Google Blogoscoped

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Mark Jen Indeed Fired for Blogging

I could confirm yesterday that blogger Mark Jen isn’t working for Google anymore. There was still some minor doubt he was fired, and that his blogging was the cause of that, but Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo talked to him and it turns out that this was indeed the case (emphasis mine):

“Believe it or not, I met Mark tonight (...) and had a chance to chat with him about his brief time at Google and various other things. I’m not going to reveal everything we discussed, but I would like to clarify a few things and respond to John’s request for [comments].

First off, nothing Mark said surprised me. Yes, he was fired from Google. It was directly related to his blog. He was employed there for just a couple of weeks.

Mark’s a good guy. He doesn’t believe he was doing anything wrong (neither do I based on what he told me). In fact, he wasn’t even aware of the blogosphere’s Google obsession – or at least the search bloggers who watch every little thing Google does – until this happened. Let’s just say that he was surprised by his sudden fame.”

There were mixed reactions by those observing the short rise to fame of Mark Jen. Marc Antony in the forum commented:

“New employee on the job starts a blog and starts posting details about his workplace the very first day?

Most employers have some sort of ’probationary’ period to evaluate the employee. Obviously this clown never considered that first impressions count.

At least Google got a chance to see from day one that they had hired someone who could apparently not [exercise] good judgment. A fine way to make an impression on your new employer – after your first week describing their well-publicized perks as ’thinly veiled timesavers to keep you at work’.

Amazing they let him stay on as long as they did.”

Nathan Weinberg on the other hand writes:

“I’m [disappointed]. Not because Google had no right, because it certainly was understandable, but because Google never saw Mark Jen as an opportunity. They could have gotten all of us off their back with just one honest company blogger, and they fired him instead.”

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