Nick Halstead
Is this you? Claim Profile »
3 months ago
in louisgray.com: Fav.or.it Comments On Commenting Statistics on louisgray.com
If you go back and look at previous coverage for fav.or.it the pulling + pushing of comments was the most coverage aspect of the service! TechCrunch / Mashable must have at least written 2-3 posts each about the commenting aspect.
The fact is we cannot make a usable site for the mass market unless we produce a service which brings everything together in one location. This means making commenting easy / making finding new content easy, and not requiring them to have to register for multiple services.
We believe by doing this yes we have a sub-set of your blog - but the functionality we bring for users to find your content and interact with it is much greater than on your own blog. And bottom line, if you dont like it email me and its dropped easy as that. But I hope that you understand we CAN bring you a new audience that you dont have.
Our traffic stats show that our demographic is 75% Internet explorer - what is yours 80%+ Firefox? this shows we are attracting the mass market and that can only be good thing to bring blog content to that audience.
I would just like to point out that on one hand you say you love friendfeed but friendfeed is stealing the attention away from your blog and fragmenting the comments, we do aggregate comments (they are public feeds we access!) BUT we also push comments back again, something no one else in the world is doing right now.
The fact is we cannot make a usable site for the mass market unless we produce a service which brings everything together in one location. This means making commenting easy / making finding new content easy, and not requiring them to have to register for multiple services.
We believe by doing this yes we have a sub-set of your blog - but the functionality we bring for users to find your content and interact with it is much greater than on your own blog. And bottom line, if you dont like it email me and its dropped easy as that. But I hope that you understand we CAN bring you a new audience that you dont have.
Our traffic stats show that our demographic is 75% Internet explorer - what is yours 80%+ Firefox? this shows we are attracting the mass market and that can only be good thing to bring blog content to that audience.
I would just like to point out that on one hand you say you love friendfeed but friendfeed is stealing the attention away from your blog and fragmenting the comments, we do aggregate comments (they are public feeds we access!) BUT we also push comments back again, something no one else in the world is doing right now.
1 reply
3 months ago
in rizzn's personal blog on rizzn.com
Hi Mark,
I was up in Leeds when you post came out so I only responded to your comments about splogging, but you raised 2 other core issues which I need to address.
1) Comments not going back to the sites. I did notice that you had left a number of test comments, I have not been been back into the office to fully understand the problem, but it may just be a bug we have introduced since the release on Friday, we fully support blogger.com, wordpress + disqus. I understand Louis had a problem posting back to his own blog, but Louis knows I have tested multiple times against his blog (something he did not mention) - but be sure this will be fixed on Monday.
2) Stripping Advertising - We do NOT actively strip adverts - the whole point is that we encourage people to embed advertising - We use a open source library called HTML Purifier - it is extremely robust in removing HTML / JavaScript which it deems to be illegal, but it is obviously being heavy handed or the advertisers have started being a bit lax in the html they are including, either way I will look into this, but let me be clear again this would be stupid + counter productive for us to strip adverts.
If you have some examples of posts that have been stripped please forward them on and we will get it sorted.
Please in future do twitter me / email me and I will look into these things and get them fixed very quickly.
I was up in Leeds when you post came out so I only responded to your comments about splogging, but you raised 2 other core issues which I need to address.
1) Comments not going back to the sites. I did notice that you had left a number of test comments, I have not been been back into the office to fully understand the problem, but it may just be a bug we have introduced since the release on Friday, we fully support blogger.com, wordpress + disqus. I understand Louis had a problem posting back to his own blog, but Louis knows I have tested multiple times against his blog (something he did not mention) - but be sure this will be fixed on Monday.
2) Stripping Advertising - We do NOT actively strip adverts - the whole point is that we encourage people to embed advertising - We use a open source library called HTML Purifier - it is extremely robust in removing HTML / JavaScript which it deems to be illegal, but it is obviously being heavy handed or the advertisers have started being a bit lax in the html they are including, either way I will look into this, but let me be clear again this would be stupid + counter productive for us to strip adverts.
If you have some examples of posts that have been stripped please forward them on and we will get it sorted.
Please in future do twitter me / email me and I will look into these things and get them fixed very quickly.
1 reply
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
No, you're wrong, Nick. I definitely see the value in your site, even though it really isn't an RSS reader as it was originally pitched. I see the value in the site because I see the value in all the sites the content was pulled from, and I see it as being even more valuable in a mega-site. It gives the blogosphere the appearance of a CNN or an MSNBC style site.
