Yep, I just cursed.
I had written a post on how to monetize a DUGG site (basic idea: setup a new website, get it to the frontpage, re-sell). A few sites picked it up, including this post by Blog Herald.
If you read the Blog Herald post, it adds a bit of analysis, but by-the-by, the meat of the post is what I posted.
So it eternally grates my nerves when the Chitika blog added a link to the end of their post about monetizing Digg traffic, only linking to BlogHerald, not here.
This stuff really pisses me off. There is a big difference between posting news and writing something a bit deeper. When companies like Chitika short-change the source and instead link to the ‘better known brand’, it just dilutes the web.
This isn’t anything against BlogHerald (J Angelo is especially good at taking something and running it in a totally new direction). But what Chitika did (and innumerable other big blogs do) is quite insulting and annoying.
UPDATE: Alden DoRosario (who wrote the post over at Chitika) added his comments – he apologizes for the slipup, and explained how he ended up on BH (Google search). He has since fixed it, so a huzzah for him on that. The general rant still stands though.
9 Responses to Blog Elitism – aka not linking back to the fucking source
Alden DoRosario
April 11th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Ahmed, my sincere apologies for this. You are completely right about this lapse.
I spent 95% of my time writing the analysis part. The last section was more of “Ok now, let me yield to the experts” (wherein I linked to Neil Patel, Problogger and the BlogHerald article. The BlogHerald article — cause it came up No. 1 on a Google search for “monetizing digg traffic” by the way.
Ahmed
April 11th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Hi hi Alden,
I will half-accept your apology. The other half depends on making the change
I see it as a responsibility thing. We receive roughly 250,000 unique visitors a day across our sites. We can shape and flow traffic in many ways. It is our responsibility to ensure that the original author gets his/her due.
A quick clarification - we vs we - Tech Soapbox
April 11th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
[...] It depends on context as to which ‘we’ I am talking about – eg my comment reply referred to Enthropia as the ‘we’. [...]
Alden DoRosario
April 11th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Done ..
Dang — now J Angelo will be pissed with me
Ahmed
April 11th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Sokay me and J are friends
Jacob
April 11th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I’m sure he won’t be pissed
Of course, you could include 4 links instead of 3
jangelo
April 11th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
No prob with me, Alden. Of course, credit goes to Ahmed for the meat of the analysis. But four links instead of three won’t be bad, either.
Thoughts on Citing the Original Source at The Blog Herald
April 12th, 2007 at 12:13 am
[...] My friend Ahmed over at Tech Soapbox ranted recently about how he felt bad with Chitika’s citing a post of mine on the Blog Herald about monetizing DIGG traffic instead of his own site, which was actually the source of my article. I had written a post on how to monetize a DUGG site (basic idea: setup a new website, get it to the frontpage, re-sell). A few sites picked it up, including this post by Blog Herald. [...]
Alden DoRosario
April 13th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
J Angelo — I like your idea about the “Via Blogherald” .. In my opinion, that would probably have been the right thing to do.