Loren Feldman, of 1938 Media, has put an end to the Shel Israel puppet game.
In his post from Saturday evening entitled Open Letter to Shel Israel: It’s Over, Feldman announces the end of the dispute to Shel:
When I first started my career, you made it a point to bury me online, and more importantly back channel as well. This is a fact. You and your crew went out of your way to take food off my plate. I never forgot that, and now you have something you’ll never forget. You chose to blame Mike Arrington, Jason Calacanis, and myself when you should have been blaming yourself. Mike is busy taking on AP and the NY Times. Jason is taking on Google. I’m taking on TV, do you think anyone of us have the time or even give a shit enough about you to plot a conspiracy? Your arrogance and self importance is truly staggering. You brought this upon yourself through your own stupidity and by being mean.
People like the puppet more than you because he is more real than you are. More honest than you are, smarter than you are. More human than you are. People want the Shel puppet to win. The same can’t be said for you my friend.
In the comments on Feldman’s site, Shel quickly writes “Deal. I don’t have your email address Loren. Send me what you need to send at shelisrael1@gmail.com and we will be done with this.”.
As of the time of this article’s publication, on early Monday morning here in the United States, the Shel Israel website is still showing puppet videos. It will be interesting to see how long it will take before Shel actually gets the site moved and under his control.
The whole Loren Feldman / Shel Israel saga now moves into a time of reflection. In my mind, the real story here is how a supposed Social Media & Blogging Expert gets outsmarted at his own game by a Videographer from NYC. But then again, we already know the answer to that story.
Feldman has made it clear that his next puppet “target” is Dave Winer.
