ok, wait a minute, you set great store by marketing but you do not listen to your customers?????

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------

it is not only you, i see them too :)

Jonathan, I would like to quote something from Marketing 101. Apparently you are familiar with this but I don't think you got it. It's what Marketing 101 starts off with:

"Most people mistakenly identify marketing with selling and promotion only. While selling and promoting are a part of marketing, they are not the most important part."

I bet you that you could place yourself much more effectively on the online market if you'd change your current strategies and handle things differently. This would get you less haters and more costumers. In Web 2.0, haters are the thing companies and individuals want the least because they could draw back costumers and potential ones from buying your products.

Costumers aren't only those who pay you for what you do, it is everyone who makes use of your services. Watching your videos and commenting to them is part of that. Eventually they may buy something from you but your current strategies doesn't help with that.

Just trying to help.:)

Most people don't even think to vote. They may have loved the video but just didn't bother to vote. I never vote on videos. You could have 1000 people view a video. If 40 people vote 20 good 20 bad it doesn't tell you anything. Because you don't know what the other 960 people thought that didn't vote!
I don't need YouTube ratings to know I'm a good performer. I know I am because I get paid very well, my audiences love what I do. The video of mine that got 20 good and 20 bad votes is a great video I don't need the votes to tell me that. The video was difficult to film. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

What contradictions did I make? I think you simply misunderstood. When I said I don't look at comments or ratings I was talking about videos that I watch of other people. I don't judge their video by their comments or ratings. I watch the video and decide for myself. The only way that votes would matter is if everyone that viewed had to vote. Most people don't even know you can.

As far as cultural differences go I have only talked with you and Rich and you are both from the Netherlands. I found certain comments insulting and Rich didn't think they were. So there certainly could be some cultural differences there.

---------- Post added at 08:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 AM ----------

Mark,

I'm doing just fine. I make very good money. My tutorials sell very well. I'm very happy with my success. It's funny that you think you need to help me.
I'm seeing a pattern here. You guys just seem to enjoy telling people what to do. That's pretty much what all your posts are. It would be understandable if you guys were an authority on something.

---------- Post added at 08:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

Well I'm listening. What are they?

---------- Post added at 08:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 AM ----------

Mark,

Marketing 101 is an expression it doesn't mean the actual text. It simply refers to basic marketing. Its common in USA to just put "101" after something when you mean it is a basic principal of that subject. "Oh that's Bowling 101" would be referring to a basic rule of bowling. A rule everyone should know. Understand?

---------- Post added at 09:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 AM ----------


What does "you set great store by marketing" mean?
Your English is not correct.
When did I say I don't listen to my customers? I get feedback on my tutorials all the time. Always positive. I also get feedback from my audiences all the time. Always positive.

What I said is ...I don't look at the comments and ratings of other peoples videos. I decide wether their video is good by watching it. Their ratings and comments do not influence my decision. This is how most people view videos that I know.

That most people don't vote doesn't mean that the ratings don't represent them. You could easily compare the votes of the one video with those of the next video which has about as many views but 38 positive and 4 negative ratings. That's a lot more positive. Because of the similar amount of views and ratings you can say that only half of the people actually liked it. I bet that the people who voted to the one video also voted to the other one.

At presidential elections not everyone is voting either. That doesn't mean that the votes aren't valid and should not be listened to. Of course, in the US it's slightly different because of the rigged system in which the democrats need more votes than the republicans in order to win. On YouTube that isn't the case nor is there anything to win in this case.

You do not need the ratings to know that you are a good performer but you certainly should use them to see what people like so you could improve on the things they like the least. The fact that you call the video great although a lot of your viewers don't like it makes you extremely ignorant towards your own audience. Do you think any of them appreciates that?

In your latest two posts you literally said that comments and ratings do not mean anything and you say that it doesn't matter whether it is to someone else's video or to your own. That is a huge contradiction for someone who puts comments by just awesome magicians on his poster and approves just good comments to his videos. None of those have everyone's voice heard so I agree that your comments indeed don't say anything. The ratings do have many more voices heard and so would represent your online audience's opinions much better.

