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Summary
Comments (160)
Aug 05, 2008
I order to vote, you must vote by leaving a comment here with your preferred design.
you can view the designs at this link: http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/08/the_socialmedian_iphone_applic.html 
Aug 05, 2008
I'm sad to note that this contest has been very poorly managed. While spam issues trouble the best of us, but twice is bad form. Further more if fake votes could not be filtered out by the polling tool, is it fair to blame the internet infrastructure of an entire country for that? the language used is rather insensitive and callous. As a contestant myself I'm piqued and disappointed at the way this issue has been handled, particularly the language that has been used to communicate the problem. My friend Ranjit and I, worked overnight to get our entry up in time for the deadline and both are of the opinion that we would like to withdraw from the contest protesting the manner in which it is being handled.
Aug 05, 2008
I too agree with Sharad on this, as a Contest who's entry was missed, it was bad enough to get on it late, but to blame the entire country for this problem? I dont think its the right way. We worked hard for the design, and we are working hard, spamming our networks for the vote, since the vote doesnt require a login. A couple of visitors may or may not convert to users in that case.. but with a post like this, I dont think I want to be at a place like this.
Look at the background of top 4 poll people. 2 are from NID, 1 from IDC and 1 from IITBombay. Each of these places have very strong alumni network. Jason, I love the way you work in general, you're a Founder who interacts with Users, and hats off to you, whenever I've sent you a mail, I've received a reply in 24 hrs. You're not even afraid to accept mistakes on the blog. But still, I'm not with you when you blame my country, without thinking that these votes could infact be genuine. I just asked a friend to vote for me, and my % increased by 0.2 percent, that means you have less than 500 votes. 27% of that is 135, which is easily manageable for any of us. If you want to shift to S|M votes, please do, but I dont agree with the tone of your post. best, -Thakkar
Aug 05, 2008
And for that matter, a feature request. The formatting on comments is totally screwed
Aug 05, 2008
I am in sync with my friend Sharad. Yes Its sign of a bad management,
Or if its an excuse to put a one more new entry so that is also bad because the contest had deadline that was Tuesday 28 July 12 o clock according to US time, it is bad if you are still taking the late entries, What is the meaning of deadline? there were 5 or so days before the public listing of all entries that was also a deadline of some sorts? is this to mean that deadlines only exist for participants? Is this a DEMOCRATIC PROCESS? 
Aug 05, 2008
Vote goes to no.5,,the design is simply unmatchable.Moreover i wholeheartedly support Dahiya,designninja n Sharad for its simply no way to pass on comments on INDIA in such a manner.I strongly believe that JASON GOLDBERG has acted in an highly irresponsible manner and wasted the time of the designers who undoubtedly worked hard for the designs. It raises questions about the credibility of Socialmedian and i really believe JASON should not delay in issuing a public apology to all the people involved,failing which I call upon all the people in the designers fraternity to stand up for all and one cause<<
JAI HIND
Aug 05, 2008
OUR HONOR AND INTEGRITY AS INDIANS IS AT STAKE,,ACT NOW POST YOUR RESPONSES
Aug 05, 2008
Hi everyone. My sincere apologies for the way I have managed this contest. I made numerous mistakes in our efforts to both run this contest and ship our beta product at the same time. In no way did I mean anything disparaging to any of the contest participants nor to the people of India. I did receive numerous complaints from people about the voting on the blog and decided action to rectify the situation was needed. I have changed the language on the blog post. Please do accept my apology.
Aug 05, 2008
FYI also to one of the complaints about taking late entries. We did not take any late entries. I made mistakes in not realizing we had already received 9 entries before the deadline vs. the initial 6 posted last Friday. Please do accept my apology as this is not how we like to do things here at socialmedian. We are truly thankful to all the designers for participating and for all their hard efforts. May the best design win.
