Oh, how positively quaint. DownloadSquad, a fairly prominent blog on the Weblogs Network (featuring posts on free software and downloads) goes on a long rant on – my, how shocking — some blogs are stealing the content on DownloadSquad.com for posting on their own blogs. The author, Gordin Finlayson, even goes to coin a term by calling these dastardly thieves “Blog Pirates”.

Yoinks.

I’m not sure how that kind of article ended up on DownloadSquad, but any blogger that has achieved any kind of success runs into these kind of shennanigans at some point or another. And this even applies to less successful bloggers, actually, given the kind of technology that is used. This isn`t new. It was written about as early as 1995 by both the Guardian and CNet, with both of these publications describing the rise of fake blogs populated with stolen content. `Blog Pirates`, indeed.

People stealing content isn’t new.  And in fact, there are a lot of things you can do about it other than writing a post complaining that your content has been stolen.  [CHEAP PLUG] In fact, my friend Jonathan Bailey has written about these kinds of things extensively at his own site plagiarismtoday.com — but also has been focusing on blogging related issues over at the BlogHerald.  Check out some great posts such as 20 Best Free Anti-Plagiarism Tools, How to Follow Up on a Cease and Desist Letter, and a Content Theft Tale (what we did to follow up someone scraping our content at the BlogHerald)

A more interesting discussion around sites that are ripping others content surrounds the rise of some social news sites that don`t just feature a snippit of news, but the actual and entire post verbatim. Almost all of them have some link back to your site, but that really isn`t the point, is it?  Look at a common offender TechAddress.com, which reposts your entire post as someone has “submitted” your post for voting.  Thinking broadly, it really applies to any site which is able to scrape/read RSS feeds and republish them publicly.  Shared google readers are another end of the spectrum as well.

What makes these latter examples a bit different than frank Splogs are that splogs are created for the purpose of creating traffic and then monetizing it through Adsense, or, through funneling it to other affiliate sites / splog sites for page rank.  TechAddress and Google Reader don’t directly benefit in the same way.

But your content is being republished in its entirety which can be distressing.  I think one way to get around this is to cut it off at its source, which in many cases is your RSS feed.  Making sure that all of your readers are aware that your feed isn’t for repubishing without your express consent is one step.  Another more drastic step is actually only doing partial feeds, which is a bit of a contentious issue, as some readers hate it, while others content that full feeds actually improves your subscribership.  On the other hand, the only real easy way to stop scraping of your RSS feed is by changing what’s in your feed.

Anyway, this is all a bit of a digression, because isn’t it time we had a bigger and broader discussion of content ‘theft’ in its broadest sense — rather than splogs, which have existed for at least a couple years already?  Goodness knows that technology and the tricks that some are using to get around things continue to evolve.

Shouldn’t the conversation?

For those who follow popular tech bloggers (and I expect most, if not all of you do, if you’re reading this blog), there have been two interesting posts within the last 48 hours few days or so.

One involves Jason Calacanis who has decided to declare Facebook Bankruptcy over how many people are pinging him via Facebook Apps, wherein he’s basically thrown up his hands and has given up. (Boo hoo, I’m too popular). The other involves Mike Arrington’s post over at TechCrunch where he details how there is a burgeoning business in trying to monetize Facebook applications — most noticeably (for me) through selling ad space *on* Facebook applications.

Both of these posts taken together portent a potential backlash coming at Facebook applications, and no, I don’t mean just the usual fooferah around Facebook Bankruptcy. This is how.

• Everyone and their sister is drooling over the possibility over creating an application that has the viral potential to be “signed up” by millions of people almost over night.
• There are many ways to potentially monetize Facebook applications, and a popular one seems to be advertising.
• Facebook applications seem like a fantastic opportunity for advertisers (and Facebook app owners) because many Facebook users have not altered their privacy settings, and therefore many applications have access to demographic drill-down type data that advertisers crave.
• The problem is that many Facebook users, have, in fact, not yet noticed that they are being targeted in this fashion — and I suspect that many, when they will, will not like it.
• Furthermore, many Facebook users, particularly users of widg– I mean, applications — are also probably not fond of the whole idea of applications trying to sell ad space on *their profile*, essentially monetizing their activities (and in a circular way, their friends) absolutely gratis.
• Add to this supposition that Facebook applications have been multiplying like weeds, I suspect many Facebook users — particularly the hyper connected ones, such as Mr. Calacanis — are probably getting fed up with these little applications. Signed up users for applications is one thing, but active and retained users are another.
• If my presumptions about Facebook users are true, we could see a time very soon when a great deal of Facebook users will realize that a great deal of coin is being made off of their profiles, using their demographics, in applications that were not previously used as platforms for displaying ads, on a social networking site that has been generally inconspicuous with ads, which is now seeing an overproliferation of applications, creating a widespread ennui of “poke-itis”.
• And if this is the case, we might in fact, see a backlash against these applications, and an en-masse signing off or removing of Facebook applications.

