White Digital Media review: Advertising Scam 26

Hello, my name is Eric Johnson, and I am the Group Editorial Director for White Digital Media. I’m writing this to refute the completely untrue claims being published and distributed that our company is anything but a legitimate company engaged in the digital publishing business. It’s our belief that these postings were perpetrated by employees of our competition who appear to be threatened by the success we’ve had serving the marketplace. I suppose we must be doing something right to inspire such a desperate attempt to discredit us.

Here are links to the magazines which supposedly do not exist:
http://www.constructiondigital.com/magazines/3467
http://www.manufacturingdigital.com/magazines/3464
I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as we’ve enjoyed producing them. They are digital magazines which mean they are read online—just as you are doing right now. Each magazine is clearly titled “DIGITAL” and there is no attempt to represent anything other than our digital means of publication.
We are proud of the service we provide our customers. In fact, if you are a client with a complaint or a question, you may call me directly at [protected]. That’s my direct line. I’m delighted to speak with you. Or if you’d rather, you can email me at e.johnson@whitedm.com. Finally, feel free to connect with me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001186029560.

You see, we have no reason to create a fictitious name or names and post silly, frivolous attacks on the web. We’re too busy serving our clients to attempt this type of character assassination on any of our competitors.

Thank you for your time and attention. I hope you will enjoy the magazines. You’ll be in good company!
Best Regards,
Eric Johnson

Interesting that Glen White fired Eric Johnson - huh - was he maybe being too honest. White Digital is a complete sham of a business. Customers and employees beware.

Hello I am writing here as a previous employee of this organization. To be honest I knew something was fishy here from the moment I got hired.
I worked at their Toronto Office, (Mississauga) and must say this company has a similair turn-over rate to that of those "Craiglist hiring 15 people immediatley companies" that dissapear in a matter of weeks.
I wouldn't say that they treat there employees poorly because I would be lying, on the other hand they probably have the most unethical business model I have seen. These people hire a group of young adults (20-30) with a very poor level of education and train them on how to lie to CEO's and various managing officers within an organization, then they spend days usually convincing them of the authenticity of there "projects" otherwise known as "industry reports". They tend to gain trust from the companys by targeting associations to which these 25 Million+ companies belong to and use their name and logo to gain leverage with them in return for these associations recieving free exposure in which many cases few do and end up being left bare handed. Once the company complies to participate they ask for a suppliers list from the company which they forward to the sales team and have them bombard the companies suppliers and harass them into purchasing over priced advertising to a rather useless magazine with a rather non existant readership, but the important thing is that they rake up advertising dollars comparable to those of reputable magazines from these companies that are hoping to get genuine exposure in these difficult economic times. Yes they are a bunch of con's and the biggest one being Glen White their "CEO", who attempts to charm CEO'S with his British accent and honestly belives that he is a pragmatic businessman. The pawns in this food chain are called "Senior Channel Directors" otherwise known as List-Generators with fancy sounding self appointed titles, keep in mind most of these "Senior Channel Directors" are about 25 and truthfully are a poorly educated bunch that attempts to woe these C-Level executives into participating by flaunting their "Senior" position within the company and by reading a poorly written script that the majority of these goofs have memorized. If there is anything you can do, just stay away from them. If there is anything else any of you would like to know feel free to email me at isljukic @ mail.com I will answer any of your unanswered questions about this organization. I have no harsh feelings towards this company on the other hand and do stress that was treated well as an employee, but their business model is simply disgusting.

You do not want to work for this company! Please do your research before getting hired with this place!

White Digital Media is as scam! THey now call themselves WDM Group... I wonder why they are changing their name.. Maybe for a reason!

I worked with White Digital Media for three months as a social media intern last summer in their Carlsbad “headquarters.” I don’t know what has changed since then so please don’t think this is a conclusive view of how things are now; I just want to give potential employees or clients an idea of what I saw in my brief time there.

Since this was my first internship while I was finishing up school, I didn’t know what to expect from a company, but I immediately found it odd that in the marketing department, everyone sat around their own laptop, headphones in, creating fake social media profiles (with fake names) and commenting on articles from the various WDM properties, to create the illusion that people were reading the articles. As far as I know, it’s still happening now. If you look through any of the company’s FB pages, it’s just employees talking to each other.