Aug 05, 2008
Oops! The contest is taking all kinds of “U” turns and keeping every one guessing ? when the next turn will come like a thriller movie. Unfortunately I was not prepared for this kind of rollercoaster had I knew this upfront before sending my entry for this contest. I appreciate the start of the contest and voting on schedule but did not consider the marketing value behind this event, well thought. I am not pointing at any individual but the way things were shaping. We got the polling reset twice but by such time people already voted for their preferred contestant by word of mouth, email, and telephone and network community. So the people who were early are the losers if not by huge margin but noticeable. I guess here it happened to be rigging of votes. But the good thing is we had the remaining entries coming in and this is a human error and it happens. Now that we have a new process of voting guess even this is not foolproof from spamming, but instead this polling should be only open for S|M registered users on or before 05 August 2008, just a thought. I am not sure if we had the option of designing for iPhone browser as well? Or maybe I got it wrong. I see that a bit of more time has been wasted in getting the contest right rather than designing for the contest. It’s definitely discouraging to see such leakages in the contest for me and for few other contestants given the experience of conducting such contest in the past. But anyways let us keep moving and hope such leakages are a kind of experience for all people who have been watching this contest. I have learned few tricks for marketing people but there are chances of damage to the image but guess in today’s world we can do a quick damage control too! My idea was not to point out to an nationality or individual but just my thought and maybe I am wrong too! Pls don’t take my works seriously and advance apology if I have stated anything incorrect politically or otherwise.
Aug 05, 2008
Hey everyone. I just hope that we can all chalk this up to a learning experience. I wish we had run this contest better. I do hope that socialmedian members continue to vote. The rules are that any socialmedian member can vote once by adding their vote as a comment here, up until the deadline of Aug 12. One final note: Vineetjat, come on. This is not the time or place to call for a flame war. Mistakes happen. I am the furthest thing from anti-India. I've been to India 6 times already this year and love the country and the Indian people.
Aug 06, 2008
Jason - that pop-up to register with s|m every time I click on the page is irritating! I would have given s|m a try, but you screwed up completely. First with the contest, then with the tone. And my friend, unintentionally, you have kicked up a controversy and it will take s|m a while to over it.
Aug 06, 2008
Zishaan -- welcome to socialmedian. If you'd like to participate in the site we'd all be happy to have you. Let's move past this.
Aug 06, 2008
Again, apologies for the tone and the intent was not to blame an entire country which I am very fond of. I think this has been blown out of proportion and I'm sorry for the mistakes I personally made on this one. Let's all please try to get back to appreciating the great contest entries.
Aug 06, 2008
It is sad that this contest has turned out this way. I worked hard for my designs. I live in a campus environment where naturally the whole student community will support my designs. Also as Abhishek mentioned , our institutes have strong alumni networks. So can asking friends to vote (who are designers themselves and make a conscious decision before they vote ) be considered cheating ?
If that is the case , doesnt this system also fail? Its upsetting to see your votes vanish , not once but twice. Anyway, Jason - appreciate the fact that you followed it up with a damage control post immediately. I like venkat's idea of keeping the poll open for S|M registered users on or before 05 August 2008. Most importantly , I vote for myself. Entry number 7 
Aug 06, 2008
"oh no - what have we created" said Dr Frankenstien. Im sure everyone is aware that sometimes things dont go the way we hope - and partly in this case its due to the whole success of this site..
Anyway, my vote goes to Entry 3: Gajendra Agrawal - Looks great. Nigel
Aug 06, 2008
I deleted Shareshare's comment as it included profanity.
Let's keep this clean and civil folks. Again, yes, we had some problems with this contest and we are sorry it played out this way. We made a decision that the most appropriate way to go forward was to only allow socialmedian users to vote in the contest. That way, people using socialmedian, would determine the outcome of the contest. As a reminder, there are 2 prizes: (1) $500 and an iphone for the popular vote as voted on this page. (2) $1000 and an iphone for the design chosen by the socialmedian team. There are 6 days remaining to vote. Let the best design win! 
Aug 06, 2008
oh the post had all truth therefore u deleted it, I dont think there was nething wrong over there, dont you think you ppl are just increasing your database count when you make registration compulsary to vote???
Aug 06, 2008
Guys, get over this patriotic stuff. You guys are above that. There was nothing anti-India that Jason did. Having known him personally for more than 6 months, he is the last person to have any anti-Indian opinions. He was just trying to be fair to the designers who worked hard for this. Nothing more, nothing less.
Aug 06, 2008
@shareshare, sorry, we will not allow profanity. Your previous comment also has helped direct us to a feature we need to implement: moderated comments, enabling the person who posted a story to moderate the comments. In terms of your question regarding registration counts, the number of registrations from the contest alone will likely be very small. We do think it is best to have people who have used socialmedian participate in the vote.
Aug 06, 2008
see I dont have ne problem with you guys, but what I wanted to say you was why didnt you do this from the starting day... every participant might have done a lot of working asking there friends and known ones to vote...
