazine, one that just happens to be starting up.  Quite a bit different form a TV station.  And yes the TV station advertising will be worth a lot of money to the particular advertiser, as well as the other way around.  You won't have that luxury, in fact at first you will have to near enough give away advertising space, to get the advertisers to come on board.  Remember in the first issue you will have only a handful of subscribers, and also that magazines usually give away magazines to encourage people to subscribe.

When you get a handful of people from here to subscribe where is all the rest of your subscribers going to come from?  Are you going to give Mike a free advert in the magazine for recruiting from here?  And what is going to happen when you review one of his products negatively, or someone writes an article saying that Cleaning Pro's is a far better forum?  Do you think you may recruit subscriptions from an advert in the FED magazine? or from Ionics magazine?  

I just feel after you only mentioned it 5 days ago you have not thought it through enough, and jumped in with your eyes closed, because a few people showed a bit of interest.

The only advice left for me to give if your interested, is slow down a bit and take a look from all angles.  Give yourself a bit of time, to think it through properly, and if in a couple of weeks you still feel the same way, then go for it.  I would also read all the posts on here again, and see if you can see some of them at least in a different light.

Peter

[WCE]

I just thought of something Peter, You sell your own equipment. Would you advertise with us and put your products up for review? If you did and a review said that one of your products could be improved due to a particular shortcoming would you pull your advertising or would you take it as constructive criticism and look to improve the product. As with all your comments I am just interested to hear (or see!) what you would do.
 

[WCE]

  I did keep quiet about it after that in the particular place I was talking about it, not for Ettore's sake, after all they could have fixed the problem, instead they lost most of their market share in the squeegee rubber market. 

Maybe they won't make the same mistake twice. Maybe if they had listened to you then they might of held on to their share of the market.

[Paul Coleman]

Right Tennent, your comments are most welcome but I feel that you have no real idea on what goes into production of a magazine the mock up issue will take us a month because sanity will have to finalise the layout of the magazine. Once this has been done we will have the basic template that the articles and features will be inserted into and therefore the layout will only have to be set once. Therefore each issue after this will hopefully be turned around in a reasonable timescale. Please remember that we are doing this from scratch. You say that the mag has to look the business this takes time!
Also you say that our magazine sounds like it like it will be rubbish compared to PWC How can you say that when you have no idea on content, layout or what products we are going to have for review. Who says Ionics wont be featured in the magazine true they have their own mag but your telling me that they would miss out on the chance to have their equipment reviewed up against their rivals in a publication that has no ties with any company. This goes for all suppliers if they have faith in their products then I cant see why they wouldn't. Their product could  easily come out as the best (or worst). With regards to the comment that pwc has all the best products does it? Thats your opinion obviously you like Ionics equipment but thats just your opinion. And with regards to Ionics taking us to court if we are critical to them rubbish they cant sue for an opinion (i checked)  With regards to the trial team what you don't realise tennent is I have the trial team in place and will be contacting them by email to confirm our schedule and when we expect the trial issue will be ready to look at. They have been chosen to represent a broad selection of potential readers.       

Ionics have shown in the past that they are unwilling to have their products lined up with others' in a truly independent test (Alex Gardiner's pole breaking strain test for one).  That's not to say that Ionics' products are no good because like everything else on the market, they have their plusses and minuses.  It's just that they prefer to do their own marketing.  It was notable that when Philip Hanson ran various tests on poles in the PWC magazine, Ionics came out on top.  Some reason was given as to why light carbon modular poles were excluded from the test (can't recall what it was now).
I believe that if you rang Ionics management and asked to independently review their products (and publish the results) in a fair comparison with the rest of the market, they would decline.  I don't know if you actually need their permission to do this though but with their tendency to take legal action, you might be well advised to steer clear.  Bear in mind that being right is not a guarantee of staving off financial difficulties in a court case.

[Clive McDonald]

My last thoughts on the subject.The idea is not fully developed and the purpose is not clear. My solution;

Ditch the preconceptions about certain suppliers and advertisers.Get some clear minded people on board.Go for a brilliant- or at least the best that you can do mock issuAe- and by that i mean one with proper content.

Then when you've proved that you can do it to an acceptable standard without needlessly antagonising anyone and you have the basis of a winner pitch it to the CIU forum team.

Ask for the spic and span as the title, ask to do it as a joint venture, forum-directory-magazine- so that many people are involved.Obviously you would have to give away a lot of control, but this would get it on newsagants shelves and have a synergy that would meet many needs.

