Spinfuel eMagazine has recently gone through an internal struggle. That struggle has since been resolved and we have made certain decisions about our Mission Statement and how it affects Spinfuel moving forward because of it. I hope you will take a few minutes to read about what we were struggling with and how it was resolved, and what we plan to do in the future.

In the beginning of the Spinfuel history (4 months before I arrived from New Hampshire) every one of us was new to vaping. In fact, we were so ignorant of the extent of the vaping community and the vast differences in vaping products that our small world consisted of the mini-eCigarette and only the mini-eCigarette.

Looking back on that now, almost a year later, it is very embarrassing to read some of the early reviews we’ve published. In fact, we have seriously considered deleting them from our database (including our backup databases) so that we would never be reminded of them, and new readers would never be exposed to them. We eventually decided not to delete them in favor of allowing long-term readers to see the progress we’ve made and hopefully they will be able to identify with the progress themselves. We are all children when we discover electronic cigarettes. electronic cigarettes

Spinfuel has made so many mistakes in our short history that it’s surprising that we’ve grown in readership as fast as we have. From poor proofreading to over-excited claims of “greatness” for sub-par products, “early-Spinfuel” stands as a lesson to others that passion alone is not a good reason to launch a project.

Growth electronic cigarettes

Each member of the staff are passionate about vaping, and we have all dedicated ourselves to learning as much as possible about the products being sold to the consumer, the techniques that are used to sell these products, and the integrity of the companies that sell these products.

We’ve also spent hours upon hours learning about atomizers, cartomizers, batteries, and the various “classes” of vaping products. When your world is no bigger than comparing the features between Blu Cigs and Green Smoke (and they are vast) it’s a pretty tiny world. Expanding our knowledge so that we could talk about products that exist outside that tiny world of prefilled cartomizers and 510/KR808 batteries took precedence over the past several months. The results speak for themselves.

But there are limits, and this is where the struggle began.

Over the past couple of months we’ve published just a couple of reviews on products that we felt uncomfortable writing about. They were reviews concerning an atomizer and a variable voltage device (the VV was early-Spinfuel, the RBA was recent). Both reviews received a lengthy comment that proceeded to dress us down for not going deep enough into the engineering aspects of the products. electronic cigarettes

Here’s part of the first comment that had us against the wall:

“Ohms are only relevant for describing the resistance of a particular carto or atty. The relationship between the volts and ohms determines the wattage that you are producing at the coil, where w = v*v/r. The best range for vaping is supposed to be between 6-8 watts, with less than 4 or more than 8.5 leading to low production or damaged components, respectively.”

When we first read that comment we immediately felt dejected. We began to think about where Spinfuel fits in the eCigarette community and the eCigarette industry. The comment started a long, internal struggle that has only recently been resolved.

Thankfully, the only part of that comment that still troubles us is the equation, the rest of it we ALL understand now, but back then it could have been written in Greek and we wouldn’t have known the difference.

There were three questions on our White Board that stood for many weeks after that comment appeared, and they were:

“Who are we? What do we stand for? Why are we here?”

Everyday we would see these questions and think about them. Every week or so we would gather together and discuss them. We also began an internal commitment to learn as much as we can about the community and the industry as well as the products they sell. But the science and the engineering behind some of these products we just didn’t believe we could ever conquer.

We are artists, writers, photographers, painters, sculptors, actors, web developers and coders, and even a struggling comedian. We are not wired for engineering and to “fake it” was something we flat out refused to consider.

Realizing that we will never be able to converse with the person that left the above comment we wondered if Spinfuel had a future. Did we deserve to be here? Finally, after much discussion, we at least were able to answer the first question: electronic cigarettes

Who are we?

Answer: We are a group of individuals from disparate backgrounds who have come together to write about, and explore, this exploding new industry called electronic cigarettes. We are vapers who are passionate about the potential of electronics cigarettes to finally snuff out hundreds of years of tobacco use. Most of all, we are communicators.

Once we accepted who we were we felt much better about that haunting comment. We would never reach that level of expertise, and we were okay with that. Now it was time to figure out the second question, “what do we stand for”?

This question was a bit easier to answer on the individual level, but we needed to express to each other what it is we stand for as a company, and together cobble a concise and cohesive understanding of what Spinfuel stood for, our Mission Statement as it were. electronic cigarettes

From the early days of Spinfuel to today, our Editor-in-chief, John Manzione, was never afraid to express his opinion, though mostly back in the beginning it was his frustration and anger against the government (both local and federal) and their targeting of a product that was 99.99% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes.

All of us believed in the same things, in varying degrees, but we discovered we had something much more powerful in common; the anger we felt by injustice, scheming, deception, corruption, and the willful acts by others to cause harm to innocents in the name of the almighty dollar… in ALL personal and professional arenas, not just the eCigarette industry.

