Web Apps We Love To Hate
This list is a group of companies we wish would just
go away. Their basis is controversial to say the least. Recently, Wired published
an article Exploring The Dark Side of Crowdsourcing, which shined light on
some shady startups. The article discussed the potential downfalls of social
media and web 2.0, or at least the seedier activities - e.g. black markets for
social news votes, or fake commercial comments on blogs. Usually the intentions of these
companies are not in the best interest of ordinary Internet users. Let's check them
out... and btw we are using the 'nofollow' link attribute so these companies don't get
any further search engine juice!
Recently we profiled this company. I think the following statement on the front
page of the company website sums them up:
"Finally you can purchase quality blog comments without the stress of finding someone to write the comments, or buying some high priced automated program. We specialize in selling blog comments for blackhatters who are looking for good quality backlinks."
In other words, the company is looking to add further comment spam to blogs.
User/Submitter and Subvert and Profit
These sites are essentially creating a black market for 'votes' on social news sites like digg and StumbleUpon. By bringing together advertisers and paid 'voters', these ill-intentioned startups are attempting to artificially inflate the popularity of advertiser links. This not only degrades the quality of content, but also ruins the overall user experience at social media websites.
RSS Equalizer and RSS Content Builder
These two tools help website owners automatically
turn RSS feeds into website content. If used legitimately, they can be useful. But more
often than not, these tools are used to steal other peoples content with the intention of
financial gain.
This is a huge issue in the blogosphere. Often blog content is repurposed illegitimately. Because search traffic and incoming links drive page views, this translates to unearned ad revenue at the expense of the original publisher.
Any black-hat SEO oufit or link farm
These illegitimate outlets are engaging in illicit
SEO techniques by gaming the search engines and artificially inflating PageRanks. This
means less relevant search engine results for the user and more traffic for the cheater.
The upshot is useless SEO-tailored landing pages and added Internet clutter.
Search engines are in a constant battle to stay on top of the game, especially Google (as the biggest search engine). But black-hatters are always nipping at their heels, finding new ways to beat the algorithms and make the web a less desirable place.
Finally, we come to MySpace. Note: we don't classify
MySpace in the same category as the scum above, but nevertheless this king of social
networks has committed many design sins. Tiled backgrounds, flashing text, and cluttered
layouts. Did I mention illegible text and comment SPAM? MySpace has basically morphed
into Geocities 2.0.
Conclusion
Obviously, some of you will disagree with the companies listed above. Tell us why in the comments below. And who else do you think should be on the list?
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Comments
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It seems like that everybody praises facebook, and dislike myspace now. Back to one year ago, the situation is different.
Posted by: Rich.List | July 18, 2007 1:23 AM
I have one that should be on the list.
Payperpost
-Jitendra
Posted by: Jitendra | July 18, 2007 1:49 AM
Jitendra,
When PayPerPost first launched, I would have had no hesitations putting them on the list. However, they've since changed some of their policies - most importantly around disclosure. Though these policies are still lacking in the ethics department, I believe the company is making a move in the right direction. I am still not a big fan either however :)
Cheers,
Aidan
Posted by: Aidan Henry | July 18, 2007 1:59 AM
Great post.
I cannot think of additional sites that should be added of the top of my head.
It used to be that you work hard and reap the rewards. Now people are working hard to accelerate the journey to success. The thing is, Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad series, mentioned that it is so easy to make money, why take the risk at doing it illegal or dishonest. If it takes brains and intelligence to think of ways to "fake" traffic, listings, comments, etc., why can't these same people use their brains to entice such results?
I am new at blogging, so I only see the problems with the above on the surface, but can understand that additional problems can arrive through "faking" information.
Regarding Myspace and Facebook: as much as those two are successful, I do believe that social network do not provide enough concrete value to its users. On this note, they provide a list of friends but not much to do with that (Facebook is getting better).
Eran
Posted by: Eran | July 18, 2007 4:48 AM
It's hard to believe a company can get away with selling comment spam so openly. I finally gave up and closed comments on several blogs because of that garbage.
As far as PayPerPost goes, I think the key is disclosure. As long as bloggers disclose that a post is sponsored, what's the big deal? Tech journalists have been given or "loaned" hardware since the beginning of time. Jerry Pournelle is famous for being showered with tech toys -- since the 1980s.
Posted by: Joe | July 18, 2007 6:33 AM
The worst thing about myspace are the 'unexpected errors'...
Posted by: Adam | July 18, 2007 7:24 AM
I agree with the list, though rss equalizer and rss content builder aren't much of a threat for me. if someone republishes your content, there will be also include internal links. so users will get back to your main site one day. i think of them as extra publicity for your content.
Posted by: heri | July 18, 2007 9:10 AM
@Rich
I don't remember MySpace being so universally loved as Facebook is. In fact, I seem to recall finding a lot of stories complaining about how horrible MySpace was. Perhaps this was due to my bias against it, though.
I think I'd almost prefer to have GeoCities back instead of MySpace. At least back then people didn't embed three videos to load simultaneously on their page...
Posted by: Jeremy Herbel | July 18, 2007 9:17 AM
Subvert and Profit is awesome. They've paid me more than $20 so far. Get off your high horse... Digg was ridiculous far before they showed up. Uncov did a great review of them:
http://www.uncov.com/2007/6/25/subvert-and-profit-keep-fighting-the-good-fight
Posted by: Oh come on | July 18, 2007 10:47 AM
Also, I love how you marginalize them by both:
1) not mentioning that the Wired interview was exclusively about Subvert and Profit... it didn't even mention a single other company
2) Putting it after User/Submitter, which has been defunct for months now.
Posted by: Oh come on | July 18, 2007 10:51 AM
An interesting list -- all sites mentioned deserve the criticism. Regarding MySpace -- they have simply become scary. Does everyone know they were owned completely by News Corp. (parent company of FOX) for a while? Good ol' Rupert -- the friend of all pre-teens, high schoolers and college kids -- recently exchanged MySpace for a 20 percent stake in Yahoo. So now Yahoo owns MySpace and Rupert (via News Corp) owns a fifth of its parent company. Get where I'm going here? The entire MySpace population and all of their relational information is now owned, in part, by a company that has extreme interests in marketing shlocky entertainment to youth culture, the elimination of the value of civic engagement, and promoting right-wing non-sense.
Posted by: NickR | July 18, 2007 1:31 PM
Good idea for a post - you could have (should have) taken it a lot further. The list is way too short to put MySpace together with "Any black-hat SEO oufit or link farm."
Posted by: aaron | July 18, 2007 6:49 PM
Out of curiosity, why are all the blackhat links nofollowed except Buy Blog Comments? One would think they are underhanded enough that you wouldn't want to give them a relevant link back to the site. It's also not nofollowed in the write up of them either.
-Star
Posted by: Star | July 21, 2007 11:27 AM
I think it is unfair to include MySpace in the same list as BuyBlogComments. I dont think MySpace has done anything even close t obe chastized ... is it the effect of the just concluded 'Facebook week'??? ;-)
Posted by: Nikhil Kulkarni | July 22, 2007 3:32 AM