Spic an Span, a cleaning, business opps mag,with an existing forum link and allied brand leading business directory on newsagents shelves with a wider general interest so that at£1 an issue some of the public would buy.This would work, if you were up to it and you could convince the powers that be that they wouldn't be walking into a legal minefield and the quality and the good name of the spic and span brand was protected.

Only a suggestion.

[Sanity]

The only preconceptions about certain suppliers seem to be coming from people posting here, not from WCE or I...  The Shiner will not have an affiliation, preferance or bias to any particular product or company, whether they advertise with us or not.

TennetClean, picking holes in my grammar now?  Would you like me to go through your posts and pick out your grammatical and punctuation errors?  Grow up and read my other posts...  Oh, and sorry, although anyone can join the team, they must have something to bring other than critisism for the sake of it and sarcastic comments.  This is not an ego thing (as you are bound to come out with (we know you so well...)) but one of quality.  What can you do for the magazine?  Feel free to send me your application and C.V. by email.  Oh, and I assume you will be prepared to foot a pro-rata amount of the bills and costs incured in starting up this venture?

As for how the magazine would handle a legal case.  Well, that is the magazines business, not the readers.   Do you know how FHM would deal with a lawsuit?  Or Fishermans Monthly for that matter?  No?  Then why does it concern you how The Shiner would deal with it?

Once again, please research and investigate your statements regarding 'what a company would or would not do'.

Yes you can be independant and take suppliers money.  Independent means... (here we go again, having to provide basic information because...sod it, google the meaning if you want to know it.)

Basically we can and will take suppliers money for advertising and remain independent. Thousands of magazines do, what would make us different?  We will advertise ANYONE and EVERYONE that wants to, whether we personally think their products are good or bad.  All we can do is offer truth in our presentation of reviews, factual in our conclusions about products and our opinions will be presented in a way that makes it clear it is our opinion (and check, you cannot be sued for anything if it is clearly an opinion).

We already have a number of suppliers lined up wanting to buy advertising space, and this is even after we have directed them to this thread and they have read our comments about being independent.  After all, if a supplier does not have the confidence in his product to withstand critisism or comparison then neither will the marketplace... 

We are confident that we can make this work.  While all comments etc are welcome, lest see if and when we write reviews whether any of the companies involved object to our conclusions.

If we are wrong a retraction / appology will be made.  (again, once this is done you can't be sued, read the link regarding defamation.  Ammends is a barrier to litigation )  If we are right, we will not crow about it we will simply present it in an informative and factual manner.

I hope that once all the posts from both myself and WCE are read they will clarify somewhat our position on our being independent.  I also hope that the concerns regarding our being sured for libel, defamation or slander have also been allayed (we DO know what we are doing, really, honestly, truly...we have lookied into this in great depth, and have adcisors from the legal world...well, a couple of solicitor friends, one of whom specialises in libel / defamation cases and the other who specialises in legal documents and contracts)
 
Thanx for all the comments so far (good and bad) and may I on behalf of The Shiner say thank you to our supporters and thank you to our detractors (after all, you ARE forcing us to think hard about issues that we had perhaps thought were easier.)

The design alpha is almost done, so members of the design team will be recieving copies shortly , then it is on to the desigh beta.  Maybe with some content, as our contributors are chomping at the bit to get their articles and features to us.

[Sanity]

My last thoughts on the subject.The idea is not fully developed and the purpose is not clear. My solution;

Ditch the preconceptions about certain suppliers and advertisers.Get some clear minded people on board.Go for a brilliant- or at least the best that you can do mock issuAe- and by that i mean one with proper content.

Then when you've proved that you can do it to an acceptable standard without needlessly antagonising anyone and you have the basis of a winner pitch it to the CIU forum team.

Ask for the spic and span as the title, ask to do it as a joint venture, forum-directory-magazine- so that many people are involved.Obviously you would have to give away a lot of control, but this would get it on newsagants shelves and have a synergy that would meet many needs.

Spic an Span, a cleaning, business opps mag,with an existing forum link and allied brand leading business directory on newsagents shelves with a wider general interest so that at£1 an issue some of the public would buy.This would work, if you were up to it and you could convince the powers that be that they wouldn't be walking into a legal minefield and the quality and the good name of the spic and span brand was protected.

Only a suggestion.

Or Spick and Span could launch their own magazine! How would this allow us to be independent if we were affiliated with a certain forum?

