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Red Herring
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deathwatch
deathwatch
Red Herring video team quits en masse
Why is Red Herring hiring five videographers for its already launched Red Herring TV? Because the current team, led by journalist Sean Wolfe, pictured here mid-interview, quit on publisher Alex Vieux. The mass resignation was prompted by another one of Vieux's tirades, but Wolfe and his colleagues also cited erratic pay and a decline in journalistic standards. Their claim: Vieux was trying to turn the video group into a production house for promotional clips custom-made for event sponsors. Anyone thinking about taking the video gig at Red Herring TV would do well to read their resignation letter: More »
deathwatch
Red Herring owes the taxman $2 million, ex-employees say
The longevity of troubled tech publisher Red Herring was a mystery until one ex-employee enlightened me: Publisher Alex Vieux simply doesn't pay his bills. What a brilliant way to achieve positive cash flow! Alas, Vieux has encountered a creditor who won't be stiffed: the IRS. The agency is looking into Vieux's Herring for what may be $2 million in unpaid payroll taxes, ex-employees who have been contacted by investigators have told me. Vieux is experienced at dodging the taxman: Farley Duvall, a longtime lieutenant, told colleagues he'd fled French police seeking to seize company documents in Paris, and drove in the middle of the night to Switzerland, where he rebuilt the Herring's European operations. Now Swiss authorities are asking questions about — you guessed it — unpaid taxes. But it's the American taxman who may put Vieux behind bars. More »
deathwatch
Work for the Red Herring? Hope you don't get a toothache
Paying bills is for the little people. Not Alex Vieux, publisher of the Red Herring, who has left a trail of stiffed vendors behind him — hotels, software makers, and consultants. The latest to go unpaid: Red Herring's dental and vision insurance plan. A former employee still getting benefits through COBRA tells us that on a visit to his eye doctor, he was told he no longer had coverage. A plan administrator told the ex-Herring that even though his COBRA bills had been paid on time, Red Herring hadn't paid the insurers — so forget seeing dentists or optometrists. For now, Red Herring's current and former employees still have regular medical coverage, but that's it. Oh, and what's this we hear about unpaid taxes? A sick business indeed.
deathwatch
Red Herring still trying to staff up?
A tipster tells us that he was approached by Red Herring to work as a reporter from his "home office," probably something similar to the job listed on the Herring website for a wireless reporter. He turned the job down very quickly, but says that he later talked to the fellow who ended up taking the job who was having "difficulty" getting paid. No surprise there, given the "difficulties" the magazine has had recently. "What pissed me off most was that they were approaching people when they had to know they were in such financial straits."
deathwatch
Red Herring promises a really fake cover
Mobile Rules, a business-plan competition for wireless startups, is promising winners the ultimate booby prize: their photo on the cover of Red Herring magazine next March. One small problem: With printing and distribution bills reportedly unpaid, the Herring has given up on the paper-magazine business. An online-only magazine cover somehow seems unsatisfying. But give Herring publisher Alex Vieux this much credit: It's a very economical prize.
deathwatch
Red Herring defaults, again
When Red Herring, the troubled tech publisher, got an eviction notice, editor-in-chief Joel Dreyfuss tried to pass it off as a quirk of publisher Alex Vieux's financial-management strategy. "That's just how Alex pays his bills," said Dreyfuss. Or rather, doesn't pay his bills. Already, Vieux's Herring has been ordered to pay Comerica Bank $180,457 plus interest for an unpaid loan. But now, it looks like he don't even have the time, money, or inclination to dispute his debts. A look at San Mateo County Court records reveals that two recent cases brought against Red Herring, Inc, have been awarded to the plaintiffs in default judgments. In other words, Vieux's legal representatives didn't even bother to show up in court. More »
hires
One more down at the Red Herring
Congratulations to Scott Morrison, the former editor of Red Herring's website, on escaping the troubled publication and landing a new job in the San Francisco bureau of Dow Jones. No matter what they say, Rupert Murdoch has to be a better boss than Alex Vieux, whose mismanagement is driving the once-storied tech-magazine brand into the ground. We suspected he was on to greener pastures when coworkers told us he started missing work, but an announcement on the website of the The Society of American Business Editors and Writers confirms the new position for us. And for the rest of his colleagues, too. Note to Scott, next time you switch gigs, it might be more polite to send out an internal email before your underlings find out via an industry newsletter. Or some scurrilous gossip rag.
