Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave
Who’s REALLY behind the LIMSfinder curtain?
Scientific Computing
As a matter of routine, Scientific Computing monitors a great many Web sites, mailing lists, and a variety of laboratory informatics vendor information that is sent to us.
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We have been particularly interested in the increased chatter posted to a specific Web site, LIMSfinder.com, and in the tone of various contributions made by a writer using the pseudonym “Ephraim Gadsby.” Scientific Computing has noted a proliferation of postings by “Gadsby” that seemed to be centered on attacking print media and awards published in printed media, while also denigrating certain LIMS vendors, consultants and issues with government LIMS contract proposals.
The chief indicator that something was amiss was that an outwardly knowledgeable resource in the field of LIMS felt it necessary to maintain anonymity behind the pseudonym, “Ephraim Gadsby,” which is a reference to a character from Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, first published in UK: October 15, 1954, by Herbert Jenkins, London. We noted that most of “Gadsby’s” postings were on the LIMSfinder Web site, and we also couldn’t help noticing that “Gadsby” spent an inordinate amount of time praising the Web site, while denigrating print and other media.
We also started to follow the threads of contributors to LIMSfinder.com, and the interplay between a particular LIMS vendor and various points made by “Gadsby” created a blip on our radar. The first assault on print media was launched by “Gadsby” on LIMSfinder.com on October 9, 2004, at the URL: www.limsfinder.com/community/blog_detail.php?id=1986_0_2_0_C.
The observations made by the author mostly centered upon the superiority of online media versus print media.
Our contributing writer on laboratory informatics, Randy C. Hice, rebutted “Gadsby” in his article entitled “Gimme a Break,” published in the January 2005 issue of Scientific Computing. In this piece, Hice mused whether the author, “Gadsby” had a vested interest in LIMSfinder.com. Hice stated, “The author is apparently employed to write for the Web site.”
“Gadsby” almost immediately refuted this statement on the LIMSfinder Web site at the URL: www.limsfinder.com/community/blog_detail.php?id=2497_0_2_0_C.
“…By the way, the author says that I am employed by LIMSfinder.com. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not get paid to write or get paid in any way by LIMSfinder. I like to write and I write for free and for fun and this site is about the only free site for this industry that I can use for that forum and do it in real time. I just can’t do that in print media.”
We couldn’t help but notice that “Gadsby” also took another shot at printed media in his retort to Randy Hice’s column in the above message, further raising our suspicions.
Not long after “Gadsby’s” original article, “The King is Dead,” was published on October 9, 2004, a LIMS vendor enthusiastically agreed with “Gadsby’s” comments. This response also was posted on LIMSfinder at the URL: www.limsfinder.com/community/blog_detail.php?id=1986_0_2_0_C.
“Speaking as a LIMS supplier, I must agree completely with this article. Magazine ads have had very little value for our company.
The Internet by far provides the best overall value.
In terms of the most effective resources on the Internet, I would rank them as follows:
1. www.LIMSfinder.com
2. www.Google.com
3. LIMS email list
4. LIMSource
5. www.Yahoo.com
6. www.Bio-ITworld.com
What has made LIMSfinder by far the best resource for us is the self publishing capability. We have gained many new customers for our product directly because of LIMSfinder. Google is 2nd at that but none of the other sites have ever brought us a direct customer.
LABLynx, Inc. wants to thank LIMSfinder.com for providing amazing value to users and suppliers alike in the LIMS market place.”
“Posted by: John H. Jones | October 17, 2004”
John H. Jones is the President of LabLynx, Inc., an Atlanta-based LIMS vendor.
We subsequently noticed a recent posting on the LIMSfinder Web site promoting their own “Free 2006 LIMS Buyers Guide & Market Survey,” along with the exhortation: “With this resource, there is no need to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars for information that the users and vendors supply for free.”
As a point of disclosure, Reed Business Information, parent company of Scientific Computing magazine, publishes the “LIMS Watch Report,” an extensive analysis of the LIMS market based on interviews with some 750 respondents. This survey is marketed by Reed Business Information. The information in the survey is not provided by vendors, as the survey target was to ascertain the perception of vendors in the market, and their customer’s level of satisfaction with vendors in a broad number of categories.
John H. Jones had been keenly interested in the complexion of the proprietary LIMS Watch Report survey developed by Reed Business Information. Note Jones’s email to Scientific Computing requesting information about the survey:
From: John Jones
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 5:04 PM
To: (Scientific Computing)
Subject: 2005 LIMS Watch Vendor Report
Can I get a copy of the questions that make up this survey? I get somewhat of a flavor for them from the TOC that is provided but I would like to get more specifics. Also, is there overlap between the Vendor Report and the Market Watch Report? In other words, is the Market Watch a subset of the Vendor Report?
Thanks,
John H. Jones
President — LABLynx, Inc.
