MyThoughts

Un Authorized Syndication

A post over at ProBlogger.net is asking the following question: “Is syndicating content kosher or not…ie running someone elses content through rss into ones own blog?” And the answer to that varies depending on the circumstances. For starters, I feel that no website should be able to syndicate my full RSS feed while at the same time, displaying some sort of advertising on the page/site. This makes me think the webmaster of the site in question is trying to profit from my work. There is an exception to the rule however.

So you may ask then, what about blog scrapers who simply use an excerpt of the post but usually have the name of the post author switched around. Well, they actually link back to the original post most of the time and I’m not hard pressed to go after those that use an excerpt. Using excerpts is fine, using the full feed is not. I don’t syndicate anyone’s content without permission and it’s very unlikely I’d do so anyways.  However, I am completely fine with sites who syndicate my content, only after they have received my permission to do so. An excellent example of this would be Planet WordPress managed my Ozh. Before syndicating my WordPress related content, Ozh got in touch with me and asked if he could syndicate the WordPress category on my blog in which I gave him permission to do so.

So how do you feel about those who syndicate your full RSS feed without permission? Do you syndicate content from other people on your own site?

Twitter Gets The Bird Flu

Twitter Spam

It looks like the time has arrived for Twitter to step up to the plate and do something about this spam problem. Over this past weekend, I received over 20 different email notifications that so and so was following me on twitter. Only 3 of those people were legit. The rest of them were spammers who were following thousands of people and the only updates they had made to their account were spammy links.

Adam Ostrow of Mashable correctly identified some time ago that Twitter was going to undergo a spam explosion and his prediction appears to have come true. In fact, he recently wrote another article highlighting his inability to sleep because of the constant buzzing noise his BlackBerry was making due to spammers following his account.

Then, I come across an interesting experiment through Twitter. There is a user on Twitter who goes by the name of RU4Real. The name has a purpose. The account was created by someone named Nantel as an experiment to see how many people would automatically follow a spam bot without first checking the content that said user has posted. As it stands, the account is following 5,484 users with 98 of those following this account. It’s already been discussed that the majority of the followers most likely have their Twitter account configured to automatically follow anyone that follows them.

Here is how the project has progressed thus far:

I created a new Twitter account that specifically tells people what it’s for and not to follow it. I then followed >5200 Twitter feeds to see who would reciprocate without reading. At last count, it had 94 followers. Interestingly, an additional 41 people initially followed me back, but then read the account description and changed their mind (good!). I also had to block 3 others that admitted following RU4Real even though they knew that it was an experiment.

I’ve also received some requests for my real Twitter account. Just don’t expect me to blindly follow you back

There is also need for you to block the account, it will be deleted once the experiment is over.

Phase 2 will begin once it gets 100 followers. During this period, I won’t add anybody else until the weekend to see if I can attract those spam followers that have been annoying everyone.

This is at best a very interesting experiment. Now, the recent poll put up by Mashable asks the question, Is it time for Twitter to move aggressively to prevent spammy accounts? The results so far speak for themselves. 359 people have voted yes compared to 30 people who have voted no. Of course, if you don’t use Twitter then you obviously could care less. But for those who actually use the service such as myself, I think it’s time for Twitter to take Adam’s suggestion of at least implementing a CAPTCHA solution that is presented to user’s after you press the follow button. This is the bare minimum that should be done to combat this problem of spam.

How about you? Have you received a major influx of spammy twitter accounts choosing to follow you? What other suggestions can you think of that would help Twitter deal with spam more effectively?

As a side note, if you take a look at the following image quite a few people who are following RU4Real are big names on the web.

Worst Interview Ever

Well, I’ve finally seen it. An article about WordPress Weekly which tells me just how bad it is. Ok, so this is one persons opinion. Honestly though, if this is how you feel about the interview or about the show in general, please let me know. I won’t know if you don’t tell. I enjoyed reading his critique. I even downloaded and listened to the show and I guess I can see where he is coming from. I think the interview went fairly well but then again, thats my opinion.