There are many more contradictions but I could start a whole new thread if I would name them all. Another one would be that you used Marketing 101 to make something clear but when I told you its essentials you put yourself in defense. Then why did you use it to back up yourself in first place? It doesn't matter if it's from the text or not because the essentials of Marketing (101) in general is that promoting and selling aren't the most important things in the world of marketing.

If only I would enjoy this discussion. It's going nowhere because you keep defending yourself for absolutely no reason because there isn't anything to defend yourself from. Unlike Richard I don't even appreciate it that you are giving the main post a massive ground for the whole world to see it's all true. Joining this discussion to defend yourself was the stupidest thing to do and it only adds more value to the main post.

And I am sure that there aren't any cultural differences for being respectful if you compare Chicago to the Netherlands. This is a matter of personal differences. I am sure that you would stand alone or with an extreme minority no matter what forum this would be posted on and no matter in what country it's hosted.:)

Your English is very hard to understand. This was a very confusing post. It's clear you are not understanding me as well. I think we will have to end this discussion.

Hello Jonathan,

You present many points, but there are a few things I must point out.


First off, why is cultural difference involved with one's ability to interpret comments? I am an American, and so are you. I find none of these comments to be insulting to the very least. You may have grown up learning a different way of thinking and philosophy compared to us. Mark, Richard, you, and I, we may be from different parts of this world, but we are all human beings, who speak the same language.

You use your twenty-five years of experience to judge if the given advice is good or bad? Overall, it is just advice, would you not say? Though it is up to you to judge the advice, what difference does it make if others read it?

Two and three are both contradictory. Why would you approve exposure? More so, what is the point of deleting exposure if you already do so yourself? In some of your videos, I noticed that annotations are placed. For example, in one of your effects, you perform the Card to Wallet effect, and you post an annotation that specifically shows what is needed to perform the effect, should you delete that annotation since it contains exposure? I will let you ponder on that.

Before you arrived to this forum, I did not think you carried a bad attitude, but it is not in my place to judge you.

Also, if you think that we cannot handle criticism, please look at yourself, before you ask us. I find it funny that you delete comments depending on the tone of it. Doing that is the same as getting mad at someone for saying, "Hey, that was a very good performance!", instead of, "I think that was a great performance."

Richard did not start this thread to insult you. Since when did insulting someone include praise, and positive comments? The thread was started merely by request of the many people that had asked him to. If you do not have time for negative people, hurtful people, dishonest people, or disrespectful people, then there really is no reason to make anymore contact with the world, seeing as how we do not live in a perfect world. In many other businesses, it is the same as magic. Music, acting, even painting, there are the groups of the admirers, and the haters. The only thing we can do is go with the flow, there is no use complaining.

Why are you poking at his English? Is it because he is not from America? People from around the world learn other languages to communicate with one another, and someone like you putting them down because of their inability to type, or speak as well as you can might really hurt them. That in itself is not right. Or maybe it is because you want to end this with the final word.


That is all I needed to point out, how you interpret my words, love or hate, is up to you.

Jonathan Kamm My resonse are in red

You can't say that Vincent's use of the word 'lift' was exposure and then say that 'DL' isn't exposure. 'DL' is semi-exposure because every magician knows what it means yet spectators don't. If a magician asks you how something was done and you just say "(it's a) DL" they don't need further explanation and so it is exposure. The word 'lift' isn't because it's exactly what everyone is seeing: you lifting a card.

You are the only one who openly exposed it in this thread and on YouTube by selling tutorials for it which you named the way everyone considers it to be exposure. Your ACR even has an annotation over the entire video which links to it and with you telling that you used it in the video. And if you search for the keywords 'double lift' in your video search engine it even shows the ACR between all the tutorials you sell. A lot of exposure going on there. Are you sure you don't support it?

We thought this was the only correct forum to post this kind of thread in. Reason is that it wasn't all that different from the other threads in this forum. Richard originally decided to post this in the 'General Discussions' or 'Public Magic Discussions'. Another Admin then moved it to this more proper place with our approval which in the end meant that the forum name had to be changed as it was slightly too negative as mentioned in the beginning of this thread.

You say Richard insulted you in his post. Can you please list some of the insults so we can see what exactly you were insulted by? Thanks.

INSULTS PART 1

This is where inappropriate actions of magicians and magic services are exposed to the public so you know what to look out for.
The above topic heading is still insulting claiming that I am in some way misbehaving and need to be exposed

...continued below

INSULTS PART 2
Gee thanks!

