7 Degrees of Blogging Separation
No one likes it when people steal an idea and republish it. In the world of blogging, a’via’ link at the bottom of a post has become the norm for crediting sources. However, this phenomena is getting way out of control and many people link to the latest source in a long chain rather than the original. I found out first hand just how bad things had gotten when I started trying to track the actual source of an article today, only to be plunged into a seemingly endless list of links.
It all started with a blurb on EcoGeek about a 007 Solar Pen Camera spying device. I wanted to submit the link to Digg then noticed their blurb was via TreeHugger, which in turn added two new links: ChinaVision and Dvice. The latter link traced to UberGizmo, which linked to UberReview that in turn linked to 7Gadgets (an appropriate 7th link in the ongoing chain). Most of these sites didn’t link to the ChinaVision (original) site, and only one linked to 7Gadgets where this information apparently first hit the blogosphere.
The fact that this last source didn’t link another source doesn’t even mean, of course, that it is the last source in the chain. Maybe this is just where the chain got broken because one author didn’t cite his source. So where did this come from? Which one should you link to or submit to Digg? Who knows. What does this mean for the blogosphere? Is it natural and healthy sourcing or a sign of things getting out of control?
via allsux
This is serious. This fuel the argument that bloggers are not reliable enough as a news source. What happen here is, when people focus more on quantity than quality, they tend to publish “something” all the time in their blogs. This is just to keep up with the rule of thumb in blogging “Be frequent”. But, sometimes being “frequent” in posting may lead to clutter, duplicate content, and credibility loss.
I think now it’s the time the entire bloggosphere rethink about the old mantra “post frequently as possible” and move towards a new slogan, “Think twice before posting. Do I really have to copy & paste it here?”
I recently stumbled upon this post, written in more or less the same topic
http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2007/11/12696/
Hi! It is very good article! every day i find article on the web first posted on 7gadgets without via link to my website. At beginning I was upset but now I wont with it….
[…] allsux […]
I observed the same fenomena when tracking the source of the “Lagos Hyena Men”, a never ending story indeed… It seems the pic was originally sent to Scamorama by a brazilian tourist back from Nigeria.
what happened to your blog, buddy, I need more posts ….
This is a FANTASTIC article! Thank you and good luck blogging! I’ve been in the business a long time and this is well-written!