This was something that we all felt very strongly about, and whenever any of us were vetting an eCigarette company for review purposes we would silently curse the outrageous claims, the flat out lies, the overpriced and underperforming crap that was being sold to innocent “victims” who wanted nothing more than to get off analog cigarettes, that appeared on so many sites. The numbers of brands we’ve refused to review far outnumber the ones we have reviewed. (That was a mistake I think. We should have reviewed whatever came our way, but we didn’t want to appear so aggressive in the early days.)

Then one day, Tom bought up the “Regal” eCigarette piece we published back in early June. Tom monitors our Google alerts we have set up for eCigarette news, and Regal manages to continue its business practices unabated, and he remarked to everyone in the room “this shit drives me crazy!” That sparked a very important discussion that led to us being able to answer the second question.

We all felt the same rages over the way some of these eCigarette sellers conduct their business. From the kiosks at the mall that sell the cheapest crap you can get at prices that are so inflated it makes you sick to your stomach seeing someone purchase a starter kit from one of them, to those eCigarette brands that claim to have invented certain technologies, that claim that THEIR batteries are the best on the market, that continue to claim that ALL other eCigarette brands are still selling 3-piece eCigarettes except them, and it goes on and on, this never-ending stream of bullshit. electronic cigarettes

We couldn’t understand the mindset of people like this. How do they sleep at night? How do they justify making such claims that are clearly deceptive and downright false? How do they not lie awake at night and contemplate suicide as the only decent thing to do? After a 3-hour meeting that included tears, screams, and declarations of outrage, we decided that even if it meant the destruction of Spinfuel we weren’t going to let these things slide anymore. electronic cigarettes

What do we stand for?

As long as we have a soapbox, as long as people continue to read us, we will continue to expose the lies you see coming from eCigarette brands. Yesterday’s “V2 + Bull Smoke = Deception & Corruption” is only the beginning. There will be more. One of the things we are working on right now is our “Hall of Shame”, a page that will be dedicated to displaying those companies that are guilty of deception and corruption; companies that claim to own technologies they do not own and had no part in its creation; companies that attempt to convince consumers to part with their money by lying to them.

Answer: We stand for honesty and integrity in the eCigarette industry and we will fight for it.

Now, the third question; why are we here?

Answer: We are here because the Internet is drowning in eCigarette websites that are nothing more than fronts for pushing certain brands in order to earn a commission. We are here to set the record straight, to call a spade a spade. We are here to be a lighthouse to guide the innocent newcomers through this dark ocean of deception that runs rampant. electronic cigarettes

We are here because the real answer to the deaths of millions depends on getting away from tobacco, and the success rate of eCigarettes in doing just that is unprecedented. electronic cigarettes

The electronic cigarette IS the answer to the tobacco problem and nothing, not corruption of fast-dealing venture capitalists, not the rudderless individuals who would sell their own mother, and not the hungry government salivating over the potential taxes they can reap from electronic cigarettes, will stop the progress of eCigarettes if Spinfuel can spark others to speak the truth, work to shut down the affiliate websites unless they change their tactics, and encourage others to launch their own honest endeavors to get the truth out about eCigarettes and the companies that sell them.  electronic cigarettes

Rant On

It is despicable that a company can PAY a website to rate their product #1, and even more despicable that website owners actually DO IT. If the electronic cigarette is to succeed things like this cannot continue to occur without someone alerting the public. Do NOT trust ANY website that claims ANY eCigarette is the “best on the market”. There are many “great” eCigarettes, there are many “good” ones, and there are certainly many “crappy” ones. But mostly, all branded eCigarettes coming from China are using the same handful of various technologies. No one except ProVape can lay claim to originality in technology. You can customize the paintjob, you can change out the lit up tip of the battery, and you can even play a substantial part in customizing your version of a Chinese made eLiquid flavor, but you do not own it, you did not invent it, and you certainly aren’t the only one using it.

There are differences to talk about, there are companies that deserve to be applauded for trying to make a difference, for selling their products at fair prices, for filling their cartomizers with better tasting eLiquids, and for offering their customers a choice to use their eLiquids or some other eLiquid, and to stand behind the product with a good warranty. There are many companies that do this, and they deserve to be recognized. electronic cigarettes

There is nothing wrong with promoting your products as “great” or “outstanding” or any of a number of adjectives, but to claim to be #1 when you’re not, to claim to have the best battery when dozens of other companies are buying the same ones, come on, John is right, there is no reason to do this other than greed and a serious lack of a conscious.

Rant Over

We will never satisfy every Vaper out there, and the person that posted the comment above certainly knows about places like ECF and ECA where this level of expertise can be found on a daily basis.  But, if you are up for an honest look at the newest products on the market, if you want to read about real-world experience with eCigarette products and the companies that sell them, if you are looking for a publication that finds joy in great new products, and if you are looking for a publication to tell you the truth about the products we review, look no further. We are here, and we intend to stick around a while. electronic cigarettes

Julia Barnes