Part 1
 

I am sure that Richard would reply to this but since he is not online right now I guess I can too since I am the one who asked the question.

There is absolutely no insult in the forum description. That you find it insulting is because you are the person in question. That means that there is no way that you can say if it's a legit description or not.

I believe you totally misread the first sentence. Richard clearly says: "A lot of you apparently wondered about our opinions on Jonathan Kamm and so we started doing research on this magician." There is absolutely nothing bad mentioned nor that anyone who contacted us did mention anything bad. Most of them even didn't. If the outcome of the research would have been positive this would have been a positive thread about you. The fact that I asked Richard to do this is because he was totally unbiased.

I didn't even mention the issues to Richard to be sure he would be doing an honest research. Only when he was done I told him I have had trouble with you and that that was the reason why I actually asked him to do this. When he posted it I told him everything in details. The post is the most honest thing one could get.

He insinuates that you are a great magician and definitely good enough to fool your audiences. But when comparing your sleight of hand to the people who have truly mastered those sleights like for instance Akira Fujii on the Pass there is no way to say you are at the same level as for that sleight. Performance-wise I'd say that you are better and teaching-wise you may be better too but that has nothing to do with how good you are on the sleight although all the comments would make one believe so.

No one ever told you what to do. They just made suggestions to make the best out of it. It is obvious that you can't handle criticism and have a bad attitude if you don't approve comments that don't do any harm to your magic or to magic in general. Whenever you'd approve negative comments you'd try to slay them and make yourself look like the best. Then if someone would react to that in a way you don't like as well you don't approve that comment or would try to slay it too. It goes on forever and you keep confirming that you can't actually handle criticism.

Even whenever it wasn't about my magic being edited or not Richard had to correct you on other things. I read through all of the messages and it's truly amazing how you think you could just say things without any ground of truth and to get away with it. I already proved myself right. When will you actually prove yourself right on this thread not being the real deal? Your replies only confirm everything. Obviously it's the real deal.

I believe five people actually told us about your criticism handling. This is not even half of the people who contacted us. The rest to be said could be found somewhere above in this post.

We have seen a whole lot of comments of people giving constructive feedback on it. You changed it to a shorter introduction for a reason didn't you? Not that you ever publicly agreed with any of the constructive feedback towards it.

Part 2
 

I agree that magic clubs may be where you'll stay for the rest of your life if you don't take time to go out there on your own. But to not listen to other amateur magicians is absolutely hilarious. I don't know what amateur magicians you have had to deal in your past if any at all but nowadays amateur magicians are only commenting extremely positive on each other rather than extremely negative and causing sorts of traumas.

You never confirmed if everyone who has been giving you criticism actually was an amateur. You only assume that. You also assume that I am an amateur magician which is much more of an insult than anything Richard said about you. Instead of getting all upset about it I just laugh it away.

The fact that your professional magician friends would never criticize you is one of the reasons why there is a huge gap between amateurs plus potentional ones and professional magicians plus those who think they are professional and somehow got accepted to this group. You can see it at every magic forum out there. It's all about the elite members. Some very potentional amateur magicians who skillwise may be better than many of the pros will get rejected.

It's funny to see that there is some sort of code that professional magicians never give bad comments to each other. Of course their comments may still be honest but that fact makes it extremely doubtful. Thank God there are forums made by amateur magicians who actually give their honest opinions on effects. Every now and then even professionals join these forums just for the sake of getting the most honest feedback possible.

Richard actually proved you very wrong on this.

Maybe if you would understand Marketing 101 better it would not be so hard to make a living from it. How come we can make more than enough with it without performing full-time like you do? Cultural difference?

By removing feedback and by approving just the comments you like you made yourself look better than you are. There is nothing to be said against that. Of course there may be some people like you but as soon as there is a single person that thinks differently you do make yourself look better. Let alone if there are more like in your case.

He never said that you aren't respected. He said that you could be more respected or "most respected" if you would allow both positive and negative feedback and if you'd be honest to yourself and to the rest of the world. Definitely no insults right there.

