The Real FAQ!

If this stuff is real, why on earth haven't I heard of it before?
Don't get us started on this subject! --rant ahoy!
How would you like to work like crazy for decades on end doing amazing things with technology, only to have people not even know you exist! You can lay the whole thing on the pile of goo called journalists/reporters.

First off these people can't find a story unless it's dropped directly on their faces pre-written for them. In order for that to happen a PR company usually has to get a nice chuck of money to get the attention of these "investigative" people. If it's not on their desks or being talked about in mass then odds are they have no clue and have no intention to search on their own. Most of the stuff you read about is (lightly) reworked press releases that shoot directly to them via wire services. (more money) Did you know that even all those mail order catalogs you receive charge big bucks to show the products? All those pictures and text you see about products are actually paid for like ads by the product makers. It's a big source of revenue for those mail order companies. Don't pay the money, don't get in the catalog, don't exist.

We've been around for decades and have tried everything, press conferences, trade shows, press releases, etc. Trade shows usually turned out to be most horrific for us. Meeting big time press people is quite an experience. Some of the most arrogant jerks we've ever met on this planet were press people. Years of getting their butts kissed non-stop truly has made these people special : ) Follow a press person around the next show you go to and see how the companies treat them. We've walked these shows and you could be talking seriously with a booth rep and the second a press person comes in you're as good as blown off. It gives you a bad feeling and we never do that to others at our shows.

The last trade show we did really was the last straw for us press wise. We paid the big bucks again and did a major show. Paid the over priced fleecing those shows always get you for. (want a small plastic wastebasket for 3 days? $240! No you can't bring your own, they watch! Don't even ask about a power strip) We set ourselves up nice and did days of having people walk right up off the street and control a video game with their brainwaves. After the show there was no mention of us there at all. What was mentioned were the toys given away at one booth, the magicians at another booth, the after show parties hosted by the big companies they ended up reporting on, etc. We had people controlling stuff with their brains right off the street!!!! No mention. One publication was there that we really respected and were smashed that they didn't accurately report all interesting things at the show. Only the big names were mentioned. The smaller booths got nothing. It was a shock.

We've had less luck with "reviewers". These people are quite used to butt kissing as well. And they're used to a constant stream of free products. Some of these people might be in the field just for the free stuff : ) We contacted many "reviewers" about our product. But the bottom line is if there's no free unit on it's way to them, there's no story. In the old days we used to send out review units. Some we never got back, some we had to chase after to get back for months on end, some came back smashed. It's very hard for companies like us. They just don't care, and they're used to taking home a lot of stuff.

After a while it became apparent that the press looks only at money, usually big money we never had anyway. So we decided long ago to put our money into the product instead of into the pockets of people that couldn't care less weather you live or die.

We've had press releases interpreted horribly by "reporters" and when we let them know the facts were wrong they didn't care because they already "finished" and were on to other things.

They also have no trouble at all ripping the copyright images and text right off our site, and using them as their own content. Without even taking 2 seconds to let us know.

Times have changed a bit though. The Internet came into play and now many small sites (the really small ones) actually care about the quality and accuracy of what they're talking about and they're not in it for the money or take home stuff. After all these years there's only been 2 times that we were impressed with the reporter. Once was with John C. Dvorak and the other time was with (eep, we can't find the site anymore!)

As you can tell we really don't dig the press very much and feel the world is a better place without such filters. Now that the internet is in town people can communicate directly with us and make their own opinions. We like it that way very much.

We know we're whining like itsy bitsy babies about this but we feel it's important that you understand a side of the media they never let you see. If you never heard of us after all our years of trying, imagine how many other companies and people are doing great things that you've never heard of as well.

-- this was the short version of our rant : )

Ok, a little more...
A recent horror story:

A news site ran a small article on us in which they copied a copyright picture of ours on their site, questioned publicly if IBVA was fake or not, and had a link to another one of our pictures from their forum.