Okay as per your reply if it was all spamming then it was fine.. now what abt the previous resetings?? when you feel sorry abt some mail going into your spam list, and the second time even some more reason... this is pathetic rite???
Aug 06, 2008
@shareshare. we learned from our mistakes and we made several on this one. Let's keep this page focused on the voting from now on. Thanks!
Aug 06, 2008
Hi Jasongoldberg
well sorry for all my past post.. but I think still u need improve a bit on the registration form As I believe a small script from my part can increase the number of fake registration on your blog.. May be if possible use captcha atleast Thanks
Aug 07, 2008
I have been doing some research on the online poll software that the socialmedian blog used for its previous voting system .
I set up a test blog and put the online poll widget from vizu.com (the same that was used ), to test the claims of duplicate voting that were made here . This is the link -> http://votingtest.blogspot.com/. The claim was -> " People having dialup connections performed duplicate voting by changing their ip again and again " Here are my findings - 1. vizu's online polls do not differentiate between two votes based on the IP Address of the connection So once you vote , that is it . If you change the IP address of the system - either by resetting it through DHCP in case of a broadband connection OR if you have a dialup connection and u reset the modem - Vizu does not let you vote again. 2. So how does it identify ? Must be the MAC address of the system . - NO - WRONG A simple way to test this is on a Apple Macbook Pro - which has two different ethernet adapters - one for wifi and one for cable. So vote once from Wifi and then put in your cable connection - vote again ! - Is it possible ? NO - not possible . So Vizu polls are not based on Mac Addresses as well . What else can it be ? Well who knows ... Anyway my point is - THE CLAIMS WERE FALSE . THERE WAS NO DUPLICATE VOTING . ALL VOTES WERE LEGITIMATE - MADE BY DIFFERENT REAL PEOPLE. What are the implications ? > As a contestant myself - I was leading both times voting got cancelled . My friends obliged by voting for me for a second time . But now , noone would vote - because they dont want to sign up. I worked hard for my designs, but worked harder to send my designs to people who wouldnt decide by seeing just 3 images . Explained my concept . Then I saw my votes vanish , with that my - work. If you were me , wouldn't you feel cheated ? 
Aug 09, 2008
i vote for no.7 ... its really a nice work and the person has seemed to really work hard for it... and as i see he had been leading in all the votes...
All the best..!!! I know you will win... you deserve it.. :) 
Aug 10, 2008
i like design #7 because it has a provision to view locan news on gogle maps.
This is a nice intregation of socialmedian applications with that of iphone possiblities. good work. 
Aug 12, 2008
lots of fake accounts are cropping up. The people who are voting here either clipped single story or they exists on social median since last 2 hours like that. Jason is watching this. He is counting the popping up fake accounts. I guess hardly 10 users here are really active users of socialmedian who have voted here.
Aug 12, 2008
It is a lot of faking is around the corner and its not a good battle for every here so why not we change the voting process and I am for it. whoever is organizing this contest let us change the rules for the FAIR PLAY. I vote for It
Aug 12, 2008
So what is a pubic vote judging here? who has managed to get their friends/Network to vote? haha :D !! is that the criteria for judging entires on the basis of networking skills+capabilities? its understandable why lots of voting is happening now; deadlines manage that :P (and lots of new accounts!!, heads up jason :) ) question is what is being evaluated by this voting? anyway, its interesting to wait for what happens next (since jason has already said "we will weed out fake voting" by a mysterious yet effective way :D )this is perhaps a good behavior study of people on the internet (whatever would we call it?) :) relax guys is it worth it to get your names sullied for instant gratis? anyway cheers to every one here :) its been a nice ride.....
Aug 12, 2008
Hi Shareshare is again back here, Jason See the same thing again happend what I can see it seems the 7th contestant is doing a good show by creating fake ids and voting on behlf of them.. ha ha keep up the good work....
Now I think jason, again you hav to change the rule... I bet this is again not a fair game atleast...
Aug 12, 2008
As I have said earlier too let us keep this contest fair and clean but this was not the case, It seems like a beijing olympics so far! I guess a healthy contest was missing right from point 1 but anyways this open voting system has failed and people have lost trust in design
Aug 12, 2008
Taking out time from your work and putting in efforts to explain people about the site,giving them a detailed explanation of your design,showing them other's design and enrolling them to sign up and vote for their choice is what it takes to get vote from people who were not members of this site before launching the competition and it is not an easy task.
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