Now, we already had a meme going on about Facebook bankruptcy this past weekend, with several prominent tech bloggers proclaiming how useful — or not — it was. Surprisingly, I don’t expect much, if any, of that conversation to actually trickle down to the everyday Facebook user, since it is so mainstream (at least in Toronto).

Much ado about nothing really.

What will be much more interesting is if there is a real user backlash, in real aggregate numbers, around Facebook Applications. I don’t know who or what will set it off, but all it may take is a few hyperconnected nodes — er, users — to realize what is happening, put the dots together, and set a few groups going on the topic.

A few tech bloggers discussing about Facebook Bankruptcy is one thing. A revolt against the wholesale selling of adspace on personal profiles — by a second hand party, no less — with none of it going back to the profile “owner” is another thing entirely.

I only ask because, as you may or may not have heard, the ambient broadcasting / continuous partial attention phenomenon that is Twitter has stepped up to the big leagues and has acquired VC funding — so that it may continue to expand its Twittering services and provide this valuable service to more and more people at a great price.

Ha ha — of course I jest, because they aren’t actually selling anything yet. Not advertising, not memberships, and no, not even swag.

Now, let’s be fair. I like the idea behind twitter. I kind of get how its different and how its important and how no one is really doing what its doing, to the extent what its doing — Leo Laporte aside, that is — even if I don’t personally use it.

But its an entity that’s poised for growth without any forseeable business model. Or, if I could dumb it down for my own personal notes: they don’t have any means for making money.

Union Square Adventures Ventures, the VC group that is now funding Twitter, has boldly acknowledged this fact:

The question everyone asks is “What is the business model?” To be completely and totally honest, we don’t yet know.

In FACT, its the same quote he made almost two years ago when asked about funding del.icio.us. Which … got acquired by Yahoo! Which, in turn leads one to speculate if Union Squre Ventures is plowing dough (an unspecified amount of dough as far as I can tell) into Twitter so that it might in turn get acquired for multiples of the amount of dough-age its currently investing.

Ok, fair enough.

But when, in all of this, will anyone really be concerned with doing what any real business does? You know — making money? I mean, really making an earnest go of it? Because I’d love to know when, if the folks at Twitter aren’t interesting in being acquired (stop snickering), that point might be.

Rather, when does throwing money at a growing enterprise that actually *COSTS* money to support –whether it be infrastructure and bandwidth, or, for example, paying for all those boxes of ramen noodles — stop making sense when it isn’t actually making any money back? I’m curious when the actual inflection point be where Union Square Ventures would turn around and say “this is a bottomless maw that has an endless appetite for cash — this has to change?”

Or, how about a scenario where Twitter rebuffs weak and tepid acquisition efforts, tries to monetize by throwing Adwords and more up, but finds that its still miserable in terms of its bottom line. That is, there’s more going out than coming in. Because bandwidth — especially when festivals like SXSW roll around — cost real money. Well, what *then*?

Hey, I don’t really have an answer to any of these questions. But, just for a second, I’d love to see a company like Twitter NOT go the acquisition route and do something really clever to actually make money as a stepping stone to forming a real business. Either that, or fail miserably, in spite of an interesting and worthwhile idea, as a case study that reinforces the importance of actually making real money.

I’m not going to jump into the whole Mac vs. PC debate right now because, amongst many other things, its tiresome.  But John C. Dvorak, eternal curmudgeon of almost all things technology has recently declared that “Macs Are All Right” after using them regularly for a few months, and I can’t help but chime in a few thoughts of my own — because, heck, this is my blog.

Mr. Dvorak extolls how the Mac OS is “elegant”, and performs many of the same tasks PC’s do with aplomb (my word, not his), but also describes how he’s been recommending Mac’s to his friends.  He says, in fact

“Should I recommend something that will come back to haunt me, or recommend a Mac with its higher price but lower hassle factor?” The answer is simple. I hate the idea of having to do customer service for people who cannot keep their systems clean, and that’s most people.”