But for me, as you can see by this blog post, putting together a site that aggregates others' content is more or less a dealbreaker if I can't use it in clear conscience. Everyone that put those blog posts together spent time on it and a number of organizations spent money on it as well, and your organization is benefiting from their work without adding any substantive value other than the context of other posts from other sources.
In other words, it's a great idea, but it's a substitute for having thousands of bloggers and newsfolks working for your company producing that content, and by design the goal of the site (like any site) is to keep folks mostly within the site. This, of course, robs the producers of pageviews, which is currently the bread and butter for most for-profit bloggers.
But for me, as you can see by this blog post, putting together a site that aggregates others' content is more or less a dealbreaker if I can't use it in clear conscience. Everyone that put those blog posts together spent time on it and a number of organizations spent money on it as well, and your organization is benefiting from their work without adding any substantive value other than the context of other posts from other sources.
In other words, it's a great idea, but it's a substitute for having thousands of bloggers and newsfolks working for your company producing that content, and by design the goal of the site (like any site) is to keep folks mostly within the site. This, of course, robs the producers of pageviews, which is currently the bread and butter for most for-profit bloggers.
3 months ago
in rizzn's personal blog on rizzn.com
Hi Mark,
I understand your argument just as much as the next blogger, because I blog and I have had my content 'splogged'. But we are not splogging, fav.or.it was created to bring in a whole new audience into an enviroment where they have no idea that they are interacting with the blogosphere just like me and you do but without having to understand all the technical bits, my Dad will never ever get into blogging, he cannot open more window than one window at a time, he could never subscribe to a feed.
We have built foremost a platform that allows people to access content in a single easy location and get involved just like they would on individiual blogs, our USP has always been pulling / pushing comments, so when they leave a comment the blog still gets that comment, and then that user can track that conversation.
We do not show adverts against the full posts - and we take account of any creative commons licenses that are attached to the feed. But the basic premise of the service would be totally broken if we reduced all posts to excerpts, because at that point my Dad (and probably 70% of people on the internet) wont go any further, they wont click into a blog, then come back.
We did experiment with Adverts on posts - why? because we are trying to build a platform that tracks ALL the clicks on all the adverts. And the reason for this is so we can revenue share, but we are still probably a few months off having a total solution - so for now no adverts.
Lastly we of course take down content when people request us to, but guess what? nobody has, in fact I get constant emails asking for sites to be added by owners so they can get some extra audience, people believe in the model and that we are reaching out to this new audience.
We still feel we are doing the right thing for the blogosphere and for the users who want to get involved. I would still be very happy to do a podcast for mashable just drop me a line.
I understand your argument just as much as the next blogger, because I blog and I have had my content 'splogged'. But we are not splogging, fav.or.it was created to bring in a whole new audience into an enviroment where they have no idea that they are interacting with the blogosphere just like me and you do but without having to understand all the technical bits, my Dad will never ever get into blogging, he cannot open more window than one window at a time, he could never subscribe to a feed.
We have built foremost a platform that allows people to access content in a single easy location and get involved just like they would on individiual blogs, our USP has always been pulling / pushing comments, so when they leave a comment the blog still gets that comment, and then that user can track that conversation.
We do not show adverts against the full posts - and we take account of any creative commons licenses that are attached to the feed. But the basic premise of the service would be totally broken if we reduced all posts to excerpts, because at that point my Dad (and probably 70% of people on the internet) wont go any further, they wont click into a blog, then come back.
We did experiment with Adverts on posts - why? because we are trying to build a platform that tracks ALL the clicks on all the adverts. And the reason for this is so we can revenue share, but we are still probably a few months off having a total solution - so for now no adverts.
Lastly we of course take down content when people request us to, but guess what? nobody has, in fact I get constant emails asking for sites to be added by owners so they can get some extra audience, people believe in the model and that we are reaching out to this new audience.
We still feel we are doing the right thing for the blogosphere and for the users who want to get involved. I would still be very happy to do a podcast for mashable just drop me a line.
1 reply
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
First of all, I'm happy to hear you're considering a revenue share program with content producers. For me, that's the only way I'd consider placing my content voluntarily on a site like yours. I currently don't run ads here at Rizzn.com, but by letting you use my content, I lose the opportunity to cross promote my different projects as effectively as I can do on my own domain.