Please realise that during the design stages, you do not add content.  As per my post above...Where I listed the steps required in order to develop a magazine from an idea to a printed proof...

Content is added at a much later stage, once the design and layout (column sizes, placements, image boxes etc etc etc etc etc) are finalised.

Even then, the final content can be added right up to the publishing deadline, depending on its importance (for example breaking news that affects ladder useage or water consumption for WFP as examples).

The magazine will not be produced by committee.  The Sun is not made by its readers but by the Sun employees.  The Fishermans Monthly is not made by the readers, rather by the editorial team and designers..  those publications are made FOR their readers, not by them.  It is a bonus that this window cleaning magazine is being made by window cleaners.  Our readers will hopefully contribute their knowledge and experience to the content of the magazine (which as we have stated numerous times we are not yet at a stage to put into it).  Decisions regarding the design and editorial side of the production will be made by the editorial / design / advertising team.  The same way EVERY other magazine is produced..

If anyone would like to be part of the team, either do something that progresses the idea / production (contact advertisers and secure spaces, write content, provide a column (daily life of a shiner for example with funny stories and examples of nutter customers), or contact myself or WCE with where you believe can fit in, what skills you offer and how much of your time and money you would be prepared to put into the first issue.  After all, so far we have had a couple of donations and we are enormously grateful for this show of faith in the idea, but the majority of the time and costs have been shouldered by WCE and I (the design we have so far took over 10 hours.  Who would like to recompence me for that time?  Or WCE for his telephone bill contacting people for adverts and articles?)

The purpose of the magazine (as has been stated previously) is...

'To provide an independent, honest, factual, informative platform for the window cleaning fraternity  to read about the latest products, learn about their business and issues surrounding it; to have products reviewed and trested in order to cut through the fog of advertising to the real facts to enable window cleaners to make informed choices about the equipment they buy for their business' ....Oh and to provide a good read

We don't know yet whether it will be sold on newsagents shelves (as this incurs even more costs of distrobution etc) or whether it will be subscription only to start with.  This is something that needs to be discussed.

[Clive McDonald]

Look, on it's own this just isn't good enough, the synergy I suggested might be, as well as bringing in a wider potential readership, being a 'new' idea because it would be a magazine with the back up of 'the worlds largest internet cleaning forum', and be a brand extension for the online directory- which in turn would also promote the magazine.

It's very unlikely though that you could meet the criteria required- or that anyone would want to enter into a partnership with you.As a stand alone business idea i think it's pretty good though, and perhaps Mike should look at going it alone.

[Peter Fogwill]

I just thought of something Peter, You sell your own equipment. Would you advertise with us and put your products up for review? If you did and a review said that one of your products could be improved due to a particular shortcoming would you pull your advertising or would you take it as constructive criticism and look to improve the product. As with all your comments I am just interested to hear (or see!) what you would do.
 

WCE, unfortunately everyone does not run their business the way I do, and it is impossible to answer as I have not seen the wording in the constructive criticism.  

'To provide an independent, honest, factual, informative platform for the window cleaning fraternity  to read about the latest products, learn about their business and issues surrounding it; to have products reviewed and trested in order to cut through the fog of advertising to the real facts to enable window cleaners to make informed choices about the equipment they buy for their business'

I would however be interested in finding out how the review process worked, who was doing the actual reviewing, and how it was reviewed.  I would have to judge firstly how fair I perceived previous reviews, and compare the judgements on my own experience.  If for example you done a review on the squeegee rubber, and  the Ettore came out on top, then I would think that the magazine was a Mickey Mouse organisation and stay well clear.

Peter

[WCE]

I just thought of something Peter, You sell your own equipment. Would you advertise with us and put your products up for review? If you did and a review said that one of your products could be improved due to a particular shortcoming would you pull your advertising or would you take it as constructive criticism and look to improve the product. As with all your comments I am just interested to hear (or see!) what you would do.
 

WCE, unfortunately everyone does not run their business the way I do, and it is impossible to answer as I have not seen the wording in the constructive criticism. 
Peter

What I meant was would you take the feedback on your product seriously and look to improve the product or just get in a huff about it? I don't see how the wording has anything to do with my question. Talking generally which route would you take? I assume that you would at least look and see if there was a problem like suggested. I would imagine that most suppliers would do the same. What happened between Ettore and yourself, I would like to think that was the exception rather than the rule (Although if like you say they lost most of their market then maybe they have learned that you cannot ignore feedback) and that most if not all suppliers are interested in their products.

