I’m probably months late on this, I’m a policy geek not a internet tech geek, and I don’t get to read my internet tech feeds that often.
I found backtype this week, thanks to a link from Simplifying Your World at Pentad. I’m sure backtype is popular. I have seen people oozing spittle in excitement over it on some blogs. This site coagulates comments of whoever they can, and gathers them up, telling you it allows you to keep track of your comments and the comments of others around the blogesphere. They spin it as an opportunity. What they really do is scrap your comments, and reproduce them, I’m guessing for profit, though they haven’t exactly admitted to that anywhere I can see, spinning it as a great big advantage to you. Technically they are doing is stealing your comments, saying they are doing only what Google and Yahoo already do. To my knowledge Google and Yahoo do not reproduce content, and the other places that do, do it with your permission.
What it really does is allow people to stalk you. So now some freaky dude from Kentucky can search my name and come up with four hundred or so comments I’ve posted all over the web, virtually stalking me. You too most likely. All this, and they do it without your signing up, like you have to do with other comment systems. How gracious of them to save you the time.
Frankly I’m not sure who owns comments, and it’s not like most of us don’t hustle judiciously around cyber-space every now and then begging for attention, but to me this seems a little invasive, and possibly a little unethical. Shouldn’t I have a choice as to whether I want to be stalked or not? Ah, but they say if you want to opt out you just have to make a robot text file, I don’t happen to have one, and disallow their user agent. Now why should I have to disallow someone from taking my comments? Shouldn’t it be they should ask me if they can use them? And what about those people who don’t know how to add a robot text file to their blog installation? What about free blogs? I mean can you even block their user agent on free non self hosted blogs without blocking all robots? Not to mention there is nothing you can do about your comments on blogs which allow them. So in reality you do not have control of your comments throughout the blogesphere at all, even if you decide to block their robot from your blog.
My other question is, are they doing this for profit? I saw a question asked at their blog about that but it did not appear to be answered, and I understand they recently got a 300,000 dollar grant from a company that’s investing in start-up businesses….sounds like a profit maker to me.
Am I missing something here? Is this more than a type of comment splog?
Yea, in case you don’t get the title, you can sing it to the tune of “Bye Bye Blackbird” this version is a play on the very sick version called “Bye Bye Cherry”. Don’t ask.
peac
scrapers suck. no other way to say it. allow one ping-back from a scraper and it grows children. but if scraper ping-backs are consistently disallowed, they magically disappear.
until you discover that they are suddenly appearing on old, really old, posts. then it begins anew.
I agree with the wiki entry under splogs. it’s copyright infringement. there’s no fair use involved. at best, it’s plagiarism. a rose by any other name. …
sauerkraut’s last blog post..Running on your new Colbert (Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance) Treadmill
I think I’m on every scraper blog arond despite using “bad behavior”.
I hadn’t heard of that and still don’t get it. My first reaction is that if someone can make a profit from my comments, they can probably make a bigger profit converting corn cobs into gold.
Doug’s last blog post..Lacteal Fluid
One of the few whose comments are wroth anything I’d say you are. But I have a nice group of commenter here not the standard by any means. I should take note and start profiting from you all.
Actually somebody could make a profit from Doug’s comments. Mine shouldn’t bring a wooden nickel. I have always deleted spling–thought of copying “the best of”–wrong names they call me and my blog, but no never knew about this
pia’s last blog post..3WW–allure, perch, vivid: A prequel to meeting Jeffrey
Someone is probably stealing your comments to write a book as I type. Now wouldn’t that just piss you off?
You’re awesome. Thanks for spreading this info along! I’ll place this link in my post as an update. Backlink stinks splog, and it’s irritating when they try to make it look ‘oh so’ Twitter-like. There’s not an original idea between these two kids. $300,000????? Holy, %&*#!! Scam from beginning to end. I’m afraid that company got screwed.
Pentad’s last blog post..Relaying an alert to bloggers regarding the site http://www.backtype.com
I hope they got screwed.
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Looks like they’ve convinced people it’s a really cool almost social network, but it does look a little suspect and it is scarping/splog like because of the no permission factor. I totally agree with you on the stalking angle. I’ve been stalked before via cell phone, it’s not fun.
On a free wordpress blog there is no control over that I don’t think.
g’s last blog post..Life is a Bitch
Hey, how were the dead?
It’s all about the spin – what a fool believes.
I don’t find myself over there, should I be insulted or grateful.
I see it’s stalker potential and I thought reproducing content was illegal?
Who knows I think it’s unethical and it is stealing but people are so willing to do anything to get one extra reader they don’t care. It will be interesting to see if this becomes profitable because if it does and my comments are there without my permission…..I’m sure I’ll be a thousandaire. ;)
“it’s not like most of us don’t hustle judiciously around cyber space every now and then begging for attention”. Nice one.
You may hustle judiciously but most people hustle blatantly and indiscriminately, which is why they don’t care who is stealing their comments. It’s the only way to can get anyone to read them. Desperate times – desperate measures.
The stalking angle bites, and this is a sleazy, yet somewhat brilliantly sneaky, way to go about stealing content, reproducing it without permissions and making people believe they are doing you favors.
john’s last blog post..I Love My Jeans
brilliantly sneaky?
I’m always judicious.
I’ve always assumed that whatever is posted on the net is there forever and can be found by someone somewhere.
The reference about a guy in Kentucky stalking you isn’t about me is it? :)
Chris’s last blog post..Huge Turnout and the Tea Bagger Purpose (*Update)
Sure it’s out there, but not really available for others to use, though my blog gets scraped routinely these guys are profiting and redistributing it without permission not just placing it in a search engine, and all the while they are pretending to do me a favor. That and the stalking thing.
No not you, I chose a random state, not necessary the state people stalk me from. Actually I stopped looking at stats a long time ago.
I don’t think my comment section is as lively as yours. But I do agree I don’t want items on my blog redistributed without my permission. It’s been a while since I’ve been stalked, unless you count that wacko neocon who keeps emailing me.
Chris’s last blog post..All For High Speed Rail
I found some evidence that traffic on the backtype site is going down, so maybe the blogosphere is catching on. Lots of interesting IP questions (I’ve posted this comment on your blog, is it mine or yours … if you were ESPN, it would be yours, and ESPN says so up front). Bottom line is, if you don’t wish to give it away, don’t say it.
Very sick. No I didn’t look it up, and I didn’t have prior experience. Too easy to guess, though. The things that pass for knowledge I can’t understand.
the amoeba’s last blog post..Better One Than None
I always assumed you own them unless I post a policy. Come to think of it as good as my commenters are I should get right on that ….;)
Steely Dan – I had to look that one up.