It's Hard Out Here for a Blog Pimp

Posted on March 23, 2006

Darla Mack has a post called Pimp My Blog - Do You Have The Right To Republish? where she complains about an aggregator that has republished content from her blog and dozens of other mobile news blogs without asking and without proper linkbacks. Mobile Jones is also discussing this particular aggregator called Wireless-Watch, which is published by a company called Mobikyo. There are aggregators and republishers (splogs) out there that make bloggers angry by republishing each blogs' complete feed along with photographs and either not providing a link back to the source blog or burying the link deep within the aggregator's website. Mobile Jones says that a link on the blog post's headline on Wireless-Watch takes the reader deeper into the Wireless-Watch website instead of taking them directly the original blog.

The navigation of content leads the reader to a subdomain of wireless-watch.com, rather than to the creator's blog. Here are some screenshot examples with the URL magnified and highlighted. It's a bit blurry from magnification, but the urls can be discerned.

Comments on the Mobile Jones blog from Mobikyo explain how hard it is for a blog republisher. They claim they tried to contact the bloggers initially. Of course, that doesn't explain why they started republishing content without getting an OK from each blogger. They also say Wireless-Watch was just in a "test phase" and that they will not include blogs on Wireless-Watch that don't want to be there.

"The current version of the site is online at the link below; it is NOT publicly available and will not be so until **** -- and then only with content provided by contributors who have given us authorization. We will not, at any time, republish any content for which we do not have a duly signed agreement from the original contributor."
"In other words, if you do not wish to join the W-W.Com platform, any and all content from your RSS feed that we have cached during our test and trial phase will be deleted (with no hard feelings from us!) before the public launch so as not to violate your copyright."

Mobikyo says they will not publish any content on Wireless-Watch without a "duly signed agreement from the original contributor" -- which is appropriate. It would have been much easier for them if they had just gotten an OK first instead of stirring things up by republishing content and listing participating blogs without having their approval. With all the splogs out there it is good to see that bloggers in one industry, in this case mobile bloggers, can work together to point out potential republishing and copyright issues.