Aggregated blogs on ruby:New site

Ruby
1

We have recently launched a site which collects blogs and aggregates
them . Please check out the blogs on ruby on rails.

http://softlogger.com/tags/Ruby-on-Rails/1-9/Ruby-on-Rails-Articles.aspx

We have released the beta version and working day and night :slight_smile: for
final release .Looking forward to your valuable suggestion and feedback

2

This is indeed an excellent site with some nice collection of blogs.
Great going guys!

3

On Sep 12, 2006, at 5:44 PM, Rick Hansman wrote:

This is indeed an excellent site with some nice collection of blogs.
Great going guys!

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Astroturf much? Sites like this seem a little shady to me. They

aggregate blog posts but keep the user captive when they click thru
to read a post. And there is no clear link to the original authors
blog post.

-Ezra

4

Ezra Z. wrote:

Astroturf much? Sites like this seem a little shady to me. They
aggregate blog posts but keep the user captive when they click thru
to read a post. And there is no clear link to the original authors
blog post.

-Ezra

well, they seemed to have added a “BY:” link to the original content,
but this reminds me that we’re in Web 2.1, the age of Dappit and
Anthracite, where you don’t have to ask nicely anymore.

5

Gene T. wrote:

well, they seemed to have added a “BY:” link to the original content,
but this reminds me that we’re in Web 2.1, the age of Dappit and
Anthracite, where you don’t have to ask nicely anymore.

Oh, but the possibilities for big mirth are endless.

Detect the IP of the content snarfer, and serve back, um, custom
content, just for them.

Make it a Ruby Q…

–
James B.

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
Ruby Code & Style - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys

6 
    Astroturf much? Sites like this seem a little shady to me. They

aggregate blog posts but keep the user captive when they click thru
to read a post. And there is no clear link to the original authors
blog post.

Agreed, the link should be direct to the original content, not to a
screen-scraped version. Less Is Better for example is missing part of
the content as the format of the aggregation site is different from
the original site.

I also feel it’s a little bit dishonest to build a site that makes
money from other people’s work

my 2d

Kev

7

I saw the site do have a direct link to “original content” at the
bottom of the post , I think they are providing user to find their
relevance , and then visit the original for detail…
-hansman

Ezra Z. wrote:

On Sep 12, 2006, at 5:44 PM, Rick Hansman wrote:

This is indeed an excellent site with some nice collection of blogs.
Great going guys!

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Astroturf much? Sites like this seem a little shady to me. They
aggregate blog posts but keep the user captive when they click thru
to read a post. And there is no clear link to the original authors
blog post.

-Ezra

8

if you don’t understand the purpose and usefulness of a blog aggregation
,then either read this
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163105127&tid=13692
http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000500.html

or forget about it

Agreed, the link should be direct to the original content, not to a
screen-scraped version. Less Is Better for example is missing part of
the content as the format of the aggregation site is different from
the original site.

I also feel it’s a little bit dishonest to build a site that makes
money from other people’s work

my 2d

Kev

9

On 9/13/06, Richard T. [email protected] wrote:

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163105127&tid=13692
http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000500.html
cabalamat.org
or forget about it

Blog aggregation is fine. I’m subscribed to several (and you could
even say that the reader itself is an “aggregation” of sorts). I think
the point that some have made has to do more with how it is
aggregated. Usually, an aggregator will display the summary out of an
RSS feed, then have the post title link to the original content.

softlogger.com, on the other hand, does its best to keep people on
their site. When you click the title link to go from the summary to
the full content, they don’t redirect you to the original content, but
rather display the content in their own site, scraped from the
author’s site. In addition, there is no direct link to the original
content. There is a link to the original author’s main page, but not
to the article itself.

The effects of this are several.

1a) If the author includes advertising content on their site to
support their writing, that content is bypassed because the readers
are never directed through to the original site.

1b) softlogger.com, however, does have advertising content on their
site. Keeping visitors on their site instead of flowing them through
to the original content increases their ad revenue. This might be seen
as subverting the author’s content to make money for softlogger.com

  1. When the content is displayed outside the original setting, some
    might be lost. Kevin pointed this out with respect to the “Less is
    Better” feed. If someone is publishing the full content in their feed
    as the summary, go ahead and display that. But don’t scrape it off
    their site.

  2. Search engine rankings and other such ratings are skewed. By
    displaying scraped content in their site – especially without an
    direct link back to the original content – softlogger.com gains rank
    for search terms related to content that someone else wrote. If
    intentional, this is probably designed to increase their search
    ranking and drive more traffic to the site, thus generating more ad
    revenue.

I don’t know if these are the motives of softlogger.com. I’m willing
to give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re just trying to make
something cool and didn’t consider these consequences.

Jacob F.

10

On 9/13/06, Richard T. [email protected] wrote:

if you don’t understand the purpose and usefulness of a blog aggregation
,then either read this
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163105127&tid=13692
http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000500.html
cabalamat.org
or forget about it

But also see:

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2005/08/15/a-splog-here-a-splog-there-pretty-soon-it-ads-up-and-we/
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,69380,00.html

I’m not sure wheter softloggger qualifies as a splog or not, but I’m
suspicious.

Heck, I just spent most of the day carefully crafting an entry on my
blog, by hand.

–
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/