Eric Edelstein: The MasterBaiter

I recently produced This Podcast with Vince. Wherein we discussed a variety of things ranging from bloggers dying, facebook fakes and Mr. Eric Edelstein.In the Flamebaiting podcasting where Vince and I try to get as much hype around the podcast as possible (and shamelessly so) we discussed a recent post by Eric (I will not be linking to the masterbaiter as he doesn't need it). This post was unreadable, illogical and very confusing in general.In the podcast we complimented Eric to begin with. He did not make mention of this in his commentary of the podcast. He chose to pick at all and only the negative things that we said about him. Negative honesty that was there for all to see.There is more however. Vince and I know that people aren't going to be happy with us most of the time if they are mentioned on Flamebait. But Eric seems to think that he needed a rebuttle argument which was subsequently more confusticating than the original post that me Flamed.Since then Colin, Gregor (who Eric misinterpreted I feel), Vince, Wezzo and now I have responded. None of these comments were read by Eric apparently as he just keeps digging them holes.Eric, take a second to read the comments on your blog. This is a very important tip as most bloggers know that content is in fact king. Pictures of yourself and Robert Scoble will not make you more popular, they will not drive traffic and it often does not pay to be cool by association.Yes, I have just mentioned Robert Scoble, why I hear you ask? Well Eric has a pic from Wikipedia on his flickr photostream on his blog of Scoble. I thought flickr photostreams were meant to be of photos you have taken, or feature you? Nevermind plagiarism issues which are evident (a quick quote from Eric: "I am TOTALLY against anything illegal"), this is just a bit wierd. Compare THIS photo from Eric and THIS photo from Wikipedia.I have said it before on the podcast and will say it again here, Eric is doing some great things in SA for the online community. He just can't seem to maintain a safe balance on the blogosphere between good work and self obsessive blog posts. Listen to your readers, read your comments and let the good content on your site drive hits your way. Linkbaiting is cool to a point but do it openly. Don't facebook people behind smoke screens on your blog and then do the opposite of what you have blogged about.If you like David Bullards idea of crowdsourcing then tell us that, let him know and do it openly.In my opinion Eric has simply missed the point completely. Not everything is about SEO. Not everyone actually cares and not everyone is trying to make a gazillion bucks from a podcast/website/blog/idea/concept. In spite of Eric trying to drive the conversation towards topics he actually understands, we all still know what we are talking about and don't need lessons.Go enjoy your MOET Eric, and contact me if you want to talk sometime.Last point: To his credit, Eric is definitely a MASTERBAITER as I have now blogged about is post and many people have commented on his blog. He is good at baiting, flaming and linking and is most definitely a masterbaiter in my books.