I found myself in a similar position about a year ago when my brother was looking for a new laptop.  I should preface this story with saying that my brother’s a smart kid.  Its not really fair to call him a kid, but when your kid brother is your kid brother, he’s always going to be referred to as “kid” in some fashion or another — even if he’s taller than you now (but I outweigh him!).  Anyway, he’s a smart kid.  After all he’s finishing a residency in a pediatric *neurology* for pete’s sake, and after he’s done he’ll have done so much schooling his own children (who aren’t even born yet) will probably finish grade school before he finishes his post grad training.

But he’s also one of these guys who just doesn’t have any luck with PC’s.  Maybe its the kind of PC’s he bought when he went away to University — the bargain basement kind from local PC stores where they begin and end all their prices with the number 8 (maybe you know what I mean).  But every single PC he’s had — something’s gone wrong.  Inexplicable hardware failures.  Unimaginable operating system disasters.  Software errors that just didn’t make anyway sense — but clearly existed.

The reason why he ran into so many problems might be traced to shoddy parts, but I think (and maybe he’ll admit this as well), that there were certain problems that could be traced back to “operator-dependent” issues.

Anyway, when it came time to look for a new laptop, he asked me for my recommendation for one that “Just worked”.  I suggested he get something from Apple, and he’s never looked back.  He’s using parallels so he’s able to use some PC applications without any difficulty.  But the best part is that he hasn’t suffered any computing related disasters that he did before.

If I was mean, prone to giving cheap shots and the like, I might say something like “his new Macbook prevented him from doing anything stupid to it”.  But I’m not, so I won’t.  :)

Rather, irrespective of what problems he had with his initial set of PC’s, his Macbook hasn’t given him any problems so far — and for that, I’m grateful, both as the family tech support person *and* someone genuinely happy for him. The Dvorak in me would echo similarly cynical sentiments like “its more expensive but it just works and avoids more problems on my behalf”.  The more brother in me is just happy that he’s not wasting his time ranting and railing about how useless his computer is, but rather, spending his more profitably — such as working on his research for children with stroke.  Not, say, reading endless articles about professional wrestling.

Nah, he’d never that. ;)

Well, I must have missed the newsletter or something — but it seems like TechCrunch launched its database of Web2.0 companies about two weeks ago, with an appropriately/cringeworthy “crunch” like moniker: Crunchbase.  And in fact,it may yet be in ’stealth’ as its not officially listed in the TechCrunchNetwork on the TechCrunch home page.

I did notice that they were trying to do a “database” type thing with companies in the recent past.  There was a short tyime where all outbound links to companies were instead pointing to their database, but it was pulling entries right into TechCrunch’s wordpress theme.

Clearly it looks like they’ve spun the whole thing off into its own site / url.  Personally, I think this is the smart thing to do, as each “web2.0″ niche service/blog deserves their own domain, and can be marketed and monetized separately. If you head over to Crunchbase, you’ll notice it serves up a nice little blurb about each company, including who important people are and the kind of funding its required.  But more than that it also serves to collect some information around that company that is presented in the sidebar, such as Techmeme mentions (do I detect using an as-yet-released Techmeme API?), Technorati mentions and so on.  It also allows users to submit their own reviews of different companies.

This latter feature could prove very interesting — or controversial, depending on how Crunchbase takes off.  Haters with a chip on their shoulders could flood some of these reviews with negative comments, which, depending on how popular Crunchbase eventually gets, could prove problematic for some companies.  After all, they are not dealing with a one-off TechCrunch effect, but an ongoing record (much as a database is meant to be) of the company.  Which in turn might lead some to be tempted to astroturf their own comments.  It will be interesting to see how Arrington and co. deal with this if it ever becomes a problem.

Crunchbase looks like an interesting tool both for spectators, punters such as myself, and investors alike.   I have to give props to Mike Arrington for trying to collect information in a “just-the-facts ma’am” type of approach that tries to avoid personal commentary — but does link to other opinions around the web, via Technorati, Techmeme and Del.ici.ous.  I’ve yet to have a real close look at some of the companies that he’s got listed, but so far it looks pretty good and without any glaring inaccuracies.

When something in the social mediasphere reaches people like my own *mother*, you know its penetrated the public consciousness.  Of sorts.  Yes, I am referring to the lawsuit leveled against Marc “I turned down a billion dollars” Zuckerburg for allegedly stealing the idea for Facebook, while he was doing some contract coding at Harvard for would-be-Facebook/Facebook wannabe ConnectU.

Which leads me to ask the question — can you really copyright a particular flavour of social networking?