Jeffro2pt0 gives worst interview ever

Its Not So Bad

Have you seen the WordPress 2.5 backend lately? Chances are, you have and perhaps the chances are even greater that you didn’t like what you saw. As for myself, I enjoyed the more modern look with the exception of the color scheme used. All of the color shades appear to be a bit too bright for my liking which ends up giving the backend a washed out look to it. But the features and enhancements to the UI such as the tagging and media uploader have impressed me.

The three major complaints that folks seem to be having with the redesign are these: not being able to rearrange the sidebar in the write panel, ungodly amount of scrolling, and the color scheme. The good news is that March isn’t here yet, so perhaps things will change before then. The bad news is, these are all valid complaints. I personally have to admit that the current Write Post panel within 2.3.3 is much easier and nicer to use than the one in 2.5. The ability to bring things up to the top of the sidebar which you use most often, just about eliminates the need for scrolling. If the WordPress devs add this functionality back into 2.5, they will kill two birds with one stone. People will be able to modify their write panel, solving the scrolling issue while this will also help to diminish the waste of white space.

But if 2.5 is released as we currently see it, based on the reactions I’ve read so far, many people will be displeased. In fact, some people are threatening not to upgrade unless a classic admin panel option is installed or a plugin makes the backend look like it does now. I think that is stretching it a bit and all you’re really doing is hurting yourself by not upgrading. But the fact of the matter is, WordPress is Open Source, and that means that a high demand for something, usually encourages developers to churn out a solution.

So what could this mean? Well, if you recall a post that was made on WeblogToolsCollecion.com not too long ago, you’ll see that there are about a dozen or less admin themes available for WordPress. I believe the number of admin themes available is so low because the current WordPress administration area actually fits the bill for so many people that only the ones who truly dislike it, want to change it to something else. However, in WordPress 2.5, we may see a change in the tide. If the dis satisfaction continues or grows once 2.5 is released, we may see admin themes being released as much as we see frontend themes. This means an awesome amount of choices for backend designs might arise out of this issue which I believe isn’t a bad thing.

Blogging By The Numbers

BlogHeraldLogoAnne Helmond of the Blog Herald has wrote an interesting article that questions whether or not, the number of blogs within the blogosphere still matters and if anyone out there is still bothering to count.

Anne asked a number of questions within her article such as:

Is the medium mature now? Is that why nobody seems to be counting blogs anymore? Do we no longer feel the need to count blogs because we have established their importance?

I think the reason why no one is counting blogs anymore is the simple reason that no one can come up with an accurate number. Using numbers that are published by Technorati should not be a single handed way of measuring the blogosphere. There are more blogs on the net than one could imagine, but there doesn’t appear to be a way to accurately measure the difference between a blogger, scraper or splogger. This problem of accurate metrics appears not only in the blogosphere, but it’s a severe problem within podcasting, advertising, and just about anything else dealing with the internet. Therefor, I think the problem is that no one cares how many blogs there are. No one cares how many of this or how many of that there are. How can they, when the numbers have no way of being proved accurate.

The comments that have appeared on this blog herald article are a good indication that people understand that this is a metrics problem, a problem that inherently has no single solution. There are so many variables to consider when trying to accurately determine the number of blogs on the net, that it’s mind boggling. Metrics is a science that we have yet to figure out. Until the problem of metrics is solved, I don’t see how anyone could take any numbers that are published without a block of salt.

The Digg Story Doesn’t Sell Anymore

Muhammad Saleem posted an article on Techcrunch.com that goes over 9 different reasons on why the Digg story sells. Muhammad makes a series of points that I agree helped to propel Digg.com to success. However, the golden days of Digg.com are long gone.

