Java Jo'z Letter Says Deposit Refundable
What Franchise Times Misreported #1
Franchise Times' reporter, Ms. Julie Bennett, in the September issue, "Attacks from the blogosphere: What Cuppy's Learned the Hard Way" reports inaccurately, "Ben [Scoble], had paid $30,000 to Java Jo’z, but had never found a location for his drive-thru coffee shop and felt he deserved a refund. When the Cuppy’s executives turned him down, Ben asked his brother for help."
Fact: Ben Scoble had more than a feeling that he deserved a refund. Below is a record of Ben being promised, as an ammendment to his agreement, a refund of his deposit by Java Jo'z. It is an email from an account executive, "Speed", sent to Ben Scoble and cc'd to "Morg" at a Java Joz email address. This was posted on Ben's site on January 16 but then later taken down.
"Carol" also posts a comment below that the refund on the deposit is actually in Clause One of her Java Jo'z agreement.
From: "Speed" Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: "'Scoble, Ben'"
CC: morg@javajoz.com
Subject: Welcome Aboard!
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:48:39 -0600Ben,
I really shouldn't be saying welcome aboard as everybody already knows you as part of the family, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. :) Your check is being deposited. All money will be refunded if a location cannot be found. Please attach this to your agreement as an amendment.
Speed
Posted by bscoble at 4:56 PM
1 comments:
Editor's Note: Posts of Ben Scoble's fight against Java Jo'z and Cuppy's Coffee are no longer found on his site. The above post has been pulled out of the Internet archives to remind our readers of the news events back in January '07 as Franchise Times now covers those events in their September and October '07 issues.
Old News
Why bring up old news? Ben Scoble has made posts that his issues with Java Jo'z have been resolved.
Why start talking about this again. All this will do is hurt Cuppy's and their existing franchisees in their effort to build their brand.
Corrections to Franchise Times Article, Part 1
[JB] “One franchisee forwarded the letter on to Blue Mau Mau, Franchise Pick and other sites and soon Sully’s private apology was posted all over the Internet.”
[Mr. Blue] NOT CORRECT. Actually, an anonymous guest posted an “open letter” in the comments area on FranchisePick that was purported to be from iSold It’s Ken Sully addressed to iSold It franchisees . The editor of Blue MauMau (me), made the special effort of confirming the authenticity of that letter and interviewing CEO Ken Sully by calling iSold It’s VP of Business Development, David Crocker. I managed to get a few quotes from the company.
By the way, the letter was issued several days after Blue MauMau contacted senior executives of iSold It to get a statement on the franchise system’s litigation and cash-flow issues.
[JB] “Ben, had paid $30,000 to Java Jo’z, but had never found a location for his drive-thru coffee shop and felt he deserved a refund.”
[Mr. Blue] NOT CORRECT. Ben Scoble had more than a feeling that he deserved a refund. Ben was promised, as an amendment to his agreement, a refund of his deposit by Java Jo'z.
[JB] The U.S. has an estimated 12 million blogs, most of which are operated by individuals who post their personal opinions and vent their frustrations daily. But millions more are industry-specific, like the 900-plus Web sites that are related to franchising.
[Mr. Blue] NOT EXACTLY. Not every site on the World Wide Web is a blog, nor are most of the world's web sites blogs. And it cannot be said that “most… are operated by individuals who post their personal opinion AND vent their frustrations daily.” Actually, most bloggers do not write daily. And they do not necessarily vent their frustrations. For example, when franchise leader, Mr. Bill Marriott, CEO of the Marriott Corporation writes on his blog once or twice a week, he rarely vents frustrations.
And what does 900-plus franchise related web sites have to do with blogging? There’s actually a lot more. Blue MauMau has links to 2400 franchisor sites (franchise related sites) recorded in its franchise directory. According to Alexa, a site that tracks traffic by industry category, one can see that most franchise sites are corporate web sites of franchisors. 68 or so are franchise directories, ad portals of companies such as FranchiseGator.
But franchise blogger sites on the Internet? Unfortunately, there are very, very, very few. The major ones I can list in ten seconds or so. Frankly, the blogosphere could really use a few good men (and women). The industry has been very slow in picking up on this publishing trend.
It is an activity that every franchisor CEO and expert should be considering because the benefits to their company are great.
Correction to Franchise Times Article, Part 2
[JB] “Some of these sites see themselves as franchising’s daily newspaper, putting comments from franchisees and prospective franchisees directly onto the Internet, without the filter of an editor or pressure from advertisers to tone down negative comments. ‘This is the future of publishing…’, Blue Mau Mau’s Sniegowski said.”
[Mr. Blue] NOT CORRECT IF this paragraph is meant to describe Blue MauMau. Our site has advertisers (good time to say please click on our advertiser’s banners and buy their products). So maybe the reporter isn’t thinking of Blue MauMau. If so, she should have placed my quote in another paragraph so as not to confuse the reader.
The reporter does scratch at a bigger issue. Where franchisees and buyers had hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest, they needed frank information and news about franchisors, devoid of fluff and propaganda that advertisers have been able to exercise in pressuring current trade journals to publish - to their own detriment.
Of course, Mr. Blue MauMau edits ALL of our news stories. News stories are placed on our front page. As our volunteer reporters can testify, Blue MauMau has an editor. Me.
It is true that the editor does not edit the comments and forum discussions. Nor should he. Yuck! Having said that, we do have posting guidelines of civility and professionalism (see footer on every page). Comments and discussions are no more the news than the letter to the editor is the news for Franchise Times or the Wall Street Journal. For those of us who have been in trade publishing, remember the old days in which a journal would be lucky to get 3 letters to the editor? Well, no more. With the Internet generation, readers expect to be able to comment and interact publicly with news writers and editors.
Welcome to the 21st century and Web 2.0.
Again, comments, forum discussions and even blogs are not to be confused with Blue MauMau’s edited news articles. We also have citizen journalism guidelines (see footer) to help volunteers who might want to contribute a news story. Of course, the editor would review and edit those entries before placing them in our news story section.
[JB] “said Don Sniegowski, who started the franchise blogsite Blue Mau Mau”
[Mr. Blue] NOT CORRECT. Blogsite?? I don't mean to get all 'geeky' here but technically, Blue MauMau is NOT a blog or a blogsite. Not even close, although we do have blogs. We are a social network site that uses social media. We have sections for blogs that can opine on franchising, but we are more than that. To put it in traditional trade journal terms, I would NOT call FT a publisher’s column, although it has that.
[JB] "Sniegowski would not reveal just how many people read his blog, but said the number is in the thousands."
[Mr. Blue] Wrong question. Wrong way to quote it. And no need to ask. The Net is pretty transparent. But according to a well regarded traffic tracking website (and my fellow geeks know just where I mean), Blue MauMau in one low, lazy summer month had:
That sounds nice and needs qualifiers to non-Net publishers. Readers in the summer seem to be thinking of playing outside instead of making money in franchising. Wish more during that particular month would have come here to combine playing and franchising.
Calling Franchisees Licensees
The FT article calls Java Jo'z buyers licensees.
But it has been pointed out by a number of our attorney writers that "Java Jo'z licensees" fits the definition of franchisee, no matter what Cuppy's might want to call Java Jo'z. Calling them such gives the wrong impression to readers and skirts important legal protection to its franchisees.
The FT article takes the company at its word without seeming to understand why this is important. At the very least, if it was going to use the word "licensee", the FT reporter should have clarified this important issue.
All Franchisees are licensees...
Many franchisors call their franchisees licensees and have them sign license agreements even though they sell franchises. It is confusingly correct to do this, but correct nonetheless.
TIF