I have a real hard time buying that you have had no requests to remove content, though. I've reproduced blog content that I've *had permission to reproduce* and been served DMCA notices, so it's pretty unbelievable to me that no one has requested that their site's content be removed from your publication. If you claim it, though, I have no proof to the contrary, so I'll take your word on it.
Given my experience in this space, I have a hard time believing that if I were to pop up a news portal tomorrow that featured my editorial content, let's say, and used other's blog posts in full to supplement my news coverage that I'd get away with it. That's the perspective I'm coming at this from, I guess.
I have a real hard time buying that you have had no requests to remove content, though. I've reproduced blog content that I've *had permission to reproduce* and been served DMCA notices, so it's pretty unbelievable to me that no one has requested that their site's content be removed from your publication. If you claim it, though, I have no proof to the contrary, so I'll take your word on it.
Given my experience in this space, I have a hard time believing that if I were to pop up a news portal tomorrow that featured my editorial content, let's say, and used other's blog posts in full to supplement my news coverage that I'd get away with it. That's the perspective I'm coming at this from, I guess.
5 months ago
in louisgray.com: The Gray Family Doubles Overnight. Welcome Matthew and Sarah! on louisgray.com
Fantastic news, all the best to the newly enlarged family. Suddenly everything else in the world seems so much less important. We are all so focused on our little web world we sometimes forget the rest of it. Our little one is now only 5 months but one little smile from her means more than a million hits on our site.
- 2 points
- Jump to »
Louis Gray
Nick, thanks. We're already experiencing some of that. Matthew has spent the last two nights with us, mostly me, and I've been largely ignoring the laptop and Blackberry. We had our first visitors today, and brought them to see Sarah in the NICU. Both kids are doing great, but still very touching.
5 months ago
in Lets Talk Copyright on The Inquisitr
You really are fighting with the wrong people Duncan, you don't seem to get the idea that legally what we are doing is no different to what google reader/bloglines is doing. In fact we are doing something way ahead of everyone else in that we support creative commons licenses and so if you can put up a full feed and then add a CC license and we will abide by that. Does google reader or any other reader do that? no. Just because we are presenting the content in a more traditional format in the attempt to bring in a more broad demographic you suddenly think we are stealing content, its a ridiculus argument.
Have I had Mike Arrington on the phone because we are republishing his content? No, because we show the adverts he chooses to monetize his feed with. Plus unlike any platform in the world, the attention that we give via comments is pushed back to his blog. Do you see friendfeed etc doing this? no! they are stealing attention away and nobody has a problem, I cannot frankly believe you are calling us a walled garden, when we have one of the most open and advanced platforms out there.
You obviously have some kind of axe to grind, but frankly you are barking up the wrong tree. And you are am afraid in a minority here, go play with AP who seem to live in the past like you.
Have I had Mike Arrington on the phone because we are republishing his content? No, because we show the adverts he chooses to monetize his feed with. Plus unlike any platform in the world, the attention that we give via comments is pushed back to his blog. Do you see friendfeed etc doing this? no! they are stealing attention away and nobody has a problem, I cannot frankly believe you are calling us a walled garden, when we have one of the most open and advanced platforms out there.
You obviously have some kind of axe to grind, but frankly you are barking up the wrong tree. And you are am afraid in a minority here, go play with AP who seem to live in the past like you.
- 0 points
- Jump to »
Sebastian
Nick,
what you said is ridiculous.
Your usage of other people's content is not "personal use", but commercial, because you take advantage of the content differently than GReader does. GReader shows content to me, and only to me, whereas you take away the SEO juice from the websites that created the websites originally. This is clearly commercial use, because you do more than just showing content to visitors. You take advantage of the content to get more users yourself, even moving away attention from the original blogs completely.
Your back-links are a shame, and you know that exactly.
The issue around building communities around comments is a completely different - it's a moral issue. Yes, it's a problem for bloggers that comments are spread all over the web now. That started long ago with Digg (although nobody ever complained, because they prominently link back - different than you). They still link back more prominently than you do.
The thing is though: It's a moral issue, not a legal issue.
You keep the content, you keep the SEO-juice, you keep the page views, you don't link back. (The links are a joke.) Your whole website wouldn't survive a court, even if a sane judge would rule for "common sense".
Claiming that this is the same like AP wanting to charge $12.5 for 5 quoted words is ridiculous, and if you don't know that, you honestly shouldn't be an entrepreneur.
There is a big difference between fair use, personal use and stealing content.
