ChannelPro Tosses Elric Phares Out of Motherboards.org

[btarunr]

Elric Phares, founder of the 20-year old tech publication Motherboards.org learned the hard way not to cut deals with the devil big corporate media houses that promise accelerated growth of your publication in exchange for a share of profits/copyrights. According to a rant posted by Phares on YouTube, Motherboards.org joined the ChannelPro Network three years ago, a deal which typically sees Motherboards.org hand over its revenue-stream management and copyrights to ChannelPro in exchange for site (cosmetic/technical) and business (diversification/partherships) development, leading up to increased revenues for all involved, which according to him, never happened. To add to that, Phares had been noting financial irregularities. When confronted with evidence of these, ChannelPro fired him. In his video, Phares announced what will shape up to be a long-drawn legal battle with his former employer, and appealed to his followers to unsubscribe from Motherboards.org (as run by ChannelPro). Phares set his base of operations in his 2010-registered consumer electronics website, TechofTomorrow.



Elric Phares's video announcing his departure from Motherboards.org follows.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[natr0n]

wow he got fcked over bigtime. Hopefully it will be corrected soon.

 

[btarunr]

Regardless of what happened, trying to run a site without its founder, who's been thrown out like this, and not left in pursuit of better things, is just wrong. It's like trying to run TPU without W1zzard, or Anandtech without Anand Lal.

I hope company representatives see the logic of the situation, and deal with Elric (and not ChannelPro).

 

[Ghost]

Everything's fine. It's supposed to be this way. If you don't want this to happen, stay independent. TPU is independent, right?

 

[micropage7]

yeah, ive seen the video and it must be painful
you run from zero then after it hits 100 you get kicked
how could they do that for him? they must be mad

 

[btarunr]

TPU is independent, right?

We are backed by you.

 

[dj-electric]

Man, what a bunch of dicks...
Hope Elric will return with more of his awesome videos. The benchmarks and perffesionality of MB.org is very low but the presentation is nice.

 

[Katanai]

This sucks!!! I know motherboards.org since waaaaay back. It was not a really popular site back then, I didn't know people who visited it regularly. I didn't know for a long time why I visited it, it didn't look good at all and it was not regularly updated. I actually asked myself why I liked it so much at one point and the answer I found was: this guy! He really knows his stuff and was always thorough in his reviews of motherboards. I always looked at motherboards.org as the place to go if I needed a definitive answer to the question if a motherboard is good or not. :shadedshu Too bad that stuff like this happens. This should be a lesson that I hope techpowerup will learn if it ever finds itself in front of a similar situation. Basically, the way I see it is like this: if you sell something it's not yours anymore no matter how the contract reads or any other understanding between you and the buyer. If the owner of techpowerup ever does something like this or has done that my advice would be to prepare a contingency plan from the start, another site, if he wants to continue in this field. I hope this will never be the case and I hope Elric will find the strength and financial resources to either get the site back or start another one. We need him!

 

[Rowsol]

Man, that's fucked. Elric is a groovy dude and I wish him the best.

 

[NHKS]

Besides Linus Tech Tips, the other channel I watch frequently is mb.org... because of Elric.. sometimes he is over the top but mostly his videos are great to watch!.. he is a good video reviewer and an entertainer too...

and to fire him for trying to enquire into an irregularity is just being unfair.. well, it is a loss for Channel Pro..

so from now it will be ToT to watch Elric then.. so be it

Regardless of what happened, trying to run a site without its founder, who's been thrown out like this, and not left in pursuit of better things, is just wrong. It's like trying to run TPU without W1zzard, or Anandtech without Anand Lal.
I hope company representatives see the logic of the situation, and deal with Elric (and not ChannelPro).

+1 to this!

sometimes, those corporate bean-counters only care about their numbers attached with a $.. nothing else

 

[micropage7]

yeah i often watch Linus and Elric beside documentary vids
too bad it ends like that.

they got money then they could do anything? YES but they just ruin theirself

 

[Ghost]

We are backed by you.

*Group hug*

sometimes, those corporate bean-counters only care about their numbers attached with a $.. nothing else

According to this article, Motherboards.org and Elric cared about money in the first place too. They sold out. When someone/something solds out, things like these happen.

 

[Katanai]

This is for those who still don't know why I appreciate his opinion and value it highly:

Tablet Wars! iPad Mini vs Nexus 7 - Which Should Y...

Just watch that. Now maybe you could say that he's not thorough in his reviews and didn't run enough benchmarks and maybe he is a bit unprofessional. How about some god damn truth?!? I am sure he has run enough benchmarks on those two tablets and more importantly spend enough time with them to get a honest evaluation of both of them like he did in the old days with motherboards, he is not the man to put up 10000 meaningless charts on a website or in a video but in the conclusion you can always expect the truth from him. Now go and read the reviews for that mini POS on engadget, gizmodo or any other of the many sites owned by apple and you will find that they are indeed much longer and maybe look more thorough but if you look at them from a distance you'll see it's just a long excuse of why you should buy it over the Nexus 7. Being a publicist and posing as a journalist now that's what I call unprofessional! That's why I say we need guys like him!

 

[TheGuruStud]

Regardless of what happened, trying to run a site without its founder, who's been thrown out like this, and not left in pursuit of better things, is just wrong. It's like trying to run TPU without W1zzard, or Anandtech without Anand Lal.

I hope company representatives see the logic of the situation, and deal with Elric (and not ChannelPro).

How is the latter a bad thing? I could take the site more seriously if he was gone.

 

[DannibusX]

I read most of the comments on Motherboard.org's youtube channel. Epic.

Sounds like this guy really got shafted, I hope the video doesn't effect his court case.

 

[timmyisme22]

We are backed by you.

Damn. We're fucked.

 

[the54thvoid]

According to this article, Motherboards.org and Elric cared about money in the first place too. They sold out. When someone/something solds out, things like these happen.

There's selling out and there's seeking financial support. My mate used to run an alternative music/club/culture website and it was very popular. Expanded into advertising 'alternative' clubs etc but it was costing him money to hire people to do work etc. Eventually he let it slip after many years because it personally cost him money to run it. I don't think he ever broke even.

Guys running sites from home and giving up proper jobs to do it need financial backing. Don't be too quick to judge others.

 

[63jax]

fuck him, he was rude as a barbarian

 

[the54thvoid]

fuck him, he was rude as a barbarian

Pot kettle black (as they say in my country).

 

[63jax]

Pot kettle black (as they say in my country).

applies to you too

 

[Lionheart]

FUCK! I love this guys video's Ima support him as much as I can

 

[63jax]

''How about you go fuck yourself poser its my stuff to do what I want so go cry to your Mommy baby BOY!!!'' this is one of his comments, this is how he talk with his audience, yes back him up guys!!!!

 

[dj-electric]

I don't really care about these things. I don't know the guy and barely sent him any messeges during the years.

All i care is that now and then i can chillax infront of my YouTubez and watch some videos.
I kinda enjoyed some of Elric's stuff, he is different alright. If for some reason some asshole decides to cut it, of course i would not be happy about it.

I'm not enjoying the hardware becuase when you're in the bussiness you are getting used to extreme hardware and it doesn't exite you as much, but I really watch it for Elric's reactions and presentation of things.

 

[HossHuge]

I've always found him to be classless and not funny at all.

So, he sold out to ChannelPro three years ago, then they fire him and now he's saying that ChannelPro broke the contract for not doing what they said they would do?

Why wouldn't he have complained after the first 6 months?

 

[acerace]

Haters gonna hate.