I don't think it was premeditated either, but after reading the article it seems it worked out great for them being able to get Mashable and Verge articles, collect 2,000 emails from Kickstarter backers, and then not have to pay Kickstarter a dime.
I'm sure the PR company wasn't too thrilled at losing their 7% cut of the proceeds either.
But on the whole, it seems they have a really cool product and will do well. Good luck guys!
They apparently did do their bit (write a Press Release), but not to the campaign creators' satisfaction, and he was very annoyed about their using him as a success story.
It shows up near the top of the google results for fundzinger, and a fishy sock puppet "Tim Koteke" showed up in thread and did some damage control for fundzinger. No google or linkedin hits for his name or his projects. Then once people started asking for some evidence that he wasn't just making shit up, he (or somebody) deleted the post (which is still quoted in the thread) and he disappeared.
If that's the kind of "pr" fundzinger does for themselves, I doubt they do any better for their customers.
So why would they recommend fundzinger so highly? Are they just grateful they didn't have to pay them for the hours they worked (or pretended to work)? Or was there some kind of tit-for-tat: you say nice things about us and we don't charge you for canceling the project. That wouldn't surprise me much, after seeing their lame attempt at sock puppeteering.
...Maybe they should have tried to be hip and cool by calling themselves "Fundzingr", then I would have immediately known they were charlatans.
It doesn't matter whether it was premeditated if the end result is the same. They're still arguably screwing Kickstarter here (do Kickstarter get anything at all for their side of the work?)
I'm sure the PR company wasn't too thrilled at losing their 7% cut of the proceeds either.
But on the whole, it seems they have a really cool product and will do well. Good luck guys!