Is he really giving back?

Photographer Chase Jarvis is having a contest that will send you to Chicago to attend the ASMP Business of Photography Seminar. "Wow," I originally thought, "what a great way to give back to the community." But then boom out comes the skeptic and wouldn't you guess one of the first comments to his announcement is this:

Chase,

How is this different from Keyword Stuffing? This seems like a scheme to get lots of links from your blog by having people write positive things relating to photography. The net effect of your little contest is that you blog will come up much higher google than it did before. You should be ashamed of yourself... although I guess it is expected.
Mary Star

What if it did turn out that ASMP in conjucnction with Chase cooked up this little contest as a way of marketing the seminar. All it would cost ASMP is one free seminar. Chase could cash in a frequent flier coupon and they could split the cost of the hotel room. It will be interesting to see if he responds to Mary Star. Maybe she could publish the Mary Star Report.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if the sponsor gets something out of the contest, is that bad? Provided the prize is real?

Not enough to induce me, though.

Russell Kaye said...

I believe Chase's heart is in the right place. I'd just like a bit of transparency here. I'm sure he'll be commenting soon.