Comments on: Learning from Gerstmann-gate: Never Underestimate Your Online Community

By: How to Value-Add Everything (Even the Little Stuff)

How to Value-Add Everything (Even the Little Stuff) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:23:14 +0000

[...] can be overshadowed by how it sits in the greater context of things. One recent example of this was the firing of a games journalist from video gaming website [...]

By: KJ

KJ — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:31:53 +0000

As an avid gamer all my life and a member of the Gamespot community, I was deeply saddened by the whole issue and deeply insulted when no clarification has been given. The text-based clarification did not cut anything and seemed informal, impersonal and unjustified.

It was a good thing they released the video because I felt that the Gamepost staff was very saddened by the issue – whether or not Jeff was fired from upper CNET or from within Gamespot, sadness is still felt in the Gamespot community.

My personal theory is the negative review + the advertisement. For CNET, it probably felt embarrassed that they are charging their client ridiculous amounts of money to put ads on Gamespot and ten have a reviewer flame at it.

By: Devindra

Devindra — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:17:54 +0000

Thanks for the kind words Skellie!

This incident surely points to a failure within the traditional corporate communication model. Even though CNET isn’t a hip new Web 2.0 company, it seems like they’ll have to start thinking like one to really connect with their audience. I assume the same to be true for other big corporations that are trying to leverage a committed web audience.

By: Skellie

Skellie — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:58:17 +0000

Devindra, thanks for your clear coverage of the issue.

From what I can see, it seems like the journalist panned the game, the advertisers pulled out, CNET got wind of this and fired the reviewer without thinking about the ramifications in the Gamespot community. Corporations have a tendency to be really dumb. It’s a wonder they make money.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:30:00 +0000

Parul, thanks for the nice words, we hope you will come back again ,and I will sure check your site out.