party report
A Demo reunion in Palo Alto
Through her Demo conference, Chris Shipley strands some of the most important people in tech together in the desert and forces them to pay attention to strange new ideas. It's like Burning Man without the playa dust and with much fancier drinks, or so I'm told. The experience is apparently scarring enough to bond people for life, judging by the palsy-walsy crowd of past Demo participants and guests who crowded into Palo Alto's Zibibbo restaurant Tuesday night to mingle and mix with other "alumni." More »
deathwatch
The business side of Red Herring bleeds
To date, I've mostly told you about the mayhem on the masthead of Red Herring, the troubled tech publication whose finances are so dire that it recently received an eviction notice. And sure enough, there have been further departures since our last report. But the business side, it seems, is in equal disarray. David Dolnick, a longtime right-hand man of Herring owner Alex Vieux. Dolnick ran the conferences business for Vieux, and, rumor has it, acted as a "fixer" for all kinds of matters on Vieux's overseas trips. Also gone: Herring president Gordon Haight, who headed up sales. With both conferences and ad sale in disarray, the Herring's next payroll run should be, as they say, quite interesting.
deathwatch
Red Herring can't update its masthead fast enough
I'm sure that for people at Red Herring, the troubled tech publication that has difficulty paying its bills, updating its masthead has long been the lowest priority. The list of staffers has seemed out of date every time I've checked. It has changed recently, I note — but not fast enough to track of the latest round of departures. Red Herring board members got an eyeful of the shrinking masthead when they arrived at the office last Friday and were greeted by a nearly empty newsroom. Even people still on payroll — whatever "payroll" means at the Herring — are often absent, ostensibly for "health reasons" (translation: job interviews). After the jump, a list of the fish who we hear have jumped out of the pond — or are trying to do so. More »
deathwatch
Someone else thinks the Herring is fishy
An idea so brilliant, we hate its creators for coming up with it before we did. Some mischief-makers have launched Dead Herring, a "parody of business" mocking Red Herring, the Silicon Valley tech publication. Flopping around like a fish gasping for air in its efforts to stay in business, the Herring is clearly making enemies — first and foremost the companies and writers it's apparently stiffed. An amusing anecdote: According to the site, the Herring named Text 100 as a conference sponsor without consulting the PR agency first. That's going to make for an interesting collections call.
deathwatch
Red Herring announces nonexistent digital edition
Olive Software, a Santa Clara-based company that may, quite possibly, be almost as badly run as the Red Herring, has teamed up with the troubled tech publication to announce a Herring digital edition. It's supposedly a faithful copy of the print Red Herring, which has been missing from newsstands for month. Unsurprisingly, there's no link to the digital edition in the press release, and it's nowhere to be seen on the Red Herring website. "Viewing Red Herring on the Web is now as compelling and easy as reading the magazine in print," Olive boasts. True enough. Neither one can be found by readers. And I suspect neither one really exists, excepts in Herring owner Alex Vieux's fevered imagination.
explainer
Red Herring displays its ignorance
Still on deathwatch, Red Herring, the once-storied tech publication, is displaying its straitened circumstances even in its copy. The few articles on its website that aren't Reuters wire stories seem to be written by a skeleton crew, with equally skeletal thought behind them. Take, for example, Cassimir Medford's puff piece on Ooma, the also-doomed VOIP startup. Medford, ostensibly Red Herring's "telecom and wireless reporter," includes this doozy:The name Ooma was chosen because it invokes curiosity, Mr. Frame said. Also it has four letters and the IP address was readily available.Here's what's wrong with that — and what it shows is wrong with the Herring. More »
feuds
Om Malik's fishy hires
For Earth2Tech, the new green blog from GigaOm, founder Om Malik has hired Adena DeMonte away from the Red Herring, the struggling publication we've put on a deathwatch. That's got to be the last straw for Herring editor Joel Dreyfuss (pictured, right). Rumor has it that Dreyfuss at one point told Malik to stop poaching the Herring's best writers. Malik, of course, is a former Herring writer, but the publication in its current form and under current management bears no relationship, aside from the name, to the storied tech magazine Malik worked for earlier in this decade. Why Dreyfuss feels Malik's not entitled to fish in his pond is a mystery to me — unless it's just a sign of his general frustration with trying to bail out a sinking ship.
Brian Caulfield catches Valleywag, red-handed, committing an act of journalism in pursuit of the Red Herring story. [Forbes.com]
red herring
Death of a salesforce, redux
Last week, as we continued Red Herring's deathwatch, we got a particularly vivid tale of one salesman's departure from the troubled tech publication. But now, another eyewitness tells us we missed the salesman's best line, as he and Herring owner Alex Vieux nearly came to blows over a withheld commission check. "Go ahead, put your hands on me," the salesman reportedly told Vieux. "It will be the best business decision you ever made." Vieux, of course, kept his record of achievement intact: the pair never actually came to blows.
deathwatch
