From: Jacob Fugal <lukfugl@...>
Date: 2006-09-14T04:45:40+09:00
Subject: Re: aggregated blogs on ruby:New site

On 9/13/06, Richard Turner <richardturner_2@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Agreed, the link should be direct to the original content, not to a
> > screen-scraped version.  Less Is Better for example is missing part of
> > the content as the format of the aggregation site is different from
> > the original site.
> >
> > I also feel it's a little bit dishonest to build a site that makes
> > money from other people's work
>
> if you don't understand the purpose and usefulness of a blog aggregation
> ,then either read this
> http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163105127&tid=13692
> http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000500.html
> http://www.cabalamat.org/weblog/art_92.html
> or forget about it

Blog aggregation is fine. I'm subscribed to several (and you could
even say that the reader itself is an "aggregation" of sorts). I think
the point that some have made has to do more with *how* it is
aggregated. Usually, an aggregator will display the summary out of an
RSS feed, then have the post title link to the original content.

softlogger.com, on the other hand, does its best to keep people on
their site. When you click the title link to go from the summary to
the full content, they don't redirect you to the original content, but
rather display the content in their own site, scraped from the
author's site. In addition, there is *no* direct link to the original
content. There *is* a link to the original author's main page, but not
to the article itself.

The effects of this are several.

1a) If the author includes advertising content on their site to
support their writing, that content is bypassed because the readers
are never directed through to the original site.

1b) softlogger.com, however, *does* have advertising content on their
site. Keeping visitors on their site instead of flowing them through
to the original content increases their ad revenue. This might be seen
as subverting the author's content to make money for softlogger.com

2) When the content is displayed outside the original setting, some
might be lost. Kevin pointed this out with respect to the "Less is
Better" feed. If someone is publishing the full content in their feed
as the summary, go ahead and display that. But don't scrape it off
their site.

3) Search engine rankings and other such ratings are skewed. By
displaying scraped content in their site -- especially without an
direct link back to the original content -- softlogger.com gains rank
for search terms related to content that someone else wrote. If
intentional, this is probably designed to increase their search
ranking and drive more traffic to the site, thus generating more ad
revenue.

I don't know if these are the motives of softlogger.com. I'm willing
to give them the benefit of the doubt that they're just trying to make
something cool and didn't consider these consequences.

Jacob Fugal