Curiously, Jones chastised the survey process in an earlier posting to a LIMS Mailing List:
From: [email protected] On Behalf Of John Jones
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 1:07 PM
Subject: RE: LIMSList- New Comprehensive Survey Of LIMS Users
“…That being said, I don’t see how these numerous and labor intensive LIMS surveys can be statistically meaningful. They actually seem more to be a marketing vehicle for LIMS vendors or a product to be sold to lims purchasers (and lord help ’em if they make decisions based upon a non-scientific survey). Unless the survey is made up of thousands of respondents, I don’t see how such a labor intensive survey can be meaningful…
That’s my 2 cents.
John”
We return to “Ephraim Gadsby” once more. “Gadsby” went on in separate blog entries to blast another LIMS vendor, Autoscribe, Ltd., at the URL: www.limsfinder.com/community/blog_detail.php?id=2732_0_2_0_C, and then took a shot at Scientific Computing’s 2005 Products of the Year at: www.limsfinder.com/community/blog_detail.php?id=30245_0_25_0_C.
In the latter, “Gadsby” states: “First, I noticed that Everyone’s a winner who is on the list…of advertisers.
Editor’s note: Of the 44 products listed in the awards, only 19 belong to companies who have advertised in Scientific Computing. It is, from our perspective, logical that some winners would have advertised in one of the leading international journals.
Second, there are 5 LIMS vendors that have won the award. When you think of an award, you usually think of first, second and third place awards but in this case they don’t have 3 ranked winners, they have 5 winners with apparently the same rank. You don’t want to slight your advertisers now do you.”
More from “Gadsby”…
If you follow the link: http://labsoftnews.typepad.com/lab_soft_news/2005/12/exploring_the_l.html, you will note yet more praise of LIMSfinder.com from “Gadsby.”
“Take a look at www.limsfinder.com. LIMSfinder is far superior to LIMSource in terms of the most timely and accurate information on LIMS.
Posted by: Ephraim Gadsby | January 18, 2006 at 08:42 PM”
Once again, the effusive praise of LIMSfinder by “Gadsby” seemed to be a bit over the top, and quite curious to us. Oddly, when you click on the “Ephraim Gadsby” hyperlink in the URL listed above, it takes you to…. www.limsfinder.com .
We couldn’t help but wonder, is there a connection between LIMSfinder, “Gadsby,” and LabLynx president, John H. Jones?
The Internet is a two-edged sword; it can allow quick dissemination of information and the ability to lurk in the shadows. However, in skilled hands, footprints left in the sands of the Internet can be traced, even when people are trying to be discrete.
Remember Mr. Jones’ effusive praise of LIMSfinder.com, and how it benefited his company, LABLynx, in a way that print media never could? A DNS lookup of www.lablynx.com and www.limsfinder.com turned up some remarkable coincidences:
• The I.P. address for the LABLynx server is 209.132.240.36.
• The I.P. address for the LIMSfinder server is 209.132.240.36.
Editor’s note: Since it is possible that, after Scientific Computing publishes this story, these server locations may be changed, you can view documentation of these shared IP addresses at: www.scimag.com/limsfinderip.gif.
• The address given for LABLynx is in Atlanta, GA
• The address given for LIMSFINDER is a P.O. Box in Smyrna, GA, a northwestern suburb of Atlanta.
• From a Yellow Pages lookup, the address given for one John H. Jones is in Smyrna, GA.
• LabLynx, W3Markets, Inc. (which owns www.LIMSfinder.com), and LIMSfinder all have used the same Domain Registrar to register their domain names and are using the same Web hosting company for their Domain sites.
• And, following these hyperlinks for LabLynx, Inc. information, we see that they are hosted on the W3Markets server:
www.w3markets.com/lablynxold/contactus.asp
www.w3markets.com/lablynxold/services.asp
www.w3markets.com/lablynxold/default.asp
It therefore seems obvious that the LIMSfinder site that John H. Jones praises repeatedly is, in fact, his own Web site.
It gets better. The president of W3Markets, Inc., who you’ll recall operates LIMSfinder.com, is listed as Allen C. Jones, of Pensacola, FL. Allen C. Jones is the father of John H. Jones.
Scientific Computing feels it is reasonable to conclude that there are too many coincidences suggesting a LABLynx/LIMSfinder connection to assume the two are not connected. And that is quite probably an understatement given the familial link above.
LabLynx, Inc. is not an advertising sponsor of Scientific Computing magazine. But the concept that a LIMS vendor is somehow connected with a supposedly independent LIMS Web site seemed distasteful to John H. Jones. Here, there is a dialogue on a LIMS Mailing List server, hosted by Taratec Development Corporation, whereby Jones and another writer seem to identify a link between another LIMS vendor and a LIMS information Web site:
From: [email protected] On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 9:31 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: LIMSList- LIMS Network
“Hello All,
I’ve gotten some email this past week from a site called LIMS Network. I’m trying to figure out what it’s all about.
