vsphere_static_160x300
Free Business and Tech Magazines and eBooks
Badges

vexpert_logo_100x57

gestaltitbadge

follow-me-twitter

Subscribe to me on FriendFeed

Comments / DISQUS
Tag Cloud
Feedjit.com
«
»

If it’s not Blog Syndication or Aggregation then it’s Stealing and Aggravating

PostDateIcon June 27th, 2009 | PostAuthorIcon Author: Rich Brambley

[updated 06.29.09] – The owner of the site has professionally responded in the commnents following this post. I appreciate the reply and this exercise has made me to decide to investigate providing multiple RSS feeds for VM /ETC.

To the owner(s) of networkvirtualization.com:

Change the current method of publishing protected vmetc.com content to a more acceptable style of blog aggregation, contact me to arrange a syndication agreement, or take down any and all of my content from your site.

Based on Scott Lowe’s post I Love Having My Content Stolen and the consistent reaction in both Scott’s post comments and on Twitter, I assume it’s in your best interest to do the same for all the other bloggers whose content you have used.

What is acceptable? Here are some examples.

Blog Aggregation

Take a look at Planet v12n or VirtualizationFeed.com. In summary, publish only a preview of the post, provide the proper attribution to the creator, and make sure the link is obvious and goes back to the original site and not the RSS feed. Both also maintain a blog roll of the aggregated sites.

Blog Syndication

Use Gestaltit.com for an example. As a syndicated author, I allow specific posts to be republished there via an arranged agreement. Each author’s personal blog is linked and each has their own individual Gestaltit.com RSS feed as well.

Quotes and References

Feel free quote or reference published content to make your own point. Be sure to make the quote/reference identifiable and give proper credit to the originator.

Let me clarify

I am flattered that you enjoy my content and I welcome the additional exposure. I get a great sense of satisfaction from the public use of vmetc.com. I’m not saying, nor does my Creative Commons license state, the vmetc.com RSS feed cannot be used. It is simply a matter of proper format and due recognition.

Even though my posts are available in full in my RSS feed, I suggest using a news reader such as Google Reader or social media such as Facebook and Friendfeed to access my content, as well as aggregating any other blogs, from the convenience of a web browser on any computer.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Related Posts

PostCategoryIcon Posted in syndicated, vmetc.com | PostTagIcon Tags: , , ,
«
»
  • Well Said. I *WILL* be surprised if anything changes on that site though.
  • Dracolith
    Observation: much of what that specific site displays is fairly short, and they include a link to the original article after the text they display a link "Original article"
    I'm suspecting most weblogs only post a summary in their RSS feed.

    And that they think they're aggregating.

    That particular site displays some wild "Add This" links that point to their site instead of the original article.

    Overall I consider the practice of suppressing (or failing to fully prominently disclose) the source article unacceptable and extremely unethical, they should say up front exactly where the content came from, which means the original link to the article should be prominent, not hidden at the bottom, and "add this" links should bookmark the actual article, not their page about it.

    My suggestion for weblog posters, although it might be an inconvenience to some readers, is to provide a public "summarized" RSS feed, and a separate "full" RSS feed, force users to go through a click-through agreement to access, to get their personal URL for a _full_ RSS feed for their newsreader.

    And possibly include the original URL and a copyright statement inside the "article text" portion of the RSS feed (beyond what's normally displayed on the weblog pages).

    And be ready with the book handy to throw at anyone making such blatant abuse of the full feed.

    Removing copyright statements inserted into the original article text (if they do it) I suspect would be more than worthy of a DMCA takedown request letter, I would suspect.
  • Thanks for the feedback. We have taken down your content while we review your examples of acceptable use.

    We were not aware of the undesired behaviour of the addthis links pointed out by Dracolith in a comment to this post. He is right and we have removed the addThis service. Not surprisingly, we agree with his other points.

    If we may say so, we do prefer to resolve complaints via email or feedback form on our site, but we are not in a position to complain, if you prefer a post ... if other feel that we do not properly attribute, please let us know.

    Erica Howton
    Webmaster NetworkVirtualization.com
  • Eric,

    Thanks for the reply and decision to make changes on networkvirtualization.com. Dracolith's comments do make some great points, and I am also considering multi RSS feedS so that sites like yours can result in a win/win for both sides. I feel I speak for the v12n blogging community by saying providing a preview that links to the original content is the critical factor. The page views are critical to not only our sites, but also our sponsors.

    The decision to publicly post on this topic was primarily based on the fact that the only contact I could find was a "webmaster@" address and your contact form. I have not had great results getting a response from anonymous webmasters in the past. I also decided to address this topic on behalf of all v12n bloggers past, present, and future.
  • I have created a summary RSS feed as an alternative for aggregation sites to use. http://feeds.feedburner.com/vmetc/summary.
  • hemanthjava
    Hello Sir,

    This is Hemanth, the owner of the upcoming Sports Blog - http://www.clbuzz.com . The blog is less than 2 months old but its

    Traffic is growing very quickly and the Alexa Ranking is consistently improving Week after Week.

    What is CLBuzz.com?

    CLBuzz is a Sports Blog with the Latest in Sports Entertainment that Includes Football, WWE, Formula 1, TNA, UFC, MMA, Cricket Previews, Highlights, Live Streaming and more.

    I am interested in blog syndication of my blog with yours to add more exposure to my blog as well as yours. Do you offer any Blog Syndication?

    Waiting to hear from you.

    Regards,
    Hemanth
blog comments powered by Disqus
Hyper9 Cowabunga
Support VM /ETC
Support VMETC.com

Support VMETC.com

Special Offers

Save 10% on select VMware products!

@rbrambley tweets
Advertisements
Facebook
VMETC
VMETC
Promote Your Page Too
VMTN Roundtable Podcasts
Subscribe



Add to Google Reader or Homepage
Subscribe in NewsGator Online
Add to netvibes
Add to Plusmo

License
Creative Commons License
www.vmetc.com by Richard Brambley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Trademarks | Privacy Statement
Copyright © 2009 VM /ETC. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by WordPress and WordPress Theme created with Artisteer.