I mean, there are a lot of other aspects to the lawsuit, including “breach of actual or implied contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, unfair business practices, intentional interference with prospective business advantage, breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing, fraud and breach of confidence”.

But really — can you copyright “social networking, but with students?”

Granted, I have non-existent legal knowledge, but doesn’t something have to merit some kind of minimum standard of originality to ensure copyright?  While these standards may be actually low (according to Wikipedia, anyway), to think that some flavour of social networking constitutes “original” is actually a little absurd.

I think the outcome of this lawsuitis interesting, if for no other reason than that it might establish precedent for future lawsuits against established social networks — and who knows who will pop out of the wood work claiming that they had the first “social networking site for business contacts” (linkedin.com), “social networking site for high school students” (myspace.com), or even a “social networking site for families” (geni.com)?

Let’s put aside for a second that Fake Steve Jobs is neither funny nor witty, and ask ourselves why we should believe the shrill outrage of the author of a blog that is *purported* to be funny and witty.

{I could also ask why the technosphere engaged in such extravagant and indulgent navel gazing as to wonder who exactly FSJ is — but I’ll chalk it up the fact that, heck, its the summer. And we’re all looking for things “fun” things to do I suppose.}

Yes, sir, it seems like CNet is once again dredging up the issue over here, about the efforts of some to unmask FSJ. And if you go to FSJ’s own blog he makes some allusions to the exact issue with some seemingly out of character “back off or I’ll sue you” type of tenor, as those as-yet-unnamed individuals may have crossed a “fake line” in trying to find out the “fake Steve.”

First of all, let’s get some things out of the way.

• Those as-yet-unnamed individuals are the gents at Sitening, a web design and search marketing company in Nashville.
• The exact details are featured on Sitening’s blog, where they executed a pretty slick trick to nail his IP address (involving a unique URL and the knowledge that Steve uses Yahoo mail).
• From that point they were able to pinpoint what part of the world the FSJ was writing from, and lo and behold, its from Boston.
• Who is the leading FSJ candidate from Boston? Andy Ihnatko, whose blog is over here.

See? Its nice when we use details, rather than vagaries and hand-waving.

My biggest beef with the whole thing — you know, besides the fact that FSJ isn’t funny — is the possibility that the ‘outrage’ from FSJ is real.

Hey, I get it. Andy might get in trouble if his bosses found out about his writings. Or maybe Andy might directly. Maybe he has friends who are Mac-heads. Or he does business with mac books. Or something. But for a real example for a blog who was “outed” look at what happened to Dead2.0, when the author was supposedly outed there. Quick exit, stage left [apparently he worked for a VC backed company by day and was satirizing the same industry at night — or something like that]  VC company that was funding companies in an industry that Dead 2.0 was publicly ridiculing]

But come on.

If the whole dead2.0 thing taught us anything — heck, if BLOGGING teaches you anything — its that the blogosphere has an insatiable appetite for what is perceived at is real. We read blogs and we write blogs because we believe that we are reading some kernel — or writing about — some kernel of truth. Blogs are “different” that way from the mainstream media and, on another note, its exactly why bloggers get so riled up about conflicts of interest.

That desire for wanting things to be “real”, and to be keeping it “real” extends right to the authors. Especially if the content is interesting enough to demand it. People ask me if its important that we know who is writing our favourite blogs. Would it matter if the people *behind* the blogs were fake? Or that it was ghost-written?

Some of have said that the only thing that should matter is the content.

That’s partially true.

On the other hand, I think that part of what makes a blog a blog is your connection with the author of that blog — and that connection ceases to be real if you’d ever found out that their identity turned out to be a lie.

Which is all a round-about way of saying that the identity of who is actually blogging Does Actually Matter to people who read your blog, and if you’re deliberately hiding it, people will want to find out [and in fact, there could be a bunch of reasons for wanting to, and I’m sure that one of them includes “for no other reason than I could”].

Heck, if you want to flog a metaphor, here you go: if you play with Fake, expect to be Found – especially if your blog is as “good” or “funny” as FSJ’s.

And that’s the thing.

I think that Andy should know this. Or whomever is really behind FSJ. And maybe that’s why the outrage is really fake. Or, rather, that I hope it is. Because FSJ should really *not* be surprised that people want to find out his real identity. And if he was *truly* and *genuinely* worried, FSJ should have stopped a long time ago, perhaps when the first rumours about who his / her / its identity really was.

I mean, otherwise, its just sheer idiocy to think that someone, somewhere, isn’t going to try and find out.

And FSJ might not be funny, but surely he’s not an idiot.

… right?