As you’ve probably noticed because we are a twitter focused site and have nothing but good things to say about Noah Kravitz (or Aaron Baker for that matter) we started savenoahkravitz.com.
Kravitz, Editor at Large over at technobuffalo.com and Phonedog are involved in a lawsuit of sorts. As Kravitz says in our interview below, this was originally about money owed to him. In response Phonedog sued Kravitz over the twitter account @noahkravitz which was originally created by Kravitz as @phonedog_noah.
Noah lets set the record straight your writing career didn’t start or end at phonedog right?
I was first paid for an article back when I was in high school – I forget exactly, but I think it was my senior year, so that’s 1990-91. The Capital District Sports Review of Albany, NY hired me as a stringer. It was amazing. Now you can find my stuff on TechnoBuffalo.com
More after the break
2. So when you joined Phonedog you brought Noah Kravitz to the table?
Well, it was a remote set up so it’s more like I brought myself to the monitor 😉 I had done a bunch of freelance tech writing before, mainly about a company I won’t mention here on a Droid-centric site (!). I answered an ad on HowardForums looking for phone reviewers. That started the relationship with PhoneDog. At the time I was also still writing for PowerBookCentral (now PBCentral.com), and doing a few other non-journalism writing gigs here and there.
3. So did Phonedog ask you for your Twitter account back?
No. They asked if I would tweet on their behalf after I left, after we agreed the account was mine and the handle was changed and a new @phonedog_noah account was created (it’s currently protected and, I believe, follower-less). I tweeted for them every time they asked me to. About eight months after I left, in the Summer of 2011, I was served with a lawsuit that asked for the account, amongst other things.
I felt and still feel that they owe me money based on the contract they offered me years before. They started paying me and then stopped. I had to retain legal counsel to go after what I feel is fairly owed to me. They decided to sue me over the Twitter account.
I love Aaron like a brother. The man threatened to fight Spanish gangsters on my behalf, how could I not love him? As for who’s involved in the suit on PhoneDog’s end, you’ll have to ask them.
There’s a lot of good out there, so don’t let relationships gone bad get you down. Deal honestly with people, protect yourself, and as I’m learning the hard way, get EVERYTHING in writing, and make sure it’s signed and countersigned. When we agreed that the twitter account belonged to me and I said, Sure I’ll tweet for you guys, we were still on good terms. At the time it felt like assurance enough. Apparently not. I suppose in business it’s vital to get everything on paper.
