Today I received an interesting phone call from ADVFN.

If you don’t already know, ADVFN bought Fotothing.com off me a couple of years ago. They’ve done an OK job of taking the site to over 135,000 users, but they haven’t really developed it further, and there has been a few “disagreements” with users over changes in the site over the last couple of years.

A year ago, I started another photo sharing site, Fotonomy. This is aimed more at people with a serious interest in amateur phtoography. Fotothing is more of a photo blog / photo diary. I don’t run Fotonomy as a business – it’s a small, friendly place, and I use it to develop my programming skills as much as anything. (I checked my contract with ADVFN to make sure this was OK before starting another site.)

Last week, out of the blue, Fotothing started serving Google ads to paying (Pro) members. Many of these members had specifically paid not to see ads, as it was listed as the one of the main benefits.Now, I still love Fotothing and have a lot of friends there. People who really helped out during the initial development. So when I read the discussions on the ads in their forums, I posted my own opinion. People who have paid not to see ads should not see ads. Period.

But I also posted saying people should not leave Fotothing.Anyway. Back to the phone call…”Hi Dom. Long time no see. How are you? I was just calling to give you a final warning.”

Yup, they’re threatening me. Threatening legal action. I have been told in no uncertain terms never to mention Fotonomy on Fotothing again. And to not say anything bad about them in general either.Apparently I’m stealing their users. Yes, my site with 460 users is stealing people from their site with 135,000 users and I’m a threat.

Yes, there are some Fotothing users who have joined Fotonomy, but as far as I’m aware none of them has actually left Fotothing – or wants to. They’re very different sites. And I have never initiated any conversation on the Fotothing forums about Fotonomy. I’m certainly not advertising it.

But for me, the really interesting part of the phone call was the person who called me. He’s a really nice guy and was nice about the whole thing. But as far as I know, he’s not directly involved in the day to day running of Fotothing. I can only assume he was asked to call me because we were friends. If that’s the case, then it’s as unfair on him as it is on me.

Now if senior management (you know who you are) had called me and just asked me politely if I could be a little less outspoken in the forums, I probably would have agreed – and even offered assistance if they needed it. But getting an old friend to do the dirty work (which is how it appears to me – I could be wrong), is a little underhanded.

Of course, this isn’t about me at all. It’s about Fotothing and the users that make the site what it is. What ADVFN don’t seem to realise is that I’m incredibly proud of what I – and they – have achieved with it. And the way to deal with pissed off customers is not to send threats, but to listen to them and address their concerns.

Will I be sued? Will I have my Fotothing account pulled for posting this on my own blog? Who knows. But I will continue to stand up for users. Because without users, nobody in the web development business would have a job.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that annoy me most.

Yesterday I posted a comment on the official London 2012 blog about the new “logo”. It wasn’t a particularly kind comment, but it was relatively polite… all things considered.

But for some reason my comment has not been approved while other comments, posted later, have been. And judging by the comments that have been approved on the blog, they’re picking and choosing which comments they do post. While there are a few  (slightly) negative comments, it seems like they’re picking out the “kinder” comments and just posting a few less kind comments to give the appearance of “balance”.

I’ve no doubt they’ll say they can only post a selection of the best comments, but given the general reaction to the new logo, I can’t help but think they’re censoring comments in an attempt to make themselves look good.Oh – and you’ll notice I’ve used the old “candidate city” logo for this post. I refuse to use that excuse for a logo here. For one thing, I can think of far better uses for £400,000 of Londoners’ money (like maybe spend it on a venue that would have a lasting benefit for London). And I wouldn’t want to give anyone a seizure either.

UpdateLondon 2012 have posted a comment on their own blog which admits they are actively censoring negative coments:

We have received many comments that reflect the tenor of negative comments found elsewhere on the web. Rather than act as an echo chamber we have published a selection here that say something a little different.

Is it just me, or is that absolutely not the way to have a fair and open discussion? I’m quite sure there were plenty of well written – but negative – comments, but instead they’ve chosen to show only the comments that make them look good in the face of overwhelmingly bad publicity.