Honestly, these social media “initiatives” took up about 95% of my time there. To get credit for my internship, I had to make up extra responsibilities since they felt (as did I) that I learned nothing, and spent my time doing vaguely unethical things.
Occasionally we would get a break from this and were instead tasked with going through other digital magazines and taking snapshots of their paid Front of Book ads, so that we could then put them in our “magazines” to give people the impression that we had the same advertisers as more established competitors. I never knew if this was completely legal, though I had a feeling it was at the very least grossly unethical.

As to the complaints about Glen White, I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but on the occasions I would see him in the office, he was screaming at someone about this or that. I got a very Napoleonic vibe from him.

If you read any of the press releases put out by the company (they put out thousands, though few are ever read by anyone other than the woman at the press release company), they talk about how great their internship program is and that it leads to full time employment, which as far as I could see was true, since interns with no experience were immediately promoted to “managers” and “editors” and "project managers", though at intern wages. The program goes something like this: intern for three months on very little pay (at the time $100 per week), then becoming a temp employee for another three months while you’re still paid next to nothing and are not eligible for any benefits, and then after those come on as a full time employee, though still making less than a full time WalMart Cashier.

I had a different kind of experience working here. Nothing really great to say. I did do a lot of research before accepting the position, but couldn't find anything like this posted on the internet I sure wish I had. The owner, Glen White, is the most unpleasant person I've ever encountered. Constantly belittling people with harch profanity. I also witnessed several unethical business practices. Several aspects of the company were set up to mislead perspective clientele, or as they like to call them... "Suspects" Wow.

Been working with WDM since January. Not as horrible as these boards suggest. Only here till find something else or get fired so I can get unemployment (more likely outcome). To the above poster, we no longer borrow ads from other magazines, for the most part. This changed around time I started. Want proof? Look in magazines. No advertising! If we had more readers or prices that reflected our status as an unknown company, we might be able sell ads.

Overall I'm happy with my experience here. Less than a month after I started I was able to participate in a massive email and social media marketing campaign that reached millions of people, though only a few hundred seemed to have read the email. We went viral! All employees were told to email a pre-written message promoting Exec Digital (which was HILARIOUS!, who says GW doesn't have a sense of humour) to everyone in our Outlook contact list (clients, friends, co-workers, any contact), and then also send the same message to everyone in our personal email and social media accounts (which was even funnier because it was written the way we talk to our friends lmfao!) and if someone was acting like a loser and didn't want to participate, they had orders to talk to Glen White, and presumably they would become BFF! LOL!

The email promoted our "exclusive" article on Simon Cowell. If by "exclusive" you think we were the only magazine to have an interview with him, you'd be wrong, because we never interviewed him! Hahaha! LOL! And he was written about in every magazine at time. Now that's funnier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest! LOL!

Since I've been here, about 25 people have been fired or quit in this office alone; most recently the advertising department; 1 fired, 1 quit. Why? Ask people why they aren't with WDM (most of who are probably writing these stupid things about the company) and they'll give you some answer about a used car salesman with sociopathic tendencies and a junior college education. Truth is, they couldn't handle this! Losers! LOL! This is digital media, and it's a fast paced world! Losers need not apply. It doens't matter that no one has heard of us and we can't sell advertising; we still need to act like it is!

Get this: after one group of designers was fired for asking for overtime pay (really? suck it up and do your job!) and then forced to sign agreements to stay quiet, another group was hired to replace them, and that group didn't make it past a month! Can you believe one of the designers was working 16+ hours and quit because it was "too much"? If you can't handle this world, don't apply!

If the world doesn't know Glen White, CEO of White Digital Media, just yet, through his media empire or amazing contribution to writing (Brand Bieber anyone?), you will, because once we release BF (Business Friend) on the world, WATCH OUT! LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ (ESPECIALLY Google+, and the rest of Google)--you should cash out now cause we coming for you!~ Oh, and Groupon, Foursquare, Twitter, Mashable: look out too because we have other products that will put you to shame!

Funny thing about LinkedIn. I don't know why, but it seems like everyone here around the office has been updating their profiles with recommendations & experience, like their trying to leave or something! WTF? Oh well; I've already skipped ahead 5 years in the food chain in the months that I've been here, next step COO! Or, **fingers crossed**, Assistant to Glen White (actual title of position here; now vacant). And just to think I only graduated last December! Thank you GW! You're the best!