One of the biggest reasons why Digg became successful was that it provided individuals with the opportunity to govern the site. By way of democracy, users choose which articles were submitted to the site, what made it to the front page, which new features should be implemented, ect. What a novel concept this was in the beginning. Fast forward to today and what do we have?

Digg is now controlled by the majority of users who just so happen to be Apple fanboys, who just happen to be Linux fanboys, who just happen to be political nut cases. Occasionally, you will see an article reach the front page that doesn’t fit in these three categories, but for the most part, these three categories run the roost. At one time, it was ok to submit Digg articles that were housed on blogs. Nope, you can’t do that anymore because the majority of Digg users frown on blogs and consider all blogs to be internet trash.

Digg used to be an awesome place where you could browse the front pages and check out some of the coolest things on the web that you normally wouldn’t of found on your own. In recent months, it would appear as though the majority of your front page articles on Digg.com come from reputable, major news publication websites. What a drag.

Don’t mention the commenting that takes place on these Digg articles. Every conversation on Digg.com turns into another pile of crap. However, I will admit that I usually read the comments before I actually visit the article that was dug and this may be the reason why my IQ has been getting lower.

Digg became a success because it was one of the first sites of it’s kind that provided users with the decision making capabilities. It was also built from the ground up from a guy that was on TechTV who generated quite the following. Of course, you either love Kevin Rose or you hate the guy. Truth be told, thousands of folks jumped on the Digg bandwagon simply because Kevin Rose was behind the idea. (Pownce is another classic example). It’s also a success because of the amazing amount of traffic that one could receive if you just so happen to publish an article that was graced by the hands of the Digg gods. (Top Diggers). Every blogger along with mainstream media embedded digg buttons, hoping anyone out their who thought the content was worth a damn would digg it. Think about all of the DIGG THIS buttons that are across the net. What an amazing advertising campaign that turned out to be, and Digg didn’t have to spend a dime.

With all that being said, many of the things that made Digg successful are also the things that are dragging the service down. Digg is run by crowds of vocal people. So vocal in fact, that if you put the words Microsoft Sucks or Apple or Linux into your post title, you’re guaranteed a front page spot on Digg. It doesn’t matter if the story is nothing more than a rumor. Because of these insanely vocal crowds, regular users visit Digg.com and are constantly bombarded with these types of news stories.

The bottom line is this. Digg WAS great, now it SUCKS. Do yourself a favor and create an RSS feed that aggregates stories submitted to Digg with the keywords you configure so you rarely have to visit the Digg.com site itself. Let the (lack of wisdom) Digg crowd work for you, not against you. Thats the motto of Kevin Rose and so far, it’s proven to be a good business model.

The Digg Story Doesn’t Sell Anymore

Muhammad Saleem posted an article on Techcrunch.com that goes over 9 different reasons on why the Digg story sells. Muhammad makes a series of points that I agree helped to propel Digg.com to success. However, the golden days of Digg.com are long gone.

One of the biggest reasons why Digg became successful was that it provided individuals with the opportunity to govern the site. By way of democracy, users choose which articles were submitted to the site, what made it to the front page, which new features should be implemented, ect. What a novel concept this was in the beginning. Fast forward to today and what do we have?

Digg is now controlled by the majority of users who just so happen to be Apple fanboys, who just happen to be Linux fanboys, who just happen to be political nut cases. Occasionally, you will see an article reach the front page that doesn’t fit in these three categories, but for the most part, these three categories run the roost. At one time, it was ok to submit Digg articles that were housed on blogs. Nope, you can’t do that anymore because the majority of Digg users frown on blogs and consider all blogs to be internet trash.

Digg used to be an awesome place where you could browse the front pages and check out some of the coolest things on the web that you normally wouldn’t of found on your own. In recent months, it would appear as though the majority of your front page articles on Digg.com come from reputable, major news publication websites. What a drag.

