Updated: Stowe Boyd Thinks I'm Stealing His Pitch!

[Jason Kintzler]

Yesterday, I sent an invite to Stowe Boyd to sign up for PitchEngine. If you're a regular reader, you know that I reference his invention, the TwitPitch frequently when talking about pitching media using Twitter. Apparently, he has misconstrued my efforts to help and encourage PR pros to use social media as "stealing".

He published, Jason Kintzler Is Trying to Steal Twitpitch today on his blog in response to the Pitch140 contest I blogged about last week. The idea behind the Pitch140 was to encourage PR pros to try to pitch a story via twitter, like Stowe has his PR people do. I wanted to encourage members to try it, not with a "real" pitch to me (I have no use for it, I don't blog about products, etc.), but a attention-grabbing, concise pitch - "best one wins" kind of thing. In no way did I want to take credit for something I clearly know is Stowe's concept. I even reference Brian Solis, who wrapped the concept up into MicroPR, both great ideas for sending pitches.

If you're a regular reader, please comment here, or on Stowe's blog about what PitchEngine is about and why I did not "Steal the TwitPitch". Thanks for your support.

Stowe, please read more posts at PitchEngine and you'll find there's much more to PitchEngine than that one post.

Here are some posts from the past:

Pitch Media Using Twitter
Pitching Via Twitter Catching On
Introducing: Pitch140

UPDATE 7.5.08
Stowe has changed the "steal" to repurpose" in the headline of his blog post.

From Stowe'd post:
"Ok, maybe I spoke too soon, so I struck the 'steal' from the original title, and used 'repurpose' instead. I will have to wait and see if his goals are truly benign."

Thanks for taking another look at PitchEngine Stowe, I appreciate your attention to our site and hope even an experienced veteran like you will find some useful stuff here.

[Jason Kintzler]

Thanks Rodger, good point thanks for the tip ;)

[Rodger D. Johnson]

Not that mine will be the definitive answer, by no means. But Stowe is doing something characteristic of the blogosphere -- a dirty little trick for to stir the buzz. It's creating controversy. Ethics aside, even if there isn't ethics involved, it's human nature to be attracted to or have our attention drawn toward a conflict. So, Jason, feed the fames and watch your traffic on Pitch Engine soar. Stowe's will too.

[JAH]

Seems to me as an objective observer, new to both pitch and tweet, that one could easily say that pitch is an orange and twit is an apple. Both are fruit and both are quite delicious, or, one is a sneaker and the other a high heel, but both are shoes. Years ago I learned that you accuse people of what you yourself are guilty of. "Copy cat Jason" is a shoe that anyone of us could quite easily put in our mouths, err, wear on our foot/feet, and then there's the fact that myspace, blogs and irc have been around quite a bit longer than any twit, tweet or twot. Forge ahead...

[Chris Currah]

I know that I'm not a big PR name, I'm simply apart of this type of blog in order to grow to under stand what PR and social media together truly represents, how it functions, and how it can benefit me in the future. The overall sense of networking and "community" is easily lost in the haze of fingerpointing. I believe I have alot to learn from all of you who are well versed in the world of social media and PR. I hope to see and experience positive growth from this great network of "professionals".

Good Job Jason on handeling the situation, well done. I hope Pitchengine continues to grow with great success!

[Jason Kintzler]

Thanks for your great comments, I think we all understand what we're doing here at PitchEngine. I'm chalking this one up to someone misunderstanding my intention and moving on to more worthy social media discussions. Thanks to you all for the support, reminds me that it's all about community!

[Lynette Summerill]

The whole glorious idea around social media, as I understand it, is to share ideas, and content--and to allow others to participate. Undoubtly, someone out there will find a way to make twitpitching better, which will benefit us all.

[Rumaldo]

Seems like you're all about ownership Stowe. PitchEngine is about the PR and media communities and EVERYONE benefiting from social media.
Unlike yours, Jason's posts always encourage involvement. He's not taking credit, he's giving credit to you and even getting people involved that otherwise would not be.
We've needed a network like this for a while now, we've got enough "experts" like you.

[Grant D. Griffiths]

Careful Jason, you may be accused of stealing the notion of inventing the Internet. It would be different if you had not given him credit and not given him a link.

[Jessica Downing]

Jason, thanks for keeping us in the know on all things social media. There is so much information out there, and you know where to find the good stuff and share with the rest of us. Keep up the good work!

[Maggie McGary]

I've had the total opposite impression--you always link to Stowe Boyd in your posts and make it very clear that the idea originated with him. I always see it as you admiring him, never trying to take credit in any way. The impression I've gotten from your posts is that you think it's a great idea and, with the pitch140 thing, are doing it as an exercise to get people into the habit of using Boyd's method.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only so many topics to blog/tweet about with regard to web 2.0 so naturally there's going to be a lot of overlap in terms of ideas, opinions, etc. It's like Al Gore saying he invented the internet; for all we know some random blogger wrote about this concept years ago. There are a handful of "expert" bloggers on this stuff lately--the social media icon mention in your post is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

I wouldn't worry about it--I think your blog is great and I enjoy reading it and "stealing" ideas from it! ;)