***Sorry, the accounting department is gone, not advertising.

A very horrible and negative company, and the problem is the CEO. I worked here and was shocked at how bad each employee was treated, and the turn-over rate is outragous! DO.NOT. WORK. HERE! They hire recent college grads who are less expensive than seasoned professionals and because recent college grads are unaware that what this company does is unethical and borderline illegal-they once tried to get a group of employees to create fake facebook profiles-from home! Within three months of working for this company the Marketing Manager and IT Manager both left, they primarily hire interns since they are free and do not want to pay anyone a resonable salary, and recenly the EA to the CEO has left as well. This is a company that seriously needs to be reviewed by the BBB. Absolutely the worst company culture, the pay is extremely low, such ambibuity nobody knows what anyone is doing or who they are since new people come/go so often you can never keep track of who your co-workers are, the hours are outragous. I'm not sure of a worst company in San Diego to work for.

I agree with the comments, even though WDM group is a legitimate business, The magazines that they advertised are foreign to readers globally, WDM group is capitalizing in peoples ignorance, and I trouble to see what they are doing with the vendor list the acquire from companies world wide, they have already built a data base of hundreds of thousand and selling it to other companies.
Even though the company is legit it is a scam and is based on lies since nobody in this planet receives such publications.

WDM Group is a overall dud of a company.

Well at least the Toronto office finally closed. This was a combination of things. First and foremost, there wasn't any real leaders at the Toronto office, the two in charge when I was there were two twenty-something year olds who looked they were put in those positions because they were no other options. Congrads to the Canadian business industry who are the first country to wise up and realize that Glen Whites business and his flunky's are nothing more than a bunch of UK based fools who operate a flat, boring, and un-inspiring company that has zero advantages of being featured in their magazines.

Right off the bat they have a terrible product. The websites, digital magazines, featured articles are all below average and look they they were created by twenty something year old...and...oh wait they are. Employees don’t feel valued. They say recognition breeds feelings of value and loyalty. Not here. Employees are told to work weekends and one night a week extra for what they call "Research Night"...time and time again I would tell them the industry isn't big enough to constantly maintain their unrealistic call stats they never listened, proving the dumbest way to conduct a business model. Their business model is "throw ### against the wall and see what sticks" type of business. There’s no room for advancement unless you were the 5 or 6 guys that kissed Glen Whites ### when he started the company, they get the company cars and higher paid salaries but all of them live off the hard work of the list generators that are making 32-35k a year. Nothing extinguishes passion quite like the feeling of being paid less than you deserve. All employees are not being challenged with realistic goals, just the goals that the Managers think you should do, which is the main problem. A lack of meaningful, challenging work is certain to breed disdain.

stay well clear of WDM they are even attacking companies in Australia making out that they will produce a quality mag with a readership that ulitmately doesnt exist it is shameful and is damaging to the publicaiton industry. you ###ing [censored] glen white, you can stick your dodgy scammy company up your ###! Funny thing is they have a mag called business review australia and it is the [censored]test scammiest piece of crap i have ever laid eyes on, to top it all off they dont even have poffices here, they ring from india and canada or some ###, ###ing jokers.

Worst experience of my life working for this company.

Anyone that has worked for WDM Group and actually has anything positive to say about them is a fool and I feel sorry for you. This company has been slowly sinking for years. That why their owner created Business Friend, he knows this ship is sinking. When the turnover rate is this high and the company can't even pay their employees on time because any money was dumped into Business Friend says everything about their company. Their office in Toronto closed, and so did one of their international offices in Mumbai. The company is nothing more than a complete joke.

I worked for white digital media for over five years. Coffee is for closers and it does not sound like they are any on this post. I made a boat load of money working for them. I never felt that the magazines were half bad, Glenn White was always big on editorial content. Yes you got to make a lot of phone calls but you can make up to %12 of your sales. If you get an article setup with a big company their suppliers line up to buy advertising. As far as management it was better then most jobs I have worked at big or small.

No Glen White made a "boat load" of money while you got paid the scraps...thats the problem with the sales team, they think they are getting solid commissions but don't realize that its so low compared to commission rates offered by offer companies. They don't know any better. I saw a guy make 6, 000k in commission and was happy with that but made WDM group 100k in sales...think about that payback?...I just made you 100k and all I get from that is 6, 000 dollars. Is that what a "boat load" of money is...I guess it is if you're broke and 6k helps pays some bills but to professionals its a jacking. I heard the Boston office were a bunch of boiler room idiots that were too stupid to even know they were being screwed. Perfect employees for them. Any honest person who has morals knows WDM Group is nothing more than a smoke and mirror [censored]-show.

I feel so sorry for the person WDM007 who posted on here...this is textbook stupid that this person would actually believe the nonsense he/said wrote...lets take a look shall we since enough time was past.