But then again, your business is basically a splog - I don't expect you to agree with common sense.
what you said is ridiculous.
Your usage of other people's content is not "personal use", but commercial, because you take advantage of the content differently than GReader does. GReader shows content to me, and only to me, whereas you take away the SEO juice from the websites that created the websites originally. This is clearly commercial use, because you do more than just showing content to visitors. You take advantage of the content to get more users yourself, even moving away attention from the original blogs completely.
Your back-links are a shame, and you know that exactly.
The issue around building communities around comments is a completely different - it's a moral issue. Yes, it's a problem for bloggers that comments are spread all over the web now. That started long ago with Digg (although nobody ever complained, because they prominently link back - different than you). They still link back more prominently than you do.
The thing is though: It's a moral issue, not a legal issue.
You keep the content, you keep the SEO-juice, you keep the page views, you don't link back. (The links are a joke.) Your whole website wouldn't survive a court, even if a sane judge would rule for "common sense".
Claiming that this is the same like AP wanting to charge $12.5 for 5 quoted words is ridiculous, and if you don't know that, you honestly shouldn't be an entrepreneur.
There is a big difference between fair use, personal use and stealing content.
But then again, your business is basically a splog - I don't expect you to agree with common sense.
Duncan Riley
Nick
you are nothing more than a leach who is so inept you have to steal from others to create a business. There is a world of difference between personal and commercial use of data, under law, and it takes 5 seconds on Google for a retarded 2 year old to find that distinction, something you're completely incapable of. There is also a world of difference between fair use (extract) and full scale copyright infringement.
As for an axe to grind, my only axe is with scumbags like you who steal from others then put a 2.0 label on the product and call everyone who calls you out as being copyright nazis in bed with AP. You sir are scum.
you are nothing more than a leach who is so inept you have to steal from others to create a business. There is a world of difference between personal and commercial use of data, under law, and it takes 5 seconds on Google for a retarded 2 year old to find that distinction, something you're completely incapable of. There is also a world of difference between fair use (extract) and full scale copyright infringement.
As for an axe to grind, my only axe is with scumbags like you who steal from others then put a 2.0 label on the product and call everyone who calls you out as being copyright nazis in bed with AP. You sir are scum.
5 months ago
in louisgray.com: Fav.or.it Opens Up, Reminds Us of Google News for Blogs on louisgray.com
The import process is disabled for a short while - we want to get it right next time round, for the moment content discovery is the name of the game, we aggregate from a fantastic range of feeds and there is something to be found for everyone. If you want a core RSS reader then go use google reader, as Louis explains we are trying to achieve something different. We will long term try and cater for everyone but for now we have to drive in the direction we always planned on.
On the friend feed problem, were you using your name + apikey? for friendfeed you must use the apikey not your password. If that is still a problem please report it on getsatisfaction.
On the friend feed problem, were you using your name + apikey? for friendfeed you must use the apikey not your password. If that is still a problem please report it on getsatisfaction.
2 replies
graubart
Friendfeed still not working. Tried nickname and remote key but did not work (also tried password just in case but same result) Will cross-post to getsatisfaction
jp42
Well that's impressive -- thanks much for the quick response. I totally understand getting these platforms out of "Beta". I am not looking for a core RSS reader I am trying to explore what your platform can do for me as a blog reader as well as creator (www.very.fm). So I attempted to jump in and get started -- i think the idea of pulling blog content together as you're doing further adds to the democratization of content, and that is worth supporting...will give fav.or.it a longer look later today...
5 months ago
in When Did Splogging Become a Business Model? Fav.or.it on The Inquisitr
Duncan, nice title but totally wrong.
We are trying to engage a new audience in the blogosphere, the only way that is going to happen is if we make it simpler, having them click to open new windows to each blog post does not work for the mass market.
So we were left with some hard decisions on how dealt with copyright issues, I did a massive amount of reading and also spent a lot of time with our lawyers. The bottom line is when you read your 'full content' in google reader that is no different to viewing it in the format we show it on fav.or.it - in fact in fav.or.it you can switch view between porta/reader and the content is the same, but what you are saying is that we are somehow stealing content because of this?
By employing creative commons we are giving an automatic system to content owners (feedburner now supports CC as well) to decide on how we use that content. We also by default turn the content into an excerpt if a comment is left and we do not support sending back to that blog.
Am sure this will open up the whole conversation regarding blog copyright and I am very happy to continue that discussion.