Solved.:)

No problem.;)

It is not possible that every comment I made is wrong yet you just disagreed with everything I said. This shows me that your goal was simply to disagree and not give an honest answer.
Also I'm telling you how I feel.I felt insulted by the things I mentioned. They are my personal feelings which you asked me for. You telling me they were not insults does not make them any less hurtful. You can't tell someone how they feel. Just disagreeing with everything someone says is no way to communicate. I think Rich would tell you that.

---------- Post added at 06:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 AM ----------

Jonathan Kamm

I didn't even disagree on everything (read: "I agree that.."). I wrote my honest thoughts on what you said and unfortunately I couldn't agree with all that much. But many of the things fall back on one and the same issue so it looks much more than it actually is. I agreed on everything I didn't write about in my replies or whenever I actually said I agreed with you on something. And I don't blame you for the part about that professional magicians never give bad comments to each other because that's just how it is and it's not up to any individual to change that.

Of course you feel insulted as this thread is about you and it's not as positive as you had hoped for. I could feel insulted about every negative thread about me on the internet too but instead I like to listen and see what I could do to make things better. I hooked up with a lot of my haters and skeptics and even took time to show them my tricks live and eventually I even taught them some of the effects which you strongly believe to be fake and/or video editing. Some of my biggest haters and skeptics now are some of my best online friends and not just because I taught them stuff.

I listened very well to what you had to say about the exposure. My full reply was all-and-only based on what you said yourself in this thread. You considered Vincent's comment to be exposure because of the word 'lift' but you don't consider 'DL' to be exposure. I just explained in what way 'DL' is exposure and it what way it's not and that considering 'lift' to be exposure just doesn't make any sense. As you didn't reply to that I don't know whether you agree on that now or still don't.

Because you put exposure in your video title rather than in the ACR video's tags I was wondering why that wouldn't be considered to be exposure. We named our release 'DL Deluxe' just for that matter and it worked just fine too.:)

EDIT: What a horrible timing on the ban! I wasn't done with this discussion yet.:mad::(

Rules are rules. If we let him free to ignore them, we have to let everyone free to do so. We can deal with it now but later when these forums are a lot more active, we really can't.

It adds to the misbehavior, does it not?

You guys decided to finish this while I was at school. I was not done either.

hahhaa in his latest video he promotes his friends invisible deck handling for 45 seconds and does not perform it in the video. in it he says he does that trick because of that handling again but in the comments he put: "I don't use any stacks, systems, set ups or gimmics. At least I prefer not to."

he doesnt know what he is saying hahahaa

mega fail xD

--------------------------------------------------

Jonathan is on the loose again. he uploaded a video of an impromptu haunted deck. read the comments!

I find it funny that he says that holding the cards differently and the cards moving differently has anything to do with the method. Both Derren and Jonathan should've been able to do the 'Impromptu Haunted Deck' by placing the deck on the back of their hands as well, but that wouldn't have made any difference as for their methods. :thinking:

jup, it would have been different if he changed the principle, but he didn't. same pinciple as derren, only different handling.

I'm just saying, he is one of the most stubborn people I have ever talked to.

He always wants to prove himself right, that is a good trait to an extent, but Jonathan just overdid it by never admitting to be wrong.

Gah! *@#()&$(&*^&!@&$*(&!^&*@&*(#$@.

I have been totally cool with this guy (compared to jonnysilver). I typed him a message, at least 900 words including some form of criticism etc. And the guy blocks me! SON OF A @*#&$!&@^$

He probably knows you're from MTG.

So this is the logic in his head:

Mark=Hater

MTG= Haters because of this thread

Anyone from MTG=Hater

Haters? He doesn't respond.

In other words, he runs away like a coward? :thinking:
Or hides behind the digital wall? :thinking:

Dudes! keep going and you will of angered every popular macigian on youtube.

I don't think popularity matters here.

If someone is doing something very wrong, then let it be known.

He's a human and we are all humans. There should be no such discrimination that excepts one person over another when they have done something distasteful.

I don't know Kam at all, but all I'm saying is, you shouldn't do wrong things if you don't have to.

And Jonathan doesn't quite represent every popular magician on YouTube, does he? ;)

But yeah, he still reads this thread. In fact, he emailed me about it so I now am very tempted to post that in here due to the incredible statements he made once again. :p

for your information, I'd say Mark and Albert are two of the more( if not the most) famous online magicians in the community, thanks to their skills and history with mismag's contests( not to mention they know some of the other famous online magicians that you mentioned personally), so they don't have to worry about that.