Don’t mention the commenting that takes place on these Digg articles. Every conversation on Digg.com turns into another pile of crap. However, I will admit that I usually read the comments before I actually visit the article that was dug and this may be the reason why my IQ has been getting lower.

Digg became a success because it was one of the first sites of it’s kind that provided users with the decision making capabilities. It was also built from the ground up from a guy that was on TechTV who generated quite the following. Of course, you either love Kevin Rose or you hate the guy. Truth be told, thousands of folks jumped on the Digg bandwagon simply because Kevin Rose was behind the idea. (Pownce is another classic example). It’s also a success because of the amazing amount of traffic that one could receive if you just so happen to publish an article that was graced by the hands of the Digg gods. (Top Diggers). Every blogger along with mainstream media embedded digg buttons, hoping anyone out their who thought the content was worth a damn would digg it. Think about all of the DIGG THIS buttons that are across the net. What an amazing advertising campaign that turned out to be, and Digg didn’t have to spend a dime.

With all that being said, many of the things that made Digg successful are also the things that are dragging the service down. Digg is run by crowds of vocal people. So vocal in fact, that if you put the words Microsoft Sucks or Apple or Linux into your post title, you’re guaranteed a front page spot on Digg. It doesn’t matter if the story is nothing more than a rumor. Because of these insanely vocal crowds, regular users visit Digg.com and are constantly bombarded with these types of news stories.

The bottom line is this. Digg WAS great, now it SUCKS. Do yourself a favor and create an RSS feed that aggregates stories submitted to Digg with the keywords you configure so you rarely have to visit the Digg.com site itself. Let the (lack of wisdom) Digg crowd work for you, not against you. Thats the motto of Kevin Rose and so far, it’s proven to be a good business model.

New Business Idea

ShoutMix Logo

So Mike, Mark and I each enjoy using the Shoutmix service. Shoutmix is a shoutbox provider. They host the box, content, ect and all you have to do is place the embed code on your website. It only costs $6.00 for 3 months of service and it’s worked out quite nicely.

Now between the three of us, we each have our own blog. And on our own blogs, we each have our own Shoutmix shoutbox. We were thinking, how cool it would be, to be able to use the same shoutbox on multiple blogs. To be honest, this is already possible by the mere fact of placing the embed code for one shoutbox on multiple blogs. However, the design of one shoutbox does not meet the design requirements for every other blog on the net. So the biggest problem we are facing is that, we can use the same shoutbox on different websites, but we can’t configure the shoutbox design to configure to our blog’s design.

I sent in an email to Shoutmix to see if #1 this was possible and #2 will this be a feature in a future version of Shoutmix. Here is what I found out.

For now V2 does not offer a convenient way to do this so this feature is not supported yet. I am considering it for the upcoming V3.

Just to make sure we were on the same page, I sent a follow up email and garnered this response:

I get what you mean, a singular shoutbox being shared over different sites or blogs, sharing the same contents. I’ll try to make that available in V3. It will take some time before V3 will be out though.

So it looks like we’ll be waiting a little while for something like that to be built into Shoutmix. Now to get to the new business idea. If you have been wanting to do a Web 2.0 startup and want to tap into the blogosphere, here is an idea how. Develop a shoutbox type of service similar to Shoutmix. Call the service BlogChattr to go along with the Web 2.0 naming scheme. You can offer your service in a number of ways. For instance, embed codes, links, widgets, ect. However, the biggest feature you would need to implement is the ability for one shoutbox, to have multiple designs.

Think about how cool that is. Think of it as an instant messenger for bloggers. Instead of having to browse each bloggers site to send messages to their respected shoutboxes, we could (chat from home). The main shoutbox would be the central administration area for every other shoutbox that connects to the chain. I’d like to see the option to lock down the shoutbox, unless exclusive access was given to a particular domain. So that way, I could add in domains that I accept having the shoutbox displayed on their website.

To tell you the truth, what I’m basically proposing is the combination of Cliqin and Shoutmix. The widget/design implementations of Cliqin with the administrative abilities of Shoutmix.

