Update:

Last night, after I had posted And The Winners Are...I heard back from Harlan Kilstein, in response to my interview request. Because of a difference in philosophies, we mutually agreed not to do an interview.

For everyone who voted for Harlan, I thought you deserved an update and an explanation.

In my post Who Should I interview Next? You may recall that I said I was going to attempt to interview the top 3 votegetters.

Well, there was actually a 5-way tie. And since all 5 votegetters were on my radar screen to be interviewed anyway, I elected to keep all 5.

But I only announced 4 winners. That's because one of the winners was Matt Marshall. And Matt declined to be interviewed, for his own personal reasons. So out of the 5 actual winners, I was able to secure an interview with 3 of them. Hey...I'll take that percentage any day of the week!

I also received a couple of PM's wanting to know how I select who I'm going to interview.

I thought that was an excellent question, so I decided to share the answer with you here.

Since GuruKnowledge.org is technically an article directory, the first thing I look for is, does the guru write articles?

The reason this is my first criteria is because long after the interview has been forgotten, the gurus articles will still be there to inform and entertain.

If the guru doesn't write articles, the other criteria I look for is level of respect. How respected is this guru within his or her chosen field.

The last criteria I look for is "buzz." How interesting is the guru? If I were a visitor to my site, would I be interested in what this guru had to say?

Do my personal feelings ever get involved. No, because it's not about me, it's about my readers.

So even if I don't personally like someone, if I feel he or she can help my readers, I will attempt to get an interview.

Anyway, to those people who PM'd me, I hope I've answered your question.

All the best,
Dale King

Matt, I knew there was something I liked about you.

And by the way Dale, it's bad forum behavior to post peoples' PM without their permission.

Hi my friend,

So I agree Doc is right, but I am to believe that you made this without having bad intention, (some time when we are enthousiat we just forget some choices), Now repear what you do with the concerned, and please let read more, never let this bloque you, we are all Human.

I believe in privacy, because it is the essence (sprit) of marketing, copywriting and anything in this life.

No way , Smile my friend because I believe that beside this you make a good job here.

Peace.

Abdellah my friend, I did NOT have any bad intentions when I posted those PM's, but you and Harlan are absolutely right.

So allow me to take this opportunity to apologize to Harlan and Matt for posting those PM's. I sincerely meant no harm. Now, I'd also like the opportunity to explain my motives.

Since the voting was done in a public forum, I thought it was important to provide full disclosure of the proceeding's.

I felt people would want to know why certain winners weren't being interviewed.

Also, I didn't find anything particularly embarrassing or personal about the PM's I received, otherwise, I would have never posted them.

In fact, I thought Matt's remark about Michael Morgan was funny as hell. That's why I posted his PM. Matt agrees! He and Michael have no problem with what I did.

Be that as it may, in hindsight, in my exuberance to provide full disclosure, I made an error in judgement. For that I am truly sorry. I know you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but I will revise my post immediately.

All the best,
Dale King

Dale, I justed wanted to say, I think you're a class act.

Eileen:

Coming from you, those words mean a lot! Thank you!

All the best,
Dale King