Pepcom to CNET: If you organize any get-togethers after our events, we'll ban you

Jon Pepper, Chris O'Malley (proprietors) and the rest of the crew at Pepcom can take their stinkin' events like Digital Experience and, well {fill in the blank}. Not only do Pepcom events deserve to be boycotted by journalists, writers, and bloggers, I'm suggesting that exhibitors such as Nokia, Lenovo, Belkin, Palm, Skype, Kodak, HP, Nikon, Casio, Brookstone, Plantronics, Sandisk, Sharp, GE, Toshiba, Kingston and the many others who pay good money to exhibit at Pepcom's events think hard about the sort of behavior they're endorsing. Pepcom has unjustifiably come down on me and my company (CNET Networks) like a ton of bricks for doing something as simple as hosting a post-event gathering after one of their events. It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever come to its events to cover the vendors and technologies exhibiting at them again.

I know, these are pretty strong words. But consequences like these are certainly suitable for the hypocrites at Pepcom who have threatened to blacklist CNET and ZDNet editors from Pepcom-produced events if we organize an after-hours party or BlogHaus in the same city on the same day as one of those events.

This "policy" comes from the same company that makes money by parasitically latching-on to big events like CES and CTIA. They do this by scheduling their own technology exhibitions in the same cities during the same day or week as the bigger events. These invite-only (for the press) exhibitions feature vendors who, according to sources, pay up to $5,000 per table to exhibit (Update: Sources are telling me the $5K number is incorrect and that it's $8K. Either way, I wasn't charging anything.). Earlier this year, one CES official openly complained to me about how Pepcom was hijacking his event and taking away his exhibitors.

Apparently however, while Pepcom has no compunctions about hijacking other events for commercial gain, it is now prepared to use the invite-only status of its events as leverage to keep companies like CNET Networks (the parent to ZDNet) from organizing a free after hours event that's not only non-competitive to Pepcom's events, but that I designed to complement their events (in other words, to make them better).

Case in point? Several times a year, Pepcom runs events in NYC at the Metropolitan Pavilion. And, after every one of these events, the journalists in attendance usually get together for a few beers to talk about what they saw and what's going on in the industry. In fact, after one of Pepcom's events last year, Pepcom officials joined us at an Irish Pub in Manhattan. It was a great time. But one thing was missing from these watering holes that we'd gather at after Pepcom's events: a WiFi signal. Here we were, a bunch of journalists and bloggers who had just finished conducting as many as a dozen interviews, each with no way to start writing those stories up and publishing them online.

With that and the BlogHaus that Podtech ran at CES as my inspirations, I came up with a solution. This year, instead of going to a nearby bar, I would try to get CNET to organize a BlogHaus where writers could not only go and get a WiFi signal to publish the stories and blogs that they picked up at Pepcom's event, but we'd also offer free beer, wine and food. Originally, the idea was to invite the exhibitors and the Pepcom staff too. Not only would this get Pepcom's exhibitors more coverage (if writers could continue their conversations with the exhibitors), it would give writers a chance to ask more questions if, in the course of publishing their write-ups, they realized more information was needed. After one of my bosses signed off on the idea, I called the folks at Pepcom with what I thought was exciting news.

Immediately however, Pepcom's Chris O'Malley rained on the parade telling me that I could not invite any of the exhibitors. His explanation was that the exhibitors have complained to him in the past about being invited to after-hours events by journalists. This of course is an absolute joke. Vendors jump through all sorts of hoops just to get journalists to come to their events. Several vendors I told this story to either laughed out loud or were dead silent in disbelief, invariably saying they'd be there in a heartbeat if they were invited to free event to hang out with journalists (after all, they're paying $5,000 per table to hang out with journalists at Pepcom's events).

But, it's Pepcom's event. They're free to make the rules which is what O'Malley did. He told me I could not invite any vendors. But he said he would allow it if I wanted to invite other journalists, which is what I ended up doing. Here is the blog post from that Bloghaus as it was just getting started at the W Hotel in Union Square, NYC, just around the corner from the Metropolitan Pavilion where Pepcom's Digital Experience event had just wrapped up.

Things went pretty well. We had about 35 people show up. The conversations were cozy and fun. Some of us (including me) hammered away on our keyboards to publish video and blogs.

For just a 3-hour event (it ran from 6-9pm on one night), Digital Experience represented a significant investment for us. Not only did I fly down from Boston for the event. I flew in our multimedia producer Matt Conner from Boston and George Ou from California as well (and all of us stayed overnight in Manhattan which is not a cheap place to stay). Together, we generated a significant amount of text, still images, and video from the event (some of which was published during the Bloghaus). In addition, I just filed the expense report for that BlogHaus: a little less than $3,000 that I charged to my Visa card. It was all goodness for the folks at Pepcom.

So imagine my surprise when, last week, I got the thank you from Pepcom's Chris O'Malley. He told me that the journalists that I invited over for free beer, wine, food, and WiFi took offense to the invitation (like I dragged them kicking an screaming to the W Hotel). His exact words were:

We did hear back from at least a couple media outlets that noted (or were invited themselves) and apparently took offense at the invitation -- and let us know it.

After several back and forth e-mails, O'Malley made it abundantly clear to me what the consequences would be if I held another event of any kind before or after theirs (regardless of who I invited or how I went about inviting them):

.....I'm not threatening at all.....those that feel they can abide [our rules] can attend as they wish; those that feel they cannot abide them cannot attend....

.....If we become aware that an individual or group is hosting an event immediately preceding or following ours, we will not permit that individual or those individuals to attend our event.....

.....If it's a group of CNET-only staffers getting together for a group blog or beers or whatever, that's none of our concern. If others are invited (regardless of how or when), it becomes our concern, and we'll have to act on that.

What I don't understand is how, when "others" invited me to an Irish Pub around the corner and O'Malley was sitting right there drinking the same beer as we were, he wasn't complaining at that time. Oh well. At this point, it doesn't matter.

Here are some parting words for the folks at Pepcom: I was doing something nice for you and your community and this is the thanks I get. So, let's let bygones be bygones. I'm publishing this on my own. Keep my colleagues at ZDNet and CNET out of this. This is all my doing. They have nothing to do with it. They're hard working individuals that come to your events to cover your customers (though I think they and others should join me in boycotting your events). To make this really simple, you won't have to blacklist me from your events. I won't be coming anyway. It's not worth my time or CNET's resources if you're going to ban me for organizing a non-threatening version of what you currently and very threateningly do to other event organizers.