What do you folks think of the idea? Because I’ll tell you what, If I had the startup cash, this is one idea I would jump on because I think it has the ability to be a hot item in the blogosphere.

Jeffro2pt0 Invading Your WordPress Dashboard

Weblogtoolscollectionlogo

For those wondering, if you were wondering at all, I am the same Jeffro2pt0 that wrote the post, “Technorati Lacks Authority” which is published on the WeblogToolsCollection Website. This website is one of the premiere WordPress material related blogs that show up in a WordPress user’s administration panel. We are talking about a big audience here.

Let me say that, writing this first post on WLTC has been an eye opening experience. I’ve already learned that first, since it’s not my blog I’m publishing on, it’s Mark Ghosh’s, I have to ensure that the post I write makes complete sense and is backed up by factual statements or statistics. Secondly, dealing with a big audience is a task all of it’s own. When I wrote the post, I tried to make it come across as the way I was thinking about it. Undoubtedly, it didn’t come across with the same meaning to everyone. Some people took the post one way, while others took it in another. I’ve had to go in and correct things in the article and I’ve also had to defend or re-explain my stance on the issue. As you know, I’m one of those people who has to respond back to just about everyone who comments. Unlike many other blog authors, I can’t let the conversation die, I have to keep it going!

I’m not a journalist, I’m not a reporter, I don’t know how you would classify citizen journalism or citizen media but if someone asks, I tell them that I’m just a blogger. I write things how I see them. If I’m wrong, I’m hoping that someone will step up and correct me in the form of a polite comment. That way I learn what I did wrong, and the article is that much more accurate.

At any rate, the post on WeblogToolsCollection.com is one of what I think might be many posts, depending upon how many fires I start. I have to thank Mark Ghosh for giving me the opportunity to blog in front of a WIDE audience. I’d appreciate it if you guys would send me an email sometime or leave a comment letting me know what you think of the articles I write over there. I don’t know how you would feel in my position, but I look at it as an honor to write for an established site such as WeblogToolsCollection.com You just don’t get those sort of opportunities every day.

Time To Pimp Your Webhost

AnHosting Logo

All too often, folks who operate their own blog or website take the opportunity to ridicule their web host when things don’t go as planned. I’d like to change that mentality and actually say some great things about my particular host. When I started this blog back in May of 2007, I typed in a few keywords into Google and came across AnHosting.

When I discovered these guys, I didn’t know a thing about them. After browsing around the webhosting-talk forums, I found a couple of forum threads praising these guys, so I decided to purchase a webhosting account through them. I’m hosting on the All Inclusive Mega Plan (for 1 year) which costs me $83.40 per year. That comes out to being about $6.95 a month which is not bad at all. This plan included Cpanel, 15 gigs of space, a huge amount of bandwidth and all that jazz.

Since I purchased my account in May, I’ve experienced only one major downtime episode. This was because AnHosting switched data centers which is completely understandable if you ask me. Other than that outage, my site has been offline a few times every now and then, but within a few minutes or so, it comes back online. This could be a problem on my end, or my actual site going offline, I don’t know. At any rate, AnHosting has been a very reliable and responsive hosting company.

Sure, I’m not good enough to grace the servers of MediaTemple, but good webhosting companies are hard to come by when you consider that anyone that can afford a payment of $30.00 per month for a reseller account can be a webhost. So far, AnHosting has definitely won me over in an impressive fashion and if this keeps up, I’ll be renewing the account in no time.

By the way, AnHosting has a really sweet Christmas deal going on where you can purchase a hosting account for only $4.95 per month instead of the $6.95 I paid. Also included with their new accounts is double everything. Double the bandwidth, double the space, double the domains on one account. (Man I feel like I screwed myself) The deal ends on December 26th. So if you were thinking of moving from your current provider, this would be a good time at a good price to do so.