But frankly you have concentrated on the negative and not shown all the positive things we are trying to do within the blogosphere.
show all 4 replies
We are trying to engage a new audience in the blogosphere, the only way that is going to happen is if we make it simpler, having them click to open new windows to each blog post does not work for the mass market.
So we were left with some hard decisions on how dealt with copyright issues, I did a massive amount of reading and also spent a lot of time with our lawyers. The bottom line is when you read your 'full content' in google reader that is no different to viewing it in the format we show it on fav.or.it - in fact in fav.or.it you can switch view between porta/reader and the content is the same, but what you are saying is that we are somehow stealing content because of this?
By employing creative commons we are giving an automatic system to content owners (feedburner now supports CC as well) to decide on how we use that content. We also by default turn the content into an excerpt if a comment is left and we do not support sending back to that blog.
Am sure this will open up the whole conversation regarding blog copyright and I am very happy to continue that discussion.
But frankly you have concentrated on the negative and not shown all the positive things we are trying to do within the blogosphere.
4 replies
Duncan Riley
Nick
utter bollocks. Google Reader presents content for private use and to date they've never once tried to sell ads off it for the same reason they dont sell ads around Google News: copyright. You a taking other people's content and building a business around that without giving anything in return, you a reprinting other peoples content for commercial gain and without permission: that's copyright theft.
If you want to compare your model to anyone, the best comparison is Topix, who DON'T reprint articles in full unless they obtain a license to do so. Fair use only extends to a point, you dont have fair use when you are reprinting these posts in full and without permission
There's nothing positive about stealing peoples content Nick and leaching off the hard work of others. If you had any morals what so ever you'd take down all full content and switch to an extract model only and then ask content owners for permission to republish their works. That's not just the moral thing to do: THATS THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT AS WELL!!!!
utter bollocks. Google Reader presents content for private use and to date they've never once tried to sell ads off it for the same reason they dont sell ads around Google News: copyright. You a taking other people's content and building a business around that without giving anything in return, you a reprinting other peoples content for commercial gain and without permission: that's copyright theft.
If you want to compare your model to anyone, the best comparison is Topix, who DON'T reprint articles in full unless they obtain a license to do so. Fair use only extends to a point, you dont have fair use when you are reprinting these posts in full and without permission
There's nothing positive about stealing peoples content Nick and leaching off the hard work of others. If you had any morals what so ever you'd take down all full content and switch to an extract model only and then ask content owners for permission to republish their works. That's not just the moral thing to do: THATS THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT AS WELL!!!!
BocaJuniors
Nick,
I agree with you that Duncan focused on the negative of fav.or.it, and to be honest the aspect of reusing content without permission was what caught my attention as well when I visited the site earlier today.
Nevertheless, the site is attractive and could be useful. There is certainly space for such a service on the web, but with a couple caveats. Content creators must be able to opt-in to:
- provide full content
- own the comments to their content (otherwise comments aren't allowed)
- participate in monetization of their content (otherwise ads aren't displayed)
I know that getting buy-in from content creators would be a struggle for such a service as fav.or.it, but that is the cost of running such a service: you can't bite the hand that feeds you (the content creators).
I agree with you that Duncan focused on the negative of fav.or.it, and to be honest the aspect of reusing content without permission was what caught my attention as well when I visited the site earlier today.
Nevertheless, the site is attractive and could be useful. There is certainly space for such a service on the web, but with a couple caveats. Content creators must be able to opt-in to:
- provide full content
- own the comments to their content (otherwise comments aren't allowed)
- participate in monetization of their content (otherwise ads aren't displayed)
I know that getting buy-in from content creators would be a struggle for such a service as fav.or.it, but that is the cost of running such a service: you can't bite the hand that feeds you (the content creators).
That said, I believe that if this practice were made more transparent, many of those bloggers for whom you are already importing full feeds and comments would have a big problem with this, and so far, given the site's relative obscurity, this hasn't yet happened.
As for FriendFeed "fragmenting the comments" and "stealing the attention away" from the blog, I feel I've answered that issue many different times. In actuality, FriendFeed has been a significant traffic driver for me and for others. And comments that occur on FriendFeed can be pulled into the original blog source. What's not happening is that comments here (yours for instance) are flowing their way.
How do you think you can help bridge the gap with people like Duncan who are vehemently opposed to the way you're going about it, and what you're trying to do? Of note, I'm not opting out.