CROWDCTRL

This morning I was pleasantly surprised by the announcement of Shaun “The Little Engine That Could” Inman’s new Mint 2.0, a stat package I use on all my sites. I checked out the online demo, and was pretty impressed and excited. I have to admit I was a little pissed at the upgrade price, but after seeing the new plugins he’s got, I’m more than willing to upgrade. At some point.

But as I’ve made my way through the day, I’ve run into about ten million other blogs announcing and promoting Shaun’s purposes.

From his associates to his best friends, everyone in the little A-list circle of SXSW-speaking designers banded together to not only hock his wares on his behalf (in exchange for a free upgrade, no doubt) but to even defend his right to charge for his work on his schizophrenic website.

So now what started as a nice impression and desire to upgrade has ended as mockery and distaste! Why, I’m not sure. Is it seeing all the cool kids do it has turned me off? Like seeing everyone listen to Arctic Monkeys suddenly makes them less cool to listen to (ok, I do still listen to them). Or is it jealousy of all the $20 PayPal downloads to his bank account made by the droves of loyal readers of the upteen thousand blogs that commanded them to upgrade?

Or is it that I’ve finally had it with that site of his, with that new but just putrid green, more bad “mint” puns than ESPN, that link section full of blatant self promotion (“FiveQs…with me”) (see update below), and complete inability to stop for a minute and post something decent!? At least he took down that Warhol-esque collage of his face with 30 different colored tshirts.

Ahhhh. Am I the only one who thinks this is bad? Or this? Or this?

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Update:

Scott Nelle makes a good point in an email this morning (nice detective work, Scott).

I agree that the whole Mint 2 thing has been a bit annoying. Next time you feel like lambasting someone publicly, however, consider leaving out the hypocrisy.

Scott calls me out on several self-promotional posts from a few months ago when Crowd was featured in a few galleries. Fair point, Scott, and I take that part back. There’s a fine line we walk as designers, and for whatever reason those types of posts (“FiveQs…with me”) tend to irritate me. Seems different than announcing awards.. but fair point so I’ll take it back.

I also want to be clear that giving Shaun a hard time for having friends wasn’t my intention. This is simply a rant (which many of you agree with, judging by other feedback) about the flood of Mint pimping, with a few cheap shots at Shaun thrown in.

Maybe it’s time to activate those comments in here..

Update 2:

Greg calls me on sour grapes, Jeff agrees, Shaun retorts (touche!), and all check referral stats on Mint. See, it always ends happily.

The truly ironic thing: we’re all still talking about Mint!

Update 3:

I’ve posted an official apology for the choice of words in this post.