Upshift Online and Tim Burke

[Eric Hall]

So this is kind of sad but XLADV is currently involved in a bit of a spat with Upshift Online and one of their photographers, Tim Burke.

But for some background, let me fill you in.  So I was supposedly on good terms with Tim via mostly Instagram since I don't know when; maybe 5 years?  I shared his content, helped him get his moto fixed and back on the road quickly after an accident in Peru had him thinking his trip was over, helped him go after accounts sharing his content without attribution, helped him sort out his service with SPOT, etc...  He seemed very grateful to get that help too.  Then about 3 years ago he seemed to sour on me.  He'd made a negative comment on a FB post of mine which I thought was odd but then a few months later it happened again.  After that I just blocked him on both FB and probably IG too.

As for Upshift Online, I've always had good relations with both Chris Glaspell and Simon Cudby (Simon has since left), the two founders.  Chris paid me the highest compliment I'd ever received by telling me "I've never seen anyone in the moto industry build a brand as fast and big as you have with XLADV."  They also covered our May 2018 Mojave Rally, our volunteer work in Colombia with Motorrad Angels and maybe a few other things.

Okay so they other day I shared a photo from Dunlop (an XLADV ad client) to our IG feed.  The photo credit was Tim Burke's/Upshift Online's and I did give them both credit.  But a day later I got a message from Brandon at Upshift telling me to take down the photo and ask for permission next time.  Okay.  I responded that Dunlop (who gives them free tires and may advertise, I don't know) has been an ad client for 3 years.  Guys... we're on the same team here.  Nonetheless, I did delete the photo.  And then...

I get 5 "copyright violations" that night from Instagram for me having shared photos of Tim's girlfriend, nattplu, 4 years ago!  A few questions.... For one, she was happy to get the attention (in 9 years and nearly 9,000 posts only 2 have asked me not to share their content), had even used my hashtag (as did Tim and it's still on his posts) so why didn't she have a problem 4 years ago?  Why now?  Why didn't she simply ask me to delete?  It's like your neighbor loaned you their lawn mower four years ago then yesterday the police show up asking you questions about "stealing" your neighbor's mower.

So now my account is in jeopardy of being shut down for this.  And... I was going to make sure everyone knew about it.
I do understand copyright protection and am sensitive to photographers having their work used without permission, citation of credit and/or payment.  But it's also a shared interest here (Dunlop); it's social media and stuff goes viral.  When it does, 99.9% of people are happy about it.  You can share whatever you like on FB and Twitter; IG too pretty much.

As a result, I got a huge amount of supportive messages and comments as well as eyeballs and we gained 3,000 followers in just one day which makes me feel a bit better about this.  Many came out of the woodwork both publicly and privately to share their experiences with this crew but I won't get into that.

I've had more than my share of spats like this and I hate going public with them but when the IG profile gets threatened, I feel a need to respond.

I hope we can come to a resolution but not feeling great about it.

Another thing... I'm not unique in this situation.  Upshift Online does this to anyone sharing their stuff.  But let's look at some numbers...  Domain Authority score is an SEO measure of basically how prominent your website is.  ADVMoto's is 58.  ADVPulse is 52.  XLADV (an otherwise "dead" forum) is 43.  Upshift Online's is 41!  We hav 186k IG followers to their 72k. That's not a great place to be, nor in my opinion is it a wise strategy to win more followers.  My advice would be spend more time building your business than making enemies.

[greedyg]

A dead forum?  Say it aint so!  I thought @motochefarwi and I posted enough to keep it going...🤣

[motochefarwi]

Well my thumbs can’t type as fast as my thoughts here. One reason why I really think about the swag I buy and brands I post. Hmm got me thinking just now as I was about to buy some fresh casual gear but now I wann a be careful. Yes aren’t we all on the same page here? Are we racing each other here. Don’t even ask me about the corporate world because I live and work in it too.

I think the gents and peeps with their panties in a bunch need to grow up.

Know the audience and let’s grow together.
That’s community and @Eric in many ways you bring this community together. With very little in return or expectations. It’s outta pure passion. OG.

But I get it. Passion doesn’t pay the bills so I guess ya gotta throw a cheap shot to get a head in life. I’m not going to borrow any more lawnmowers.

Well any threat to XLADV can eat my roost.

Braaap. Just go out for a ride rather than push the little guys out.

Damn Sword fight over here.

Well I hope it all turns out well and if there is anything I need to block or not post lol I’m here to support.

Never a dull moment in the Cyber world lol.


I’ll still be wearing my worn out XLADV t shirt with pride.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Eric Hall]

Thanks for the nice words.

Brandon had reached out to me about sharing another post of Upshift Online's shortly after he started there but this must be like 3-4 years ago.  I was kind of shocked to hear that he didn't want their posts shared but I was like "okay!"  After that I just unfollowed them.  I wasn't mad; I just was like "welp, I guess they don't want things shared."  I thought it was super weird and thought it might be personal but since then I've learned they do that to everyone.

I know there are many small-time accounts out there and mostly in other countries who will share content without attribution and asking them not to may make perfect sense.  But there's a few pretty big accounts I know of including this one who've found themselves in that situation.

I share content for ADVPulse quite a bit mostly because it's just good content.  Rob Dabney doesn't give me anything to do so either.  I've shared Brake Magazine stuff too.

And then going back to the only other people who've asked me not to share what this guy from the PNW who fancies himself a photographer.  He messaged me asking if I was going to pay him?  I was like well.... no.  Sorry.  He said "well I see you run ads on your site and it's commercial so you can afford to pay me."  Well, not exactly lol.  The ad revenue amounted to maybe $15/month and the costs closer to $30/month.  But I took his photo down and just stopped following him. 

Last year I shared a guy's video of him nearly falling off his moto on the side of a hill.  He asked super politely that I not share it and I immediately deleted it.  I think he felt it made him look bad which I totally understood.  But the usual response has always been "thanks for the share!"

One thing I never understood about their site is the whole digital viewer as if it's a real paper magazine.  The problem is individual stories aren't linkable.  If you google "xladv site:upshiftonline.com" you get zero results.  But if I go to the June 2018 edition I can find the Mojave Rally story.  Search engine referral traffic can in many cases be the large majority of a site's traffic.  93% of all web traffic is from search engines.  To forego that seems odd but it does explain their domain authority score is so low relative to other adv websites.  Given that one issue, I'd be like "share and share alike!" as much as I could to try and overcome that.

I was very prominently posting stories about this spat on my histories at IG too.  People need to think twice about coming after XLADV.

"Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel." - Mark Twain

[Eric Hall]

Upshift Online today sent an email to the effect that they're throwing in the towel.  They will apparently continue the site and share user generated content though.  Funny, they do mention they'll finally list each article as a blog post so it can be shared.  That was one thing that always held them back, I thought.

This is really only ever been a hobby for me that i've been lucky enough to get some "beer money" from.  I didn't need it to put a roof over my head or raise my kids (thankfully).  It is not an easy industry to make it in though, especially these days as the media landscape continues to change.

But a few things I have learned are that it's important to be humble, make friends and not to take yourself so seriously.  That happens by getting out and riding too.

After last November, quite a few people reached out to tell me some pretty interesting stories.  What I heard (if true) is not a great way to build a business.