Jeff Jarvis, Google Shill

SHILL

  1. A person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating
  2. person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.
  3. verb. To work as a shill: He shills for a large casino.
  4. To advertise or promote (a product) as or in the manner of a huckster; hustle
“I spoke at a Google Big Tent event in Berlin (Google paid my travel expenses; I do not accept other payment from Google)” —Jeff Jarvis
Jeff Jarvis Google Shill
Jeff Jarvis Google Shill

Accept? Why would Google offer to pay you? “Other” payment, because international airline fares are, in fact,  considered a form of payment. Jeff Jarvis, according to Jeff Jarvis, gets his travel paid for to conferences in major cities all over the globe by Google, Inc. He laughs this declaration off every time he is cornered into disclosing this truth. He regards it as an irrelevant fact. He is mistakenly caught up in the need to mention this detail as if he were one of the people who could be corrupted.  The disclosure section of his blog has barely been updated since July 2005.

So let’s get back to these trips. How does this scam work? Google pays his airfare and then he pays his own lodging and expenses? I First Classthink not. More likely the managers of these events, which are sponsored by Google, put the speaker, Jarvis, up at hotels. A Per Diem would certainly not be out of the question. Parties in Paris with the elite are almost a certainty. Sipping champagne with Sophia Loren is but a small perk. You think his university pays? Then why don’t they pay the airfare?
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What about his jobs?
Host of “This Week in Google.”
Author of “What Would Google Do?”
Author of “Public Parts: How Sharing….Improves…..and Live.”
Director-Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY
Lecturer on all topics related to his books.

jarvis-purple
A Purple Jarvis on the shitty show TWiG

His entire livelihood is tied up in this company and we are supposed to believe this doesn’t affect his opinions? Does it matter that the money for the PR stints comes from an intermediary and not directly from his friends Sergey and Larry? It is human nature to love that which feeds and sustains us. He may not even realize it, the man is of average intelligence. He just lives in NY and somehow got a professorship.

Howard Stern fans, who don’t particularly know what Google is, berate him as a Google Shill after his appearances on that program. The comments on Jarvis’ blog are filled with accusations of impropriety, although he chuckles them all away. His Twitter stream is inundated with cries of “shill” every time he opens his mouth. He often dismisses these accusations preemptively. He generally has the sense to know he is a shill so he will ask fans not to send him letters calling him a shill, he makes this plea under the illusion that he is speaking to the Google-hating fringe.

Every article he writes is on the side of Google. Every product he uses is from Google. Every thing he talks about is related to Google. If Google is caught red-handed doing wrong, he speaks in baby talk and says things like ‘google woogle did boo boo.’  This is a professor of journalism? TWiT.tv is where journalism goes to die. The saddest part is everyone, including Jeff,  in the inner circle on the lecture circuit understands the game. He sold his soul for pocketful of gold, he fits right in at TWiT.
#TotalDrama contributor Richard Yes—Full Disclosure: 
I hate Google and Facebook, I think Jarvis is a shill. I own many Apple and MSFT products but I use Gmail, Google Search and YouTube and other aspects of the internet that Google has monopolized. I think Sarah Lane is pretty.

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