While browsing an unusually large collection of RSS articles this morning I stumbled across this little doozy from the HowToGeek. Being a fan of keyboard shortcuts universally I immediately thought it was cool and tried it out in my copy of Office ‘07. It worked. Sweet!
Then about 5 minutes later, while reading the Lifehack feed, I found this article.
Wow! They’re almost exactly the same! The images are definintely from the same source, so there’s gotta be something going on here. Either…
- Lifehack ripped off HowToGeek
- HowToGeek ripped off Lifehack
- Both Lifehack and HowToGeek ripped off someone else
- They both used images from a known Office 2007 article which allows free use of the pictures therein
I don’t know which one of these is the case, but I don’t think it matters.
The point is this: so many sites are just constantly recycling and regurgitating the same information. I have quite a few feeds in my RSS subscription list, and the amount of content duplication is just incredible. Whatever happened to people writing their own content? What happened to “different site, different story”?
Reading stuff on the web is starting to become annoying. Bring back the days when there weren’t a million tumble blogs cranking out bzillions of stories that are the same as all the other blogs. Leave us with Engadget, BoingBoing and dzone and we’ll be happy.
June 26, 2007
I agree. original thought
June 26, 2007
How
ic!
June 26, 2007
Maybe the moral of the story, is that great minds think alike!!
On a more serious note, it is the problem facing us today. And we all do it.. and you’ve run into the issue on a micro level yourself already - with the issue your having about tracking RSS readers vs actual visits. By dividing your audience, and displaying content on multiple locations (facebook, rss feeds, et al)… the further down the line, the more chances someone else is going to link to the content, show the content, and repurpose it, or re-link it.
And therein lies the rub. It’s I guess not a matter of what, but who. BoingBoin do it well, just giving you a snippet… it’s the whole-hearted duplication that’s the most worrying trend. Another reason to perhaps stick to the summary whenever you put your content in locations other than the original site. Maybe if we all did this, it would reduce the amount of duplication? Just a thought…
June 26, 2007
It’s not so much that the same idea is being shared, but more that the same content without any addition. BoingBoing at least adds some extra information (well, most of the time.
The two posts that I mentioned are a prime example. Neither of them really elaborated, it’s as if it’s just another instance of the same newspaper. It’s crap, it’s boring, and it shits me
Talk about an extra feature. Talk about how it can benefit you in a different way. Talk about how it’ll have a resounding affect on your sex life. But jesus, don’t just regurgitate the exact same stuff.
Yes, I am a bit of a culprit sometimes (particularly for funny stuff), but I don’t think I’m that bad
June 26, 2007
The screenshots and idea for the article were by Mysticgeek, one of the authors at the How-To Geek.
I take a very strong stance against ripping off content, and I would never rip off anything from another site.
Every article on How-To Geek is original content created by myself or Mysticgeek. In fact, I have a policy that if somebody else covers something first that we will wait to write a similar article, or come at it from a different angle. (I’ve got a queue of 50 written articles because of this)
You might also note that almost all of the screenshots in How-To Geek articles are of extremely high quality, which is unlike most of the sites that rip us off (Not that lifehack did, it just happens a lot)
On a personal note, I’m also very tired of the constant recycling and overall lack of thought behind most blogs these days.
June 26, 2007
Hello Geek!
Thanks for posting, it’s nice to have you here!
So if the article was written by you, then you must have given Lifehack permission to recycle it? The reason I ask is that I would have expected Lifehack to link directly to you rather than repeat content.
I’m glad to see that you feel the same way regarding the amount of recycled information. Let’s hope that the overall quality across the web improves and that we’re not just bombarded with the same stuff from millions of different directions
Cheers!
June 26, 2007
I wasn’t contacted about it… I only knew about it because I check my technorati feed daily.
They didn’t copy the entire article and they did link back, so it falls within the acceptable use guidelines and doesn’t require contacting me.
They also have a bigger readership than I do, so when it comes right down to it, it’s nice to get more exposure.
I do think that eventually the web will balance out, and the millions of “news blogs” will become less popular. Hopefully the link blogs, tumblelogs and spam blogs will be stopped first, though.
June 26, 2007
Unfortunately, I don’t agree. I think that over time we’ll just be inundated with more and more crap - there’s always going to be more bad content than good
It’s interesting that you say you personally don’t like recycling and lack of thought, yet you’re fine with this example of it because it increases your exposure?
Personally I don’t think it will increase exposure too much. The link to your site was so small that I missed it completely until Dan pointed it out. I probably won’t be the only one who misses it.
June 26, 2007
Your comment made me think…
Surely you wouldn’t object to being featured on CNN or NBC? They aren’t exactly peddling new ideas there..
In the How-To/Productivity world on the web, there aren’t many sites bigger than Lifehacker or Lifehack. Lifehacker is essentially the most mainstream channel for productivity “news”. Only 1 out of 20 of their daily posts are actually original content, but it’s still good to get linked on there, and it’s still a good resource. Lifehack.org is somewhat like MSNBC… less viewers, same thing.
What I object to is the zillions of other sites out there just regurgitating all of the content off the mainstream sites without coming up with any new content.
Hopefully someday HowToGeek will be as big as the other sites, and then I can set a new standard of 100% original content. =)
June 26, 2007
Hi again,
You’re probably asking the wrong guy that question
I wouldn’t want any coverage on CNN, NBC or any other news station for that matter. I’m not that kind of guy.
I don’t doubt that Lifehacker or Lifehack are hugely rated sites that would bring in a lot of traffic, and I hope for the sake of your site that’s exactly what they do you for you. But that’s beside the point
The point is that content duplication and recycling is something that I find frustrating, and based on your previous comment, so do you. And yet in this case it doesn’t bother you because it brings traffic 
If I was in your shoes, it’d bother me. I would have preferred them to post a small comment about the article and link to it instead of essentially regurgitating what you and/or your colleague wrote.
Before you know it, your images will be spread around the web in the same manner, and that’s what I hate.
As much as I like your content (after all I do read it regularly through my RSS reader), I don’t want to see it come through 5 different sites
If you keep your content the way it is I’m sure that you will slowly but surely get bigger, and your number of loyal visitors will increase. On that I wish you good luck
July 6, 2007
The reality of ubiquitous blogging is that it has revealed wart’n'all the truth about 99% of mankind … they have nothing to say. They don’t even have anything original to add. They simply rehash mass media memes they have received and only think variations on thoughts that are first generated by State approved outlets for doubleplusgoodthink.
It’s a very rare blog you will read where you think to yourself “The guy/girl that wrote this blog has actual consciousness. Not just clever PROLOG simulacra style consciousness, but authentic sentience that is clearly superior to that displayed by most primates in the old world monkey family. I have a new perspective from reading this blog that I would not have had before had I not visited here. Reading this blog punched a hole out the wall of this stale mass produced reality and let in some fresh air before I even realized I was cooped up inside a manufactured ideological box.”
This is what I look for in blogs on the internet and I am really pleased when I find one that doesn’t simply link to other content linked to by other blogs to media that was originally generated by government licensed and approved official arbiters of ‘what we should be thinking about and how.’ I like that Matrix moment when a blogger takes you through the looking glass and it hits you that you in an artificial created environment that didn’t even exist before you read that blog.
July 6, 2007
I couldn’t agree more Cleve, I couldn’t agree more!