It's probably a secret that a lot of companies are scared to death to ever speak against the media.

A lot of companies have to suffer with arrogant media people, people that don't fact-check or history-check (practically dirty words nowadays), people that really just want free stuff and will put a strike against you for not passing out expensive gifts of your product to them, etc.

We know you have to treat the media with kid gloves. As they don't tolerate anything. We sent a quick message letting them know that we thought. We counted 6 smiles like this : ) in that message we sent. They were there to make sure they understood that we were bringing this up with a friendly joking attitude. We disliked that they took our picture, linked another picture, and questioned if we were fakes.

So what response did we get for just bringing the issue up? (we made no demands or requests of them)

A horribly arrogant response that they could do whatever they wanted thanks to the law (they cited it for us). And that they would go out of their way to never run news about us ever again no matter what the type (story, comparison, press release, review, etc). Boycotting our company and product forever out of spite, simply for bringing the issue up.

Boycotting is exactly what most companies fear and why media people use it. The worst thing the media can do to a business is make it not exist.

If they took one minute of their time before running the article to send a quick note such as:

"Hey, I'm going to run an article on you guys but I'm really thinking you guys are a hoax. Can you e-mail me the Federal ID number of your company and/or a copy of the manual so I can just make sure this is real."

But instead they never contacted us and decided to question openly if we were a fake. I'm not sure why they would think we would see an article questioning if we were legitimate, and not respond to it to let them know we are. And that we would have preferred if they did a reasonable check (or any check) before putting such a thing in print. Even if they bothered to take an extra 5 minutes to go through our site they would have seen our gallery with 3 decades of pictures of the product history, the public trade shows we've done, the media coverage, etc.

So not only were they not putting any effort into checking their question/concern about us, which we feel is an important part of fairness and accuracy in the media, but we were punished for even bringing the issue up by being permanently banned.

We know freedom of the press is crucial. But we also feel there is a line.

There is no bar to pass to become "the press", no college or high school diploma required, no license, actually nothing at all. No proof or promise of ethical standards, personal or professional common sense, good judgment, etc. No agreement against carelessness, or bias or distortion through emphasis or omission.

The idea is to not give favored news treatment to advertisers. Not accept anything of value from news sources or others. Not accept special favors and special treatment.

Yet most seem to run to that.

Any dullard can set up a web site as a news site. Start pulling copyright pictures and text from anyone. Add a sentence or two. And make money from other people's content and hard work while having to give nothing back, not even a note of use.

We feel these great "fair use" rights and privileges should only be given to not-for-profits. Then there might be a better signal to noise ratio. And we'd get more quality media people dedicated to their craft. Instead of people just wanting to make sure their front page is fresh every day to keep their visitor counts high for advertisers.

Just an idea : )

Aren't you afraid that a press person might read this?
Nope : )
In our experience they skim over information real quick and then get the story wrong anyway : )

What does IBVA stand for?
IBVA stands for Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer.

Can I get a free IBVA for (enter important reason here)?
Get outa here!

You won't believe how many people contact us and tell us all they can do for us or others if we only give them a free IBVA System. We've given a lot of people a lot of chances and we have been stung each and every time! So now we don't give out any IBVAs unless we are in a serious business arrangement.

So if you're thinking of telling us all the wonderful things you can make happen if only a free IBVA was on the delivery truck, then just save yourself the time. Sorry to all the sincere people, but there is no way we can tell anymore. Some people are excellent liars.

Does your system know my thoughts?
The IBVA System allows the attachment of multimedia triggers to the realtime frequency and voltage data. It also allows advanced users/developers to access the data in order to add their own processing techniques. The system can not do thought recognition or emotional recognition. You can not think "ice cream" and see a picture of ice cream on the screen : )

Can your system cure my (insert problem here)?
If you have some form of medical problem you do not want to talk to us. You want to talk to a doctor.
Do not look to our system to treat any medical issue.