The ProBlogger Aristocracy
There’s a post over on ProBlogger, from earlier this week, titled “Why Automated Blogging Tools Should Be Avoided“. It’s a discussion of automatic content-generators for blogs – you know, those scraper apps that search for certain keywords or follow RSS feeds, pick up the first paragraph and post it on your blog.
As always, the post has received a lot of comments, as expected on such a well-known blog. My thoughts run with the majority of individuals – that scraping content is stupid and is just a way to generate background babble on a site so that AdSense or some other “context ad” program can pick up some keywords.
However, the post also made me consider another aspect of an online presence: discrimination in the blogging world. Bear with me here.
Imagine you have a blog that’s reasonably established. You have a couple of hundred visitors per day, with whom you discuss things. They leave comments and seem happy with what you’re doing. It’s valuable, original content. Then, one day, you find some of your work on two other sites.
The first is a content scraper. A paragraph of your post is on their page, with a link back to your blog, tagged something like “Read the full article here”.
The second is an “aggregator” site, like Guy Kawasaki’s AllTop. This second site lists your post as well, in much the same way. It is a commercial venture as well as the first.
Now, the question is this:
Why are you happy to have your site show up on the second and not on the first?
The answer’s obvious, when you stop to think about it: the second site’s run by someone who’s famous. For argument’s sake, let’s call them one of the “ProBlogger Aristocracy”. I just made that term up, by the way – it’s not intended to have negative implications and I have nothing against successful bloggers. I’d like to be clear about that.
The thing is that there’s a distinct difference in having your content listed on a site run by one of the unwashed masses and on a site run by someone with a massive following. It’s self-inflicted class discrimination, in a way.
On the one hand, there’s a natural distaste for the individual who uses your content to make a buck. On the other, it’s alright if they can somehow make you feel special because they chose your site. One rule for the famous, one for the rest.
Isn’t it funny how we, the very same unwashed masses of aspiring bloggers, seek some kind of confirmation from those we consider successful, yet continue to criticise our peers, who aspire to the same goals?
Your thoughts on this would be very interesting.
I figure if they’re only posting a portion of the blog in question, then it’s fair game. In reality, they’re helping you. I don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with that.
For rewriters out there, I imagine such a tool really helps.
It does not suit me at all, however.
Steven: Nor me! I have seen it in action, though, and it’s quite clever – even the WordPress plugin will do feed-following and replace words or phrases automatically, to avoid Google dupe detection. Smart programming, annoying usage.
You know, I’m such a snob sometimes. I try to avoid being one, but I sure sucker myself for it.
I can’t take the time to deal with everything all the time. Writing a story every day, coming up with a topic, etc., is an extremely cumbersome part of creating a blog. And, you do need that daily or near daily contribution on a blog to really get that audience that you’re looking for. Would it not also be possible, then, to use the topics that are on other sites, rewrite them, and post them on your site? If you want to post the occasional article yourself – perhaps 2-3 of them per week, you’d add that as well. It seems to me that doing this would have some positive results. I’m a busy person. I also like my ‘down time.’
I’m quite aware that what the preferences or the ideals are, but do we really exist in an ideal world? As I get older, I come to realize that I simply can’t do everything, and I can’t afford to pay everyone either since I haven’t pulled in a profit from my current efforts. Whatever money I make from these books I’m working on will just be recycled into other projects. But as it stands now, I work a job so I can pay other people’s salaries, the rent on my office, and the costs associated with running it. I have no guarantee that it’s going to work either.
Anyways, I admire the people who learn to put together a workable website using whatever means they can. I wouldn’t be all too sure on how to do it myself.
Steven: I know the feeling. One of the things that still annoys me is with my cheapie paid-blogging job. It’s not much, but I enjoy it, so I try to find an interesting news story to write about every day, in the categories I cover, but still sometimes have to just regurgitate stuff because there’s nothing much happening. That kind of work is so much easier than coming up with new ideas.
I’ve sometimes been tempted to take that approach here: pick up on other people’s subjects and comment. But I’d rather have less traffic and do my own thing, to be honest. That said, it’d probably be a different story if I relied on ScrawlBug for any kind of income at all.
Then again, you cannot begin to imagine the annoyance when I catch something early, blog about it – and see no comments or anything. Six hours or a day later, someone ‘famous’ blogs the same thing and it’s all over the social networks. It just comes down to having a following, not being particularly creative or innovative all the time.
If one day this blog had a significant following (it’s currently around 50 hits a day), I would hope I’d be able to use it to direct those people to other useful and interesting places. Such as publications by folks who don’t have a rabid following.
While I think of it, you should drop in on George, over at Tumblemoose. He has a children’s writing section, is a GREAT guy and often has guest posters. You never know, it might turn you into an International Man Of Mystery. Or something.