English News Panama
sduford on Jan 31 2008 at 11:47 am | Filed under: Panama
A new English-language website focused on Panama news just opened for business.
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Maybe this is not of concern, but I received a private email yesterday warning that the person who has been actively promoting this website on the Panama Yahoo Groups is strongly connected to or working for one of the large real estate firms in Panama (Pacific Developers) and that the site may actually be a shill site for actively promoting their interests.
Hi Gordo.
Well, I do believe that they are in fact connected to Pacific Developers as they advertise their properties on there. However, they offer free advertising to any gringo business and graciously let me place an ad for Palmex Panama on there.
Also, they are actively looking for anyone who wants to write news items or opinion pieces, which they will gladly publish for free.
So it doesn`t bother me if they use the site to advertise. As long as they are not continuously pushing propaganda, and are in fact providing useful news, then I have no problems with it.
The biggest problem I have with this site is lack of disclosure. None of the posts heralding this new “service” indicated a connection with Pacific Developers, nor did the site itself to my knowledge.The other thing I wonder about are the legality and fair use issues involved when publishing full articles from sources such as The Miami Herald, until & unless permission has been granted.
Well, if all they are doing is putting up ads, and are not actively selling or pushing anything, then I don’t think disclosure is a problem. They provide a useful service and just happen to put their own ads up, as well as anybody else’s that wants to place an ad.
I have a lot more issues with what International Living is doing.
But I agree they shouldn’t be reprinting complete articles without permission. I’m sure that will be pointed out to them very quickly
I disagree.
From their main page:
“This is not a for-profit site, but rather a community portal. We advertise for all English speaking businesses FREE! English News Panama is a community website , and you can contribute!”
Advertising the site as a non-profit community portal when it is owned by a for profit business that advertises with four large ads on the home page is at best misleading in my opinion. I don’t know if you checked, but clicking on the ads for the following huge apt. complex’s all lead to the Pacific Developers Home Page: King’s Park, The Oriental, Miyaki & perhaps more not overtly advertised.
But again, if they allow anyone to advertise and don’t charge for the ads, it is a non-profit site. It just so happens that one of their advertisers is related to them. So what? Any selling happens on a different site, and you can choose not to go there, as I have.
If they start writing “independent” articles peddling their properties, then I would have a problem too and would denounce them. But if all they do is provide news, and allow the community to participate as they say they do, and if they don’t do active peddling and selling, what’s the harm? This is no worse then Google advertising their own products when you do a search.
Just ignore the ads.
Would you then describe Google as a non-profit site? And would you say that the “English News Panama” site has no profit motive simply because they do not (so far) charge for advertising? And would you further describe this site, strictly speaking as a “community website”? As I originally suggested, a little disclosure would go a long way here.
Well if it bothers you that much, why don’t you contact them and ask them for full disclosure?
Personally, as long as they are not actively pushing real-estate, it doesn’t bother me at all.
The point has already been made public on at least one of the Yahoo groups, so I’ll leave it at that - but simply add this; I think the site & forum they have provided could prove to be very valuable & useful to people. I do think, however, given the numerous real estate & other scams that have plagued Panama over the last several years (most of these seeming perpetrated by Gringos) that it is important for people to conduct themselves & their business operations in a scrupulously open & honest manner.
Fair enough, I certainly agree with that point.
Here’s an example of what I would consider a true Panama community website that you may or may not be aware of, started by Lee Zeltser & centered around the community of Boquete.
Pretty good model I’d say.
http://boquete.ning.com/
That’s an interesting site. I had never heard of ning before, pretty cool idea. I just created al Altos del Maria community
http://altosdelmaria.ning.com
Very Cool! You may want to place an announcement on one or more of the Yahoo groups as Lee did to get things rolling. Wish you all the best.
Hey, thanks for the mention on your site. I have actually had quite a few visitors from your site, so I appreciate the traffic. As far as the whole super conspiracy into my company, which is a developer, using the English News Panama as a front to sell our stuff, that´s just not true. We spend thousands of dollars a month on internet advertising, and have other people do all the work. I personally run the news site, and to be honest it´s a lot of work. If my main intent was to sell our projects, then I would be talking to my marketing guys and having them do everything, which would include much better ads and probably a more professional site. Instead, my true intentions with this site in the beginning was to create an information portal that would be free of profanity and filled with news that is not peppered with the personal opinion of one person. In the beginning I thought of the site as a commercial one, in which I could make a little extra money. But after doing some thinking, I made the decision to give it to our community. I noticed many people offering goods or services that couldn´t do advertising because of costs. Right now the only connection we have are the Yahoo! groups. There are way too many of them, and it´s hard to organize a group of people that way, let alone a whole community. There are many great businesses, groups, charities, and services in Panama that are run by English speakers. My goal is to bring them together under one site. Thanks for your support!
Thanks for clearing that up Jerin. I think you’re site has a lot of potential.
I think it has a lot of potential too, but I still think it might be a good thing if they just let visitors to their site know what they are all about from the get-go. The statement that there are way too many Yahoo groups is, I think, a bit nonsensical, as the number is, by it’s very nature, self-limiting. And whether this site has indeed been given to the community has, in my opinion, yet to be seen, but I don’t think there is any desperate need to bring all of the various Panama groups “together under one site”. It’s been tried before, and the result was a whole bunch of new groups (imagine that!). In fact, if you will do a bit of searching, I think you will find that the reason for there being so many “groups” is that certain individual(s) were trying to control the content available therein.
I’m all for as much diversity as possible (even though I can’t figure out why a real estate company would want to publish a newsblog if it’s not about selling anything).
Anyway. I looked at ning communities, and found something that is better. As in: more possibilities. So I set it up as a platform that anyone can subscribe to and use:
the Panama Sphere
http://www.panamasphere.com
It combines social bookmarking/networking, blogging, event promotion, creation of communities, sharing of documents, subscription to newsfeeds etc. etc. All on that site and free to use as you see fit.
The real estate company is not publishing anything. Jerin Tate from Kansas City is doing a community site. I just happen to work for a Real Estate Developer. The company has no financial or intellectual interest in the website. Yes, I have ads for it´s projects on the site, just like I have ads for other expats services and businesses. As more people put their ads on the site, the real estate ads will become less noticable. I had to start somewhere, and of course it made sense to put my stuff on there to fill space. I agree 100% with the comment about many ““groups” is that certain individual(s) were trying to control the content available therein”. Maybe what I meant was there were too many one sided groups. I feel the same way about other news and information sites available to English Speakers that are controlled and filled with profanity and the personal opinion of one or two people. I have promised to publish the personal content and opinion of ANYONE, provided that it is free of profanity or personal attacks. I have kept from using my opinion on the site, and hopefully soon people will catch on that this website belongs to them. I know there are lots of people with opinions here. I know that there are lots of people who have stories and news that pertains to our community. My site has had lots of traffic, so now we just need to get some contributors. I´m not trying to compete with thepanamanews.com or panama-guide.com. I´m just trying to give an alternative. The best thing about my site is that if you read something that someone else has written and you have another take, you can write your own rebuttal. I believe that opinion fuels a good news source, but you need more than just one.