Yesterday, Danny Sullivan released a fairly detailed article named Reflections On SEMPO. The article eloquently summarizes the challenges presented to the organization over the past year. I am not going to summarize Danny's article, if you have time and your looking for an outstanding recap of what took place, please click on the link to his article above.
The article ended with the subtitle "Departing The Advisory Board". Where Danny announces that Chris Sherman and himself will be stepping down from the SEMPO Advisory Board. I personally believe that this is a good thing for Danny, Chris and the Search Engine Watch readership. This is however a major blow to SEMPO's credibility, which is mentioned at the Search Engine Watch thread named Danny Sullivan leaves SEMPO started by Mike Grehan, who was instrumental in pointing out SEMPOs problematic areas.
The article is being talked about all over the Internet. Here are some blogs that are 'blogging' on the topic; John Battelle, Andy Beal, Kim Krause, and others. The forums are also buzzing with chatter on this topic, including Search Engine Watch, Cre8asite, WebmasterWorld, JimWorld, I am sure you can expect some posts over at HighRankings, IHelpYou and others shortly.
My thoughts? I totally understand why Danny and Chris needed to leave. I also feel that people might take this the wrong way. I am sure both Danny and Chris want the best for SEMPO but being in their position, they could not stay onboard in an "official capacity". Will SEMPO succeed and live on? Seems highly unlikely now. This does sadden me, I feel there was a lot of potential for an organization like SEMPO in the SEM community. In addition, the failure of SEMPO does not look to good for the industry and will add to the reputation problem in the SEM industry. Danny and Chris being such a large part of the SEM industry would not want to see the the SEM reputation get even worse then it is.
I am sure there will be a few more entries from me in the coming days on this topic.
