TUAW
Let’s say you find/discover something yourself and post it to Digg. Something unique. It becomes big news, but bloggers, especially larger commercial ones, ignore you, instead credit “digg” or no one at all. Not a nice feeling, is it? Happened to me yesterday (not for the first time).
My find: Apple adds Xvid to QuickTime components page
TUAW picks it up, credits their own blogger: Apple adds Xvid to QT Components site
They even added it to the “best of week” post: TUAW Best of the Week
So, what’s a guy to do? I’m going to start blogging my finds, submitting them to Digg and making money off the ads - ads I have yet to put up. To heck with honesty, and linking directly, and not being money-minded. Why should I bother? All I want is a mention. Even Diggnation gives that to me! And that could be considered a “mainstream” podcast, being on TiVo and all.
I’d really like to know what you guys think.
Cheers,
Smaran
P.S. Other instances:
InstantShot! - Menubar Screenshots
Visage Login - customize Mac OS X’s login screen
Use Mac OS X keyboard and shortcuts on Windows
Update (18/8/07): Here’s another fellow who’s had a similar experience with TUAW.
25 comments
Yeah, I’m with you on that one! Not that is has happened to me, because my content isn’t as interesting.
However, you’re completely right to want the recognition and you’re completely right to start throwing on ads to put a little back in your pocket!
Now if only more people were driven to my site from digg, I’d be happy.
Thanks, Steffan! I’m glad you agree with me.
Btw, I like the new design of your blog.
Cheers!
I’m not quite there yet, so if you’re been looking at it over the last 10 minutes I’m in Vista trying to iron out any IE7 bugs.
And as there are quite a few.. IE6 bugs will probably kill me - so I may not bother. =P
Hah, I don’t see IE bugs.
And Teddy did a pretty awesome job with my blog, it looks almost exactly the same in IE6/7.
That really sucks. You definitely should have been credited for the find, or a least had a [via digg] at the bottom of the story.
And he did a good job, too!
It’s impressive to get anything looking right in IE6, if you’ve designed for anything else. I did a Web Programming module earlier this year and I left it till about 6 hours before hand-in to check anything in IE6… not a good idea.
Floats, margins, paddings… nothing seems to work right!
Anyway, I just found one bug in my design so I’m off to look into it! Cheers for the feedback.
I know, Ron. But let me risk losing your support, and say that maybe even “via digg” isn’t enough (although a lot better than nothing). Digg isn’t a single entity. Sure, sometimes even the dugg story links to another source. But a lot of the time, it’s people finding unique stuff on the web and posting it to Digg. It’s not like it’s hard to see who the submitter is, Digg has recently made the submitter’s name even more prominent.
This has definitely made me think twice before posting something directly to Digg, even though I believe that’s how it should be - no blogspam - LOL.
Smaran, you break so much news on Digg that you should be credited with all those great finds. I know that looking at just the things that you’ve submitted gives me a great summary of what’s going on in the tech world. So I definitely agree with you
Thanks a lot, Josh. It’s sad that I have to resort to using my blog to be credited. But on the other hand, maybe I’ll get some pocket money and a better Google PageRank this way.
I can’t say I’m happy with the idea - it seems it’s becoming more and more prevalent - but if you’re willing to put your own thoughts about whatever you’re digging into your blog, it’ll be worth the extra click.
Don’t worry, if I’m posting links to my blog, they will definitely be more than 2-line, Digg-esque descriptions. In fact, I often feel restricted by Digg’s word limit. It’s taught me how to get a message across in a few words, and also how to write catchy titles, but I’d rather be expressive on my blog.
The Captain is an old school guy, when it comes to netiquette, as you well know - it’s definitely bad style (and karma) to recycle a story without acknowledging its source. But don’t you make yourself guilty of the same offence!
I’m pretty consistent when it comes to linking back to the source. That’s the whole point of Digg; you have no story if you’re not linking to anything. But yes, I’ll make sure not to do the same.
If TUAW gets an email from leetboy-16 with photos of a new iPhone model, they give credit to him. If they find it on digg, they don’t credit it.
If someone has taken time to find something an put it to the publics attention, they should atleast get credit.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. leetboy-16’s photoshopped iPhone pics - “OMG NEWS!”
Funny, almost the opposite happened to me. I posted my story on OSX code names to digg, but it didn’t get much attention. I then tipped off TUAW, and they ran a story - which in turn got quite a lot of attention when submitted to digg. They gave me proper credit, so I can’t complain, but naturally, TUAW got all the traffic, and I got none.
Oh, that’s cool. I remember clicking through to your site from TUAW. I guess they’re not acid-spitting silver dragons from Baator then - just some old-fashioned, fire-breathing, red ones from Amn. Good find! I was really fascinated that Apple is naming its OS releases after names used by one of the Mac clone makers.
I remember that article. Really good find on that one; was fairly interesting to see.
Smaran - “linking back to the source”
This is one of the most important components of proper journalism ettiquette. I could have said blogger etiquette but when it comes to news, to stories, to spreading truth, to properly crediting sources… well thats just good journalism. I think you’re a good journalist Smaran and I enjoy what you contribute to digg. Now that I have found your blog I also enjoy your writing, and I’ll tell you what - if you write more here, and throw up some ads, I would be happy to know that a good journalist was getting credit and compensation for his hard work.
Keep it up.
Btw, I’d love your thoughts on my blog.
Thanks, Justin. I appreciate it.
I agree with most of what you have said. What I would think would be less bad is if , say, I reblogged and didn’t credit you. Whilst it would be shitty for my karma, I wouldn’t be using it to get attention or money. TUAW however totally is doing that.
People don’t stand up to them, or when they do just give in and apologize because they are greedy money whores and want the traffic. People go to all sorts of lengths to get big traffic to their site, whether it is an ego thing or a money thing.
I agree. I wouldn’t mind if anyone re-blogged anything I post/find. But when a mainstream, commercial blog does it and doesn’t credit me, it isn’t a nice feeling.
The funny thing is, the bloggers who actually write the posts and credit sources are highly under-paid. Even in the Mac blogosphere, other commercial blogs like Ars’ Infinite Loop pay more per post than TUAW. It’s kind of sad, in a way.
But wait, maybe it’s because they get paid so little that they post so much?
Smaran - speaking of being a “good journalist” I would love your thoughts on an article I just penned regarding the Google and DoubleClick deal. 5 Insights Into The Google DoubleClick Deal to Take Over Affiliate Marketing And Banner Ads
Looks good. I just got back from my Commerce exam, so sorry for the late reply.
Definitely best to blog your own info, especially if you have an active digg community coming to your site. good luck with that.
i’ve been using social news to promote the open source movie project, A Swarm of Angels, and the news that gets digg promoted usually comes via sites with more of a digg culture.
but i’m trying to steadily build that for my ste/project too.
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