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One of the ego-deflating things about Web 2.0 is that whenever you believe you have an original thought, you’re only a Google search away from finding out that you actually don’t.
In fact, when it occurred to the spouse’s sister over the weekend that the mulletless Bono now looks like Robin Williams, we did a quick search to see if anyone else was thinking the same thing. Sure enough, they were – to the tune of at least 38 Web sites, by Google’s count.
Sigh. Even USA Today’s blog nailed it.
Who? Derek Gehl, author of Blogging for Dollars.
Derek Gehl, as in this Derek Gehl.
Nice. Thanks also to PRSA’s “PR Issues and Trends” news monitoring service for making this the first item in today’s e-mail to members.
You guys are really on top of the PR blogging world, PRSA. Well done!
Technorati tags: PR, Public Relations, Marketing
Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion touched a nerve with his Saturday post on blog content theft. Steve outed a couple of “splogs” that have been republishing his content to produce ad revenues — without Steve’s permission and without linking properly back to his site. Steve appealed to the site operators by e-mail to no avail.
Splogs are a growing problem that highlight the challenges of “content as property” in the Web 2.0 world. Web 2.0 inventions such as the Creative Commons license appear insufficient to protect the work of bloggers.
Steve’s post elicited many passionate responses; Mark Cuban was among those who chimed in.
Media Orchard will act as Steve’s CliffsNotes and highlight the main thought currents and recommendations from the commenters:
1. Some suggested contacting the offending sites’ ISPs to have the sites taken down and/or Google to have their Adsense accounts cancelled. Citing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is said to move the process along.
2. One suggested that fighting splogs was too much trouble, and that the better course was to monetize the stolen content with “an occasional hard-coded affiliate link.”
3. One recommended a site that monitors the Internet for content theft, called Copyscape.
4. And — of course — some suggested Steve was a control freak and should just chill out. Mike Reining of MindValley said: “I personally find the irony here pretty funny. Bloggers initially called out newspapers for not being open enough and now that the top bloggers become ever more powerful they are starting to act just the same.”
After commenting on Steve’s post, Mark Cuban was also inspired to post on the topic on Blog Maverick.
Media Orchard would love to sort all this out for you, but we’re afraid it would only make our brain hurt. Instead, we’re going to watch our beloved Dolphins beat up on the Chargers (don’t laugh.) Here’s to Steve for fighting the good fight.
Update: Dolphins 23, Chargers 21. Yesssss!
And Steve followed up Mark’s post with this one.
Technorati tags: Content Theft, Steve Rubel, Copyright, Creative Commons
Mark Cuban: Are Bloggers Better than the New York Times?
Mark Cuban’s August blog post, “Anatomy of a New York Times Article,” caused quite a stir for its portrayal of the games that reporters sometimes play with their interview subjects.
In that instance, Mark was interviewed for a column that seemed to have had a predetermined outcome; based on the e-mail trail that Mark published with his blog post, his quotes appeared taken out of context and shoehorned in at the last minute.
Mark’s done it again — or, as he puts it, “The NY Times does it again…” Once again, Mark is interviewed at the last minute; once again, the result — a Sunday column by Randall Stross — is questionable.
Obviously ticked off, Mark quickly followed up his post with an even harsher one, titled, “NY Times Sunday Business or Bloggers — Who has higher standards?“
In it, he writes:
Methinks a blogstorm is coming.
Technorati tags: Journalism, New York Times, Mark Cuban, Media
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