SHOT Show is almost upon us! And it is another year that I could not make it and probably won’t till they bring it back to Orlando.
So what is the buzz this year? A New version of the Taurus Judge? Ruger’s Cooper Scout Carbine? Some newfagled piston AR in 300 Blackout? Coonan’s 1911 in .357 magnum? Nope. Actually is one person: Paul Helinski of GunsAmerica.
Mr. Helinski disapproves that Gun Bloggers should attend the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor trade show. Apparently Gun Blooggers are icky, smell bad and are not “official” media according to him as he posted in the SHOT Show Blog:
Now the question is when you are going to start qualifying internet media? We have to crawl over nobodies who can install wordpress and have nobody reading anything they write,It isn’t so hard to qualify internet media using Alexa.com and Compete.com. Why do you waste the manufacturers’ time and make the real internet media have to deal with wish I were internet journalists who are just using your stamp of approve to solicit review guns and accessories? You’ve created this giant gorilla in the room and we all have to deal with it, and you may think the industry takes your numbers seriously, but everyone sees things for what they are. If you are serious about bringing value to your exhibitors, you need to vet the press list.
Mr. Helinski obviously has not grasped the importance of blogging or Social Media for that matter. It is the old Word Of Mouth at War Speed and on steroids. To ignore it is simply stupid, to badmouth it is seppuku with a plastic knife. Much to his disgrace, several well known gun bloggers caught the post, responded as expected and the word is now out there hurting his business.
Not happy with shooting himself on the foot, he took careful aim at the other and pulled the trigger once again.
Even the print mags have been marginalized by the “bloggers,”
Will it be because most gun mags have become nothing more than Gun Porn depending on the advertising of manufacturers ? Very few will even dare to print a negative review of anything in fear they will lose revenue.
I am thinking that by tomorrow in the afternoon Mr. Helinski will be rethinking the virtue behind the phrase “Closed Mouth Gathers No Foot.” I did leave a comment in the post which I know share with you:
I seem to recall that one of those bloggers you seem to dislike took down Dan Rather and gave a nasty black eye to 60 Minutes.
A couple of unocouth bloggers (like those you don’t think should breathe the same air as you) uncovered certain government practice of illegally walking guns into Mexico and now there is a major scandal in the making threatening to topple the Department of Justice which, incidentally is trying to put you out of business.
It might behoove you to treat this dirty masses with a tad of more respect.
Oy!
Well said.
Don’t forget this comment:
“You’ve never heard of us, and we are the industry leader in internet readership, after 15 years of hard work and dedication. Why should I have to wait for you to finish taking a video with your phone at range day?” – Paul Helinski, GunsAmerica
Hear, hear!
When I first read his comments yesterday, I thought the man a fool. Now that he has doubled down, I know he is a fool.
:/ When my generation practically lives on the net, GunBloggers are my up-to-the-minute source on the firearms world. Especially since I’m too poor to buy print media and because I don’t like tearing apart books to frame pretty pictures of guns. And my revolving wallpaper thingy on Win7 is better.
“Very few will even dare to print a negative review of anything in fear they will lose revenue.”
This is why I never take reviews in any article seriously. They always like the product and any cons they list are very minor. Bloggers or even just random reviews in forums won’t mince words if the widget just plain sucks.
You did a nice kick on his stupid ass. I wish I could meet you at The Rendezvous, but that’s also like whether SHOT is one year East or West. I’ve never been SO FAR East. But I f*ing hate Vegas, and even though the Reno Rendezvous is a semi-close uphill drive – that’s my wife’s gas-money – I can’t do some *Gun Par-tay La-La-La* shit without my own job to pay to party – I’m in the 17-to-22% *disappeared* off-the-book unemployed…
The hubris displayed by Mr. Helinski will be costly for he and his website. What irks me is that several bloggers said he made valid points, which, to be blunt, is untrue. None of his points were valid.
Calm Gun said, “What irks me is that several bloggers said he made valid points,”
I am certain that several of those understanding comments were meant in a “well, bless your heart” Southern kind of way.
That there are some “Shake & Bake” blogs just done to get swag and other goodies? Oh yes. That the NSSF should also have handled them in a different manner is also truth. That Helinski should have remained silent is the bigger truth.
Wow. That’s just plain dumb, in the vein of “get off my lawn,” and “this horseless carriage thing is a fad, I tell ya.”
I’ll be at SHOT, a lowly lawyer to the industry trying to make connections. I hope he doesn’t find out I’m blogger (on hiatus), too.
This is the thing — we live in age where communication is both vertical AND horizontal, broadcast AND narrowcast. This fellow needs to wake up and smell the pixels — we’re never going back.
[…] in the tooth, so it is time to sum it up. GunsAmerica has officially lost my business, and I am definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely far from alone. […]
My comment on the SHOT show blog:
“Get off my lawn” + “Those horseless carriages will never catch on” is no way for a business to survive in the 21st Century.
I’ll be at SHOT, a lowly lawyer to the industry trying to make connections. I’ll be reading web pages, following blogs and Twitter — heck, I’ll read smoke signals if someone will send them — because communication is the beginning of connection and connections lead to relationships and relationships are how I build my business and serve my clients.
This is the thing: we live in age where communication is both vertical AND horizontal, broadcast AND narrowcast. I’m a former newspaperman and 20 years later it’s clear that no one own the ink barrel anymore.Wake up and smell the pixels — we’re never going back.
R. Our friend Helinski is a neighbor. GunsAmerica’s given corporate address in North Miami Beach. Very likely a Law Office according to Google Street View.
And I never heard of the guy before this debacle. Kinda makes you think he is not quite involved / interested about shooters after all.
He came to ’08 Blogger Bash at the NRA AM to give a talk on online sales etc. He was late, disorganized and spent the entire time plugging his way is the only way.
He wasn’t invited back and except for a bitch fest he left on DOOT awhile back, haven’t heard from him since.
After reading that comment yesterday i figured it prudent to calm down a bit before replying. After reading it again today, his website was un-linked from mine, instead of unleashing the the crazy on him with the keyboard.
What an absolute ass
This week was the Consumer Electronics Show, also in LV. You may have seen reports on the latest tech gizmos, but my point is the industry emphasis goes right along with this. This guy is bucking the biggest trend in the world today.
In the early days, the word was broadcasting: putting out a signal to as wide an area and group as you could. You know this today as ABC/CBS/NBC. In the “cable age” came Narrowcasting. Think of the Outdoor Channel, Downrange TV, the Sportsman’s Channel. Today it’s unicasting and applications are Pandora, I Heart Radio, and other places where each user defines their own programming.
BTW, in the phrase Word Of Mouth at War Speed did you mean WARP speed?
Word of Mouth travels faster 🙂
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