[Sanity]

Look, on it's own this just isn't good enough, the synergy I suggested might be, as well as bringing in a wider potential readership, being a 'new' idea because it would be a magazine with the back up of 'the worlds largest internet cleaning forum', and be a brand extension for the online directory- which in turn would also promote the magazine.

It's very unlikely though that you could meet the criteria required- or that anyone would want to enter into a partnership with you.As a stand alone business idea i think it's pretty good though, and perhaps Mike should look at going it alone.

Could you clarify just what it is you believe 'insn't good enough' ?  You have yet to see any firm ideas, let alone any content so I think your comments are a little premature.

Why do you think it unlikely we could meet the criteria required to set up and publish a professional looking magazine with interesting articles and fair product reviews?  You know very little about our past experiences in this field, so you are basing this on an assumtion of our capabilities and knowledge, and you know what assuming makes...

Again, why would we need partnership?  I suggest you wait and see.  To critisise and pick apart something that does not even exist yet, well that seems odd.  The IDEA exists, but little else.

This is what many people, specifically TennetClean and Discount WindowCleaning seem to forget.  The only thing that has been set in stone is.....NOTHING!
The IDEA of a magazine exists.  The IDEA of an INDEPENDENT magazine exists.  The IDEAS about the design and possible content catagories exists.  Oh, and a rough draft of colour swatches and font samples as the first stage of the design process.  A few emails exist discussing ideas...
Supposition, ill-informed reasoning, researchless conjecture and baseless presumption is not helpful to anyone, particularly the people putting in time, money and effort to attampt to bring this IDEA to fruition.

May I suggest that we see what the idea turns into before we start moaning and wailing that we might get sued, that we are not good enough etc etc etc...

I have an idea to turn into a magazine, so forgive me if I take no further part in this thread.  Anything you feel you need to convey to me urgently about the magazine idea can be sent to me via either PM or email.

I will start another thread in a few weeks asking for ideas about what sort of articles, features, CONTENT people would like to see. 

Thanx for all the input, favorable and not so favorable.

Regards

Sanity

[Clive McDonald]

I'm sure you'll do a good job with the layout but the basic idea on it's own isn't strong enough to be more than a hobby..This thread has explored the idea, and you keep running up the same cul de sac. That's why you write or attempt a business plan, to see if it will work and what the flaws are.

This is not about winning any debate- or putting myself or tenant or you or wce in their place. It is about trying to shape an idea into something that might work. You are constantly taking a combative and defensive stance when none is required.

[Peter Fogwill]

What I meant was would you take the feedback on your product seriously and look to improve the product or just get in a huff about it? I don't see how the wording has anything to do with my question. Talking generally which route would you take? I assume that you would at least look and see if there was a problem like suggested. I would imagine that most suppliers would do the same. What happened between Ettore and yourself, I would like to think that was the exception rather than the rule (Although if like you say they lost most of their market then maybe they have learned that you cannot ignore feedback) and that most if not all suppliers are interested in their products.

Yes I know what you meant, and the answer was given in the way it was, in view of the fact that you told me in a previous post that you couldn't comment because you hadn't seen the wording, or words to that effect.  If you want questions answered, you really have to answer questions asked.

Ettore acted in the way they did because of feedback they got from large USA window cleaning companies.  They had handed out trial rubbers to these companies, and had got favorable feedback.  I wondered why they got favorable feedback as I knew dam well the rubbers were not up to standard.  I found out with a little investigation that one particular large company had a certain training policy to get the best out of the new recruits.  The new recruits wiped the squeegee rubber after every window, like they were trained to do.  It just so happens that the wiping solved the problem of the fault with the rubber.  Ettore were happy, the large USA customer was happy, and it left the people who could use a squeegee properly, looking for a new rubber supplier.

You have convinced yourself it is the exception rather than the rule, whether it is or not.

Now take my new pole for instance, I was trying to keep my personal products out of this, but it is a good example.  I had a chap on the phone this morning his name is James, (I think he uses this forum and may want to verify this) Anyway he was on looking for a replacement section for his pole he got last year.  We got talking about the pole and he says when he first got it he though it was a waste of space, and now he thinks it's brilliant with a great time saving (the exact wording might not be right)  James can't wait until the new version comes out and wants two of them in different sizes, as soon as they are available.  Now if James had been one of the people doing a review on my new pole, then my pole would have had an undeservedly bad review, and in this case no I wouldn't be happy to see it in a magazine.



Peter