Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Could ReputationHawk.com Help Kimkins?

ReputationHawk.com has an interesting business model. It caters to businesses and organizations that have been the victims of effectively targeted criticism on the Internet. I can imagine that anyone would be looking for help if they Googled the name of their business and saw more bad than good on the first page.

Google Kimkins and you see words like fraud, dangers, nightmare, controversy and survivors.

Heidi Diaz and staff spent much of the early post exposure period changing the site over and over again in response to precise criticism and repeatedly claimed that past criticisms were no longer valid. This sounds like the first step that Reputation Hawk asks their potential clients to take. I still have my doubts that they would be interested in Kimkins because of the big lie on which it was based. That’s not going away.

Actually Chris Martin of ReputationHawk told Newsweek that “Some people have made their bed and need to sleep in it.” What I think he means is, his service is intended to push unfair and/or outdated criticism off the first page of a Google search, not valid and current stuff. I think that as well as being wrong, that would also be MUCH more difficult.

LifeSize Video Conferencing

A video conference system can be useful for many businesses and organizations. I think one reason that the technology is underutilized is the fact that the first generations of this technology left a lot to be desired. I am helping to get the word out that video conferencing has been improved dramatically in recent years.

LifeSize Room now allows as many as six people to connect in high definition. Participants can exchange video clips and other multimedia in crystal clear high definition. This allows for creative ideas to be heard and seen in intricate detail.

Do You Have a Great Restaurant Idea?

I am married to a fantastic cook who spent years working in the restaurant trade. We won’t be opening any restaurants because we know how much work and how much risk is involved. That being said, the idea still entices us from time to time. Usually it is when we eat somewhere that is doing something almost but not quite right.

If you have a burning desire to open up a restaurant, be sure that you don’t bite off more than you can chew. Restaurant Funding from Advance Restaurant Finance is kinda self explanatory, but I think using a sector specific finance company might help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. And you will need money, too.

Don’t Knock Investment Opportunity

The internet has had a catalytic effect on relationships of all sorts. Personal relationships, whether casual or intimate are almost too easy to initiate. This has caused some social upheaval (or at least turbo-charged the same kind of upheavals that have always been part of society).

Idea oriented people with Investment opportunities can connect with people who want to make their money work for them quite easily as well. Go4Funding.com is a site that brings people together for mutual benefit in much the same way that a personals site works.

I was shocked to see a section where people presented business ideas in order to get feedback from other members. I am always scared to share any idea that I have on the internet for fear of having it stolen. Even if you don’t quite fall into either category of person for which the site is intended, it is still quite an interesting read.

Afforable Health Insurance

Canadians and Americans talk to each other quite a bit online on forums and such. I have noticed that there are occasionally threads that get of on a tangent about health care and especially insurance. Often you can read threads where it is obvious that people are confused and have no idea what the other people are talking about. The Canadian system is unique and individuals and small businesses need unique products like the PHSP from BrockHealth.ca. It allows you to pay all your medical expenses tax-free. Americans sometimes have the misconception that Canadians just don’t pay for medical expenses. It is much more complicated than that, and don’t even get me started on kids dental expenses. A Private Health Services Plan covers the majority of things that are not taken care of by our highly overrated (by some) system.

Unbiased, a Definition

Most people with a reasonable amount of education and experienced already know what unbiased means. I am not claiming to be unbiased. If you were to Google the word ‘Kimkins’ you would see the word unbiased, which means free from favoritism or self-interest, describing Kimkins Review, the affiliate that to this date still publishes the fraudulent 198lb weight loss claim made by Heidi Diaz.

I think that affiliates have an undeniable self-interest. I have no problem with the concept of affiliate marketing, but those who do it well don’t lie. The best way to sell something is to actually believe that it is a good product and that your readers will benefit from buying it. I think many of us could name a small handful of people who put their names behind Kimkins when they believed that she was an actual weight loss success and then quickly put Kimkins behind them when they found out (or in some cases strongly suspected) the truth.

Subverting Prejudice For Fun and Profit

This is going to be a very vague post. This post is a commentary on a disturbing trend where people try to use hatred and prejudice as a marketing tool. I do not want to give the campaign the attention that it is designed to garner. If you are in the South West of America, you may have seen or heard part of the campaign. The most insidious part of the campaign is that they have a mole working away at generating protests against their business.

A blogging term that got overused a lot in 2007 was link bait. Often, people would purposely post an offensive opinion that they may not even agree with, just so offended people would link to them. The marketing that I recently became apprised of has an offline element of this same rationale. It is so frustrating to talk about it without being specific, but I dislike it so much that I am going to hold out.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Jimmy

I’m guessing that about 0.2% of the people that end up reading my title will react by thinking to themselves Jimmy who?

Jimmy is a low carb weight loss success story who went on to become a pro blogger and the host of a vibrant free low carb community. He has a lot of personality.

Jimmy spent months as a Kimkins affiliate and drew harsh criticism for a part of that time. His audio interview with Kimmer (who at that time was not admitting to her identity as Heidi Diaz) was a defining moment of this saga. I think you can pinpoint the moment when he stopped giving Kimmer the benefit of the doubt. He asked her if the picture of the woman in the red dress was, in fact, her. She said it was, in a tone of voice very much like the one that Heidi Diaz would later use to say No Comment to Chip Yost. The popularity of the audio interview with Jimmy Moore meant that thousands of people had absolutely no doubt that Heidi Diaz was Kimmer as soon as she spoke on camera. Surprisingly, Kimmer continued to deny being Heidi Diaz for some time after that.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Slamboard

Slamboard definitely deserves a mention in this series of posts on anti-Kimkins. The photographs of an obese Heidi Diaz were published there first. These photos were taken by PI Robert Charlton of Alliance Investigative Services.

The focus of Slamboard has shifted away from the Kimkins Controversy lately, but the older posts are a great resource for everyone with an interest in the story. There are now lots of vocal detractors with inside information because most of the former insiders fled when they realized or suspected the truth… or they got kicked out for asking questions. Slamboard posts all comments that are not spam. There are several comments from Kimmer’s defenders and they make for an interesting read.

Get a Deal on Office Supplies

If you are looking for big discounts on small business computers, office supplies and business equipment, you should take a look at OfficeDeals.info. Does your home office eat a steady diet from Staples? You can save on your purchases by consulting the regularly updated coupons page for this store at OfficeDeals.info.

Consider the idea of getting business cards. Having business cards streamlines the process of making meaningful connections with people. VistaPrint has been making business cards more accessible to small businesses recently and OfficeDeals.info has a VistaPrint coupon for 75% off VistaPrint business cards.

The merchants that are featured on OfficeDeals.info are like an A-list of all the best companies that supply every kind of office equipment from furniture to ink.

Something a bit unexpected on OfficeDeals.info are the seven pages of information on one kind of chair. If you weren’t paying attention to the dot com bubble, you may be unaware of the cliche on wheels that is the Aeron Office Chair. They cost a lot of money and they are very comfortable. I think they became ubiquitous in the Silicon Valley because one company felt threatened when another one started using them as a perk to improve employee satisfaction and retention, and the whole thing became viral. Actually the bubble officially burst when a CFO said NO to the request for these chairs. He may have prefaced his response with “I hate to burst your bubble…”

I think an Aeron Office Chair would not be the first thing you would get when you were starting a home business. OfficeDeals.info has an article about starting a home business and I found it to be practical and informative.