Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

How Many Testimonials is TOO MANY ?

According to arindamchakraborty.com, you can have too many testimonials. I can’t view Kimkins.com, but I noticed an item on Google directing me to view ALL 719 TESTIMONIALS. One of the most successful websites in the weight loss niche has ZERO testimonials. Fatloss4idiots.com relies more on effective advertising.

Kimkins.com seems to be set up so that a handful of testimonials are randomly called up from the database to display on the front page. The top one showing on the google cache of the homepage reads as a story of failure before it is truncated. Given the fact that Kimkins is a dishonest marketing of a seriously flawed diet, it’s not surprising that the testimonials leave a bit to be desired. Hey, at least there are a LOT of them

Why the Lack of Fascination with Kimkins?

The wheels of justice turn slowly. Fortunately for Heidi Diaz, the core demographic that she defrauded grew up watching Sesame Street and have a short attention span as a result.

That may be an exaggeration, but there certainly is less going on on the blogosphere. A result in the proceedings will probably get some people talking for awhile, maybe even the media. Personally, I think the media is done with this human drama.

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changing the site over and over again in response to precise criticism and repeatedly claimed that past criticisms were no longer valid.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 What I think he means is, his service is intended to push unfair and/or outdated criticism off the first page of a Google search, not valid and current stuff.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.