"Been working with WDM since January. Not as horrible as these boards suggest."...then you are a complete ###. You are probably some young 20 year old that still lives at home with Mom and Dad so they little money you do make covers your bills.

"Truth is, they couldn't handle this! Losers! LOL! This is digital media, and it's a fast paced world! Losers need not apply. It doens't matter that no one has heard of us and we can't sell advertising; we still need to act like it is!"...this is Glen Whites model employee everyone take note.

"Get this: after one group of designers was fired for asking for overtime pay (really? suck it up and do your job!) Can you believe one of the designers was working 16+ hours and quit because it was "too much"? If you can't handle this world, don't apply!"...Yes companies pay overtime pay when they have to work more, not unheard of...except for WDM Group who thinks they should keep working.

And my all time fav..."once we release BF (Business Friend) on the world, WATCH OUT! LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ (ESPECIALLY Google+, and the rest of Google)--you should cash out now cause we coming for you!~ Oh, and Groupon, Foursquare, Twitter, Mashable: look out too because we have other products that will put you to shame!...wow...this idiot actually thinks this...I was there when they launched BusinessFriend, they made all the employees fill out a profile...its been well over a year now since it launched and its crappy now as it was back than...its a flop...they have blown over 300k on this, and it hasn't and wont go anywhere...do you really think any of those companies see BF as any threat what-so-ever...I'm simply blown away but the stupidity of people.

Glen White has an ego so I'm going to assume he trolls through these reports and reads these and I have a direct message for you. You got lucky, you started something right when digital magazines got hot, thats all. You're like a successful used car saleman...Business Friend isn't your idea, its a combination of Facebook/LinkedIn that was done over 10 years ago. How does it feel knowing that everyone knows its crap?, that your magazines are crap, ?...so sit back with your money you made and smile Glen, but you are not successful because your a smart innovator, you're simply...lucky.

Haha...you know Glen White invented Twitter before the guys who invented it did...he wanted to call it Glitter...

BusinessFriend has been a complete disaster for wdm. They have changed the entire model now because noone cared about it, its not some lame app...or something...its hard to even tell what it is...I'm sure they dont even know...but hey, It feels cool knowing that glen dumped 225k into this and its gone no where.

I agree...Glen Whites Business Friend is a complete joke, was, and still is. I had to sit through this meeting where their marketing rep and their developer who created this with Glen presented it to all of us and bragged how it was going to be the next big thing and how they were already sales projections, and who they were going to target, and even a back up plan of companies like Facebook or Twitter in case they legally came after them. The balls on these guys!. I laughed at the entire presentation and knew it wasn't going to take off. Fast forward 18 months later...the marketing rep no longer works there, the developer now knows its crap and Glen and his company have lost alot of money and re-designed Business friend into some sort of confusing app that noone will care about. Glen is a dinosaur, ran into a developer who had an idea and he then proceeded to take the hard generated money of employee's and put it towards a failed venture. Cheques were always late getting to the office because so much money was dumped into this. It feels good knowing that its flopped, and feels even better knowing WDM Group continues to get smaller, and smaller...closing offices across the globe...really puts a smile on my face. All the negative posts about WDM are true. It really is a horrible environment to work in, a company with no real value. The upper managers are a joke, they reminded me of that scene in The Wolf of Wallstreet where Jordan Belfort teaches his uneducated cronies to read off a script to sell their crappy penny stocks.

Oh they are continuing to dump money into BusinessFriend...its sad if it weren't so funny...they devote an entire section of the office to it...everyone knows its a joke and its a running theme in and around the office...whenever we see Glen we all laugh at him...he's such a tiny little hobbit its fun to see him come in everyday so we can laugh at him...

White Digital Media, then WDM Group, now known as BizClik Media. What a scam of a company. Don't waste your time working here or even considering working here. Glen White is everything listed here - a narcissistic, abusive and stupid man who has no direction or any reasoning behind any of his decisions. He's completely delusional and, quite frankly, a horrific human being.

Bizclik Media as they are now known are a company that claims to be a disruptive digital media company, the only thing they are disrupting is the sane minds of good people. An oppressive and power hungry CEO Glenn White rules the company with an Iron Fist. Surrounding himself with lap dog senior managers with no balls to make a decision on their own. They recently made the press in the UK in regards to a dodgy looking russian website that claimed to pay people to write negative reviews on glassdoor in order to dupe glassdoor to remove genuine reviews that had been left from disgruntled previous employees. As soon as the story went live and the denied to comment on the accusations the website mysteriously disappeared, coincidence? I will let you decide.