is iHype All Hype?

There’s been a lot of talk floating around the blogging community about ePerks and company founder Ben Behrouzi’s newest venture iHype.  Mr. Behrouzi has managed to bring himself a lot of negative attention over the past few months, first with an apparent use of questionable if not downright shady marketing tactics for ePerks that included adding company generated comments to paid posts that were bought by the company. This was then followed by a series of all-out attacks and threats of legal action against bloggers who wrote negatively about the company once it became obvious that the firm was not delivering on what it promised.

Strangely enough, the ePerks website is still up and running, even after the firestorm has begun.  I wonder if the company founder realizes the kind of impact that having such prominent bloggers as Andy Beard and Trace Richardson taking the time to identify such negative practices can have on his company’s performance. When A-List bloggers start to say negative things about your business, you had better be a marketing genius and a master of debate if you want to pull out of a slump, and Mr. Behrouzi does not seem to have that capability.  He instead has gone taken the route of hiding behind attorneys and making threats, rather than engaging in a direct debate with his naysayers, something which could have shown him in a positive light if done correctly.

So what does this have to do with iHype?

iHype is the Ben Behrouzi’s latest venture.  With it he is hoping to enter the extremely profitable world of paid post blog advertising. The iHype concept should be familiar to anyone who has looked into paid blog advertising.  Advertisers pay the company to advertise opportunities to bloggers, who in turn write a short post about that company for pay.  It’s simple, elegant and effective if all parties handle it correctly.

Companies like PayPerPost and their parent company Izea have proven that this model can generate huge revenues and massive amounts of venture capital if managed properly, and Mr. Behrouzi seems to want to get in on the game. Unfortunately, iHype is falling into the All-Hype category after having missed its announced launch date by over one month.  In fact, the startup now has no published launch date at all, nor have I been able to find a public statement from the company anywhere that has addressed their failure to launch on time. (As a matter of fact, searches for iHype lead me to a lot of Apple news…)

In spite of obvious issues, the company is still investing in paid advertising that leads people to believe that iHype is already a working company.  As a matter of fact, it happened to me. I ran a quick search the other day for paid blogging opportunities and found an advertisement for iHype.  At that time I had not been keeping up with the goings on in the bloggosphere, so I clicked the ad and was taken to what appeared to be a fully functional site with the option to sign up for an account.

I’m never one to turn down a revenue opportunity, so I went through the sign up process, right to the point where it asked for my TAX ID number. The page was not secure, so I didn’t give it, but even without it, I was prompted to complete the sign up, which I did.  It was only then that it became obvious that I was not working on an active site.

Now that’s what I call shady.

Let’s look over the implications of this.  The first would be that I should have paid more attention.  I’m no novice on the Internet and the fact that I missed the “beta” in the address is my own fault. I will not, in my own case, blame this on the company. I paid no attention to the “beta” marking on the site’s title graphic simply because several of the services I frequent state that they are in beta, even though the sites are fully functional. But what about the case of a less experienced Internet user?

In that case, it is very possible that they would have seen the ad, gone to the beta site and signed up, giving away all of their personal financial information over an unsecured connection.  Would they notice that the very few opportunities available were not legitimate, or would they begin writing posts for these opportunities at a promised $10.00 each?  How will Mr. Behrouzi’s company handle that issue?  Will he pay these people for their effort?  It is my opinion that he should, since the signup process is already being advertised “in the wild” so to speak, and we all know that there are a lot of people on the Internet today that will do nearly anything to make a buck or two, sometimes without bothering to consider the implications.

Having determined that I had wasted precious minutes of my time, I filled out their support form with a request to be immediately removed from the system.  I checked to make sure that i had not been abrupt, and I clicked submit.  Then I let out a string of explatives that I cannot repeat here, because the contact form is apparently one of the “beta” features of the site.  It doesn’t do anything.

Some might say that the contact form is not a priority for a site of this nature.  I have a radically different opinion.  I base this opinion on over 20 years of computer experience and 16 years of professional Internet design experience when I say emphatically that the contact form is the single most important item on any business website.

With this one omission, the site owners have already told me where they stand on matters of customer service.  To them, it’s an afterthought and that attitude is something that I cannot tolerate.  I have moved my business elsewhere in the past because I did not feel that customer service was a priority to the a company I was doing business with.  I have refused to work with companies that had poor service for the same reasons.  I will not be associated with them.

In the end I leave the decision of iHype’s future to you.  It is ultimately your choice as to whether you choose to use this service or to leave this one out of your monetary toolkit. I cannot say whether this will be a boom or a bust at this point, or whether Mr. Behrouzi will listen to the comments floating around the bloggosphere and alter his business practices in a positive manner.  If so, iHype could stand poised to go up against PayPerPost and Sponsored Reviews in the paid posting arena.  If this is the case, I will have lost out on a lucrative income stream, but my mind is already made up.

I would suggest doing your research before joining any company.  In this case I failed to do so and it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

As a final note.  I may or may not be following up on this topic.  For the moment, I have no intentions of doing so.  I have stated my opinion.  I have backed that opinion with both reference links and my own experience.  I have given this subject all the time that I feel it needs.  Unfortunately, the more I look over the topic, the more I see that I may be putting myself under fire by the owner of ePerks.com and iHype.  If so, I will post a rebuttal when necessary.  if not, hey, this post can simply live its merry and short Internet lifetime in the archives.

Mr. Behrouzi, I am not a minion.  I am a disgruntled prospective subscriber to your service.  That is all.

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