DISQUS

Amish · 2 years ago

Its really unfair to those that take the effort to report an original story. But such is as it is. Truthfully, I have indulged in 'aggregating' plenty of times myself. It just seems the easier way out. Sigh!

Traveller · 2 years ago

Well, these views would be shared by lot of us. However, 'original reporting' involves research too.

Just as authors read other books, aggregate concepts, examples, etc. to build their new one (who really goes back to the last pages to find and read up the original material?), reporting today does the same thing: build upon other written material.

Unless it is a shameless copy (without too much value add), even making a 'boringly long' article 'pithy' is (IMHO) acceptable if the original article is credited.

Shashank · 2 years ago

Well then
everyone on this planet is stealing somebody's other content becoz consider any SEO blog, the basic rules are same ,the person itself has grown up reading SEO blogs and other people ideas ...then he thought of putting those ideas into his blog...you can also call that stealing* i mean aggregating as according to you.

What really turn me off are the autogenerated blogs and sites which rip off content from different sites into one site and earning huge money via adsense..black hatters and many of the gurus are also using those methods to earn money...these things go in the underground but nobody dares to bring them out...

and are you encouraging people to rip off other people content..

k-net · 2 years ago

I find it very ironic that a blogger that has RSS feeds is upset that users are aggregating it's content.

Christopher Mims · 2 years ago

Just to clarify, I'm not really taking a stance pro or con here. As I note in the piece, there is a great deal of utility for readers in the 'curatorial' roll that many blogs play. And I for one would never want the blogosphere to be other than it is -- which is to say, a place where ideas are freely exchange, borrowed, built upon, etc.

All that said, as a journalist who has has seen his reporting entirely re-incarnated in a different form with either no or scant attribution, I couldn't help but feel a little burned in those moments.

And, frankly, the blogosphere is actually *better* about this than mainstream media, because in the blogosphere attribution is the norm, whereas in the MSM it's considered a courtesy.

I think the bottom line for me is that I think attribution is great, and there should be more of it. That's why I've begun putting attribution for the source of my borrowed blog entries at the *top* of my posts, rather than just saying "Via so and so" at the bottom. Because let's face it - while it's nice to be credited, it's also nice to get the traffic. I'd like to see more attributions that urge readers to go check out the original version of an article, rather than just re-reporting it in a way that provides the reader no incentive to do so.

Otherwise, it eliminates the incentive to do the real work that fuels all these great ideas the blogosphere is always talmudically debating.

Bush Mackel · 2 years ago

Uh-oh, it seems you may have started a firestorm with this post!

Brad D. · 2 years ago

There's no such thing as "orginal work". There are just new varients of existing ideas. You show me an "orginal work" and I'll show you why it's just someone else's words written in a different way.

However, if you have come up with something to say, and this inspriration comes from other works, I think you should quote the source whenever possible.

Oh..and who cares who gets the traffic? Write good content because it's fun and you love doing it. If you write it and it's good, they will come

(FYI: I do care about my traffic, I'm just trying to point out it's not my biggest goal)

I'm also a little sensitive since the entire concept of my site is to help other sites get noticed. My goal is not to steal traffic from others, it's to try and give more traffic to others. I'm fairly confident the other sites you list like Boing Boing and Engadget give out lots of traffic to others as well (not that I'm comparing)

So, if you wanted to 'start a firestorm' with your post...you got my vote ;-)

jammy · 2 years ago

Well this is not a good thing to steal others efforts. But I guess for such reasons only google gives more importance to fresh content on sites rather than duplicate content.

Rahul · 2 years ago

I agree

Amit · 2 years ago

Dude!
I've been following your blog since a very long time. I find it funny that you are accusing others of stealing content. I have seen other blog's content 're'published on your blog. How do you justify this? I don't know whether you will approve this comment to show up in your post or not. But this is a fact!

Dave Starr · 2 years ago

Don't know that this arguement can ever be settled. But there is certainly an arguement for re-writing news from general interst sistes when they don't quite get the story right ... or when the "secondary" blogger has something significant to add.

For example I am a subject matter expert in the field of GPS tracking. Articles about innovations in GPS tracking frequently pop up that don't really explain the news item very well. I personally find nothing wrong at all with quoting the original source and furnishing additional information or informed comment on the original author's article ... how else will people learn more if I don't?

I'm certainly against copying for the sake of laziness, but when I value add I feel everyone gains. As far as the question of who gets the socila bookmarking credit? Well, that's personal choice of the person who decides to bookmark or not.

Patrick Burt · 2 years ago

Unfortunately it happens.
I've seen people write comment-rich articles in a niche, only to be outmuscled by someone with better Pagerank who effectively stole and rewrote the article. Their Pagerank puts them at the top of Search Engine rankings, effectively shutting out the little guy.

Website Traffic Guide · 9 months ago

Great idea to building an six figure income by others content.