1. Has anyone here used it, before?
2. How would you compare it to the sites we already have, such as LIMSource and LIMSFinder?…”
From: [email protected] On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 2:05 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: LIMSList- LIMS Network
At 12:11 PM 7/31/2005, you wrote:
My brief research using “Who Is” shows that the site is hosted at Labvantage. It may be owned and operated by labvantage. In any event another internet based LIMS resource is a good thing for all concerned (unless you are in the business of selling advertisements). This site seems to be free and open albeit, it has clearly lifted almost all of its content from LIMSource and LIMSfinder. We don’t need more “me too” stuff but something that is unique and provides value to the LIMS community.
From: [email protected] On Behalf Of John Jones
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 10:26 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: RE: LIMSList- LIMS Network
Gloria,
I tend agree with you on this.
It is interesting that Labvantage is “running” this new site. I did a tracert on it when I first got the email and it is definitely provided if not directly by Labvantage, then by those “affiliated” with it. This in and of itself is not a problem at all unless you are a competing supplier who ends up paying labvantage for advertising on the site. Personally, I don’t have a problem with it as long as it is free for all the Labvantage competitors. They will be helping everyone, to a point.
However, I do agree that if you end up with a bunch of LIMS web sites all competing with one another, like the umpteen million LIMS companies, then that will be a bit over the top for everyone and then no one finds any use in any of the sites. It will be the cyber equivalent of clucking hens.
John
So, it is curious that John H. Jones has the skills and ambition to perform a server search to run down what is alleged to be another company connected to a LIMS Web site, yet no information is, or has been, presented by Mr. Jones connecting the LIMSfinder.com server to the LabLynx server.
And, in early March 2006, ubiquitous flash advertisements for LabLynx, Inc. appeared on nearly every page of the LIMSfinder.com site. We could not determine if such prominent advertising space was available to all vendors.
We return to “Gadsby’s” comment to our Laboratory Informatics contributing writer, Randy C. Hice:
“…by the way, the author says that I am employed by LIMSfinder.com. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not get paid to write or get paid in any way by LIMSfinder.”
In the strictest sense of the word, “employed” can be construed as receiving a payroll check from LIMSfinder. However, one could technically not be employed by LIMSfinder, yet still benefit from the revenue stream, if, for example, one had a relative or relatives who benefited from LIMSfinder.
In this intricate web of coincidence, inferences, innuendo and cold, hard facts, we have a portrait of a LIMS vendor who apparently has a financial interest in, and control of the editorial content of a supposedly independent LIMS information Web site. This Web site openly states that paid sponsors will increase their visibility and “rank” as they continue to publish and post articles to the Web site, thus potentially increasing the viability and, hence, financial value of the site. However, it can be argued that this skews the relative merits of the vendors toward self-promotion, and toward adding marketable content to the Web site.
Sponsors advertising on LIMSfinder, many of which are LIMS vendors, likely had no idea before reading this that one of their competitors apparently — directly or indirectly — runs the site. Thus, they are contributing to the financial success of their competitor, while that competitor dubiously sits near the top of the rankings. Readers are being misled, since it is not apparent that rankings within the site are skewed in two ways. The first is that certain vendor listings appear at the top of pages by virtue of having paid a sponsorship to LIMSfinder.com. The second is that vendors are encouraged to “publish” articles on the site, and those who self-publish the greatest number of items are elevated in the listing ranks based upon this number. The latter is presumably an enticement to vendors to publish frequently in order to lend viability to the Web site. The real danger is that readers are unknowingly receiving this information from a vendor-controlled source.
So, we have a LIMS vendor who has never admitted a linkage with LIMSfinder, who freely banters back and forth on the merits of this Web site with a fictional creation, “Ephraim Gadsby.” A character created and perpetually relegated to the shadows in order to provide an invisible proponent to exchange effusive banter in support of the Web site, while attacking vendors, consultants and other media who present a threat to the business of a particular LIMS vendor, or the Web site itself. While we make no suggestion here that a vendor’s operation of such a Web site is illegal, it is highly unethical and misleading to not disclose this. I’m sure sponsors and users of the LIMSfinder Web site will agree — particularly if they unwittingly invested advertising dollars with a competitor, or made buying decisions based on advice and opinions from a purportedly independent source.
The readers who peruse the writings of a supposedly insightful author in the LIMS field should have been asking from day one why this person had to mask his true identity, and why those behind the LIMSfinder Web site go to such lengths to “protect” their identities. When all of the elements of fact and reasonable deduction are brought into confluence, the mystery is really not a mystery at all.
John Jones, President of LabLynx, Inc., did not return our call or reply to our e-mail seeking comment on his involvement with the LIMSfinder Web site.