I know albert and mark are 2 of the more if not the most famous macigians online. I am just saying that there are a alot of these about macigians that can be seen on youtube.

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------

I am wondering though why has not a post about mismag been put up? He teaches a lot more than andyfield?

Yea, but Mismag/Jay doesn't affect the community that much( tho he stand at the very top of the tutorials, he doesn't actually do anything that bad, he reveals easy self-working tricks and himself doesn't do bad things, i don't really see a point to him being put on here), but then again, i might be wrong

Andy Field was not put on the Magic Alert just because of his tutorials. It is because of how he handled his haters, blocking comments, and among other things.

Actually, there would've been a huge thread about Jay if it wasn't that he made up with me during the MISM 2010, after having big trouble with me for over a year. We are fairly good YouTube friends now. ^_^ (Doesn't mean I agree with the magic exposure a single bit.)

Anyhow, this thread is about Jonathan Kamm. I hereby post all the emails I sent to him, both the ones from December right after he was banned from the board and the ones from when this thread became active again. He told me not to publish his mails regardless of it giving him a voice in here. However, I suppose it's not needed as my emails and replies say it all and I suppose posting his would only cause people to bash whatever he said in them.

December 2010 emails: Download PDF
March 2011 emails: Download PDF

LOL, I just READ your last mail to Jonathan. I am incredibly curious what he is gonna reply :)

Has he ever replied to you with proper arguments and sentences longer than 7 words? xD

Oh this is so good... This made my day :D

I can also tell that he is still saying the EXACT same things Johnny said. A common attribute to those who think they are superior.

I guess Jonathan here doesn't know how leaders are born: They show skills, compassion, intelligence, modesty, trustfulness, and truthfulness.

From my encounters with Mark, I think he pretty much showed all of them.

Reality check. Most of the time, at least for me, performing in front of cameras are way more challenging than performing live. Sure you can retake it as many times as you want. But first of all, it provides you with practice. Secondly, people can replay videos. Due to that, you find ways to minimize your exposure, which work just as effectively in real life most of the time. In other words, misdirection just doesn't work as well.

From the other thread:
and then...

Hmmm.... I wonder why I put these quotes up there... I wonder why... Oh that's right. I was trying to prove hypocrites + wannabees do exist :)

hahhhhahahhahaha :D :D Brilliant! xD

The latest email has been added to the March 2011 document: Download PDF. ^_^

I am curious in seeing the footage of Mark's live performance. Q_Q

Also, Albert is right. He is just getting defensive with language, even though the proof is in his face.

Well, that's all dandy and nice, but I'm not sure what the point of this statement was.

I personally believe that testimonials from other people don't really prove much about another person. Sure, it's got backup and it's great if you want to know something about a stranger. But people can say nice things about other people just to be respectful, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was actually true. Of course, there is no strength in this argument unless we hear from the people in question themselves. I'm not saying this is a lie. Just saying it has no real merit in this situation.

This is an interesting statement. Unfortunately, this is no longer valid in the 21st century. Why? Well let's observe:

There are now multiple forms of media to announce yourself, one of them being the internet. Through internet, you can announce yourself to the public, word of mouth occurs, more people from around the world takes notice and WAM! You can become a star (like Bieber :D). However, this doesn't mean that one would be nothing without it. Before I created my account, I was practically not known at all on the internet. But I was very well known in my high school. Every single student practically knew "the magician" and through their words, it spread around the whole town and even to other high schools in the district. I'm sure Mark has also had similar experiences with these word of mouth phenomenon and other magicians too.

So in fact, without the internet, Mark may have been nothing internationally. But he may have been something greater in his city, and even in the Netherlands. However through the internet, he made himself someone well known.

Same for Kam. You were mostly well-known around the places you performed at. So if you never had the internet, you would have been "nothing" in the international sense (well, Blackpool really doesn't count much).

It's just a smart usage of a form of media that is now available. Older magicians tend to have the concept stuck in their heads that direct contact is the only was to prove yourself. I think that's old school. It has its merits, but not so much anymore.