Clarifications upon the Performancing Sale – Interviews with Nick Wilson and David Krug

Over the last 12 hours there has been a lot said about the sale of Performancing to Splashpress. Some of it has been reported accurately – some of it seems to be contradictory to other reports.

Performancing has been a major player in the blogging space and it’s sale impacts over 28,000 people who’ve signed up for their services previously – as a result I decided to approach two key players in Performancing’s past and future for comment with the hope of clearing up some of the confusion.

Interview with Nick Wilson

I’ve just had a short chat with Nick Wilson, previous CEO and part owner of Performancing about the sale of it to Splashpress.

Here are a few points that he made that might help us all with reporting the deal more accurately:

• The deal does not include Performancing Parters – this has been reported widely (including in my post announcing the deal).
• Performancing Partners technology is currently not operating (it was discontinued a few weeks back) but Nick tells me that there is still potential for it to be sold in the future.
• The deal does not include scribefire (the firefox plugin) – I think most of us got this right
• The deal does include Performancing.com (the domain/blog), Performancing Metrics and the Performancing User Base
• The deal was not negotiated by Nick – it was totally negotiated/brokered on the Performancing side of things by his parter Patrick
• No price has been or will be disclosed – to be expected, but I had to ask
• Nick and Patrick will continue to work heavily on scribefire – something that is well funded

Hopefully that will clear up some of the confusion over the deal.

Interview with David Krug

I also just chatted with David Krug and he tells me that the above is true. He also wanted to make some clarifications:

Performancing Ad Network?
Firstly he agreed that Performancing Partners is not included in the deal – however there is no clause in the agreement that stops them starting their own ad network.

David tells me that launching their own ad network is definitely part of their plan and that the time frame is ‘the next few months’. This is not their first priority as they want to work on building up the performancing community before developing any more services.

David Didn’t Buy Performancing
Also reported widely is that David bought Performancing with Splashpress. David tells me that this is untrue and that Splashpress are the buyers and that he will manage it for them.

Future Developments
David also added that they are testing some new metrics software and blog themes which are likely to be released before any new ad network is launched.

Privacy
I also asked David about privacy of user information. I’ve heard from a variety of bloggers in the last few hours who are confused by the sale and are wondering if their information has been sold to the new group.

His response was that there is currently no automated system for removal of accounts however Performancing’s Privacy Policy still stands and if people really want to be removed they can contact Performancing. He did emphasize that people can login and change their profile at any time and that the only thing that they really have from people is an email address.

What User Base was bought?
While the sale didn’t include the Performancing Partners technology/software – it does include the database of users. Similarly the purchase includes the metrics user database and community database. Basically anyone who has signed up for anything was a ‘user’.

How’s the Transition Going?
Obviously there have been some problems with Performancing’s site over the past 24 hours. David tells me that they’ve had some IP issues and that there have been some glitches with the changeover. Some users will still see problems with the site (DNS Cache Issues) but these should be resolved shortly.

Still Confused?
David encourages people confused by the sale to contact them using the Performancing Contact form.

I personally would add that any bloggers that still have the performancing metrics or partners code on their blogs should probably remove it – not because I’m questioning privacy – but because it is redundant code that just clogs up your templates.