Fine, I’ll Say It: Shyftr Crosses The Line

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008

Well, I can already tell what the headlining post this weekend is going to be on Techmeme (or bitchmeme, a la MG), and its going to probably revolve around Shyftr, a relatively new service in the RSS aggregating category (and lo, since I started writing, it has begun!)

Or, should I say “scraping” category?

No, you’re right — that’s not fair. I know Shyftr has its fans (like Louis Gray, who I respect immensely and is an awesome blogger in his own right)Here’s the cribs notes version as I see them: Shyftr is a new social network that revolves around sharing RSS feeds. Now, what’s so harmless about that, you might add? Surely we have social networks involving all kinds of niches, and aren’t feeds meant to be shared?

Well, there’s sharing, as in “hey, look at this new feed, you should check it out” — and there’s sharing, also known as, “I’m going to scrape and republish a blogger’s an entire feed, so that many people can check it out”.

And in that respect, Shyftr is a lot like Toluu, which allows people to publicly share feeds as well, although the social network aspect of Shyftr is absent (i.e you cannot comment on particular feeds or stories).

Let me be clear: I am making no value judgements against its creators or against its original intent (which may have been to let people have fun in sharing their feeds).

However, in my mind, when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its entirety, and directly profits from that republishing without the original consent of the author, there’s something that isn’t right.

What do I mean by “profit” when none of these services are *actually* making a profit? Well, I am using the term loosely, in that they are deriving the present benefit of *existing*, and the real future benefit of earnings around republishing someone else’s content.

Now the fact that “conversations” are also happening above, around, and beyond the original blogs is interesting, but ultimately a foot note in this conversation; services like Friendfeed also aggregate conversations around blogging topics, but unlike Shyftr and Toluu, don’t host the *entire* feed.

So where am I drawing the line that Shyftr crosses?

Well, I accept the idea that conversations are going to be fractured, and that I don’t *own* them. I would *like* to host them on this blog, but I do realize that conversations have a life of their own (and run wild and free wherever they like) and exist wherever they like because their real owners are those folks who are having them. I only have the privilege of starting them, and participating in them wherever they are.

To bully and force them into being in a certain place (i.e. here) would be profoundly myopic, and as a blogger (i.e. someone who is supposed to understand and navigate these kinds of new media landmines) — heck, I don’t even know the right word. Some combination of “stupid” and “hypocritical”, like a doctor not renewing his own prescriptions for blood pressure medication, a teacher not doing his or her own homework.

(“hypo-stupid?”)

Oh wait, someone’s already demonstrated this recently.

Anyway, its not the conversations being hosted somewhere else that bothers me, its that there are a new crop of services which would not otherwise exist without republishing someone else’s content without the original author’s explicit permission. Well, lots of people’s content. And you can dress it up and all kinds of clothing and all kinds of nifty wrappers, but ultimately that’s what this is about.

And to me, that’s what the line is, and in my mind services like Shyftr (wittingly or unwittingly) cross it.

Now is the problem with RSS feeds? That we don’t understand the explicit rights that are associated with it? Perhaps. This isn’t a new conversation after all (here’s a link from Scoble circa 2005), and let’s be real clear: this topic is probably as old as RSS feeds itself.

I’m no copyright guru, and I don’t pretend to know all the details of what that entails, but what I do know is this: unless and until there is a general consensus about what the rights around RSS feeds are (because my bias is that there is absolutely no implied rights to reproduce carte blanche), I think there is a moral and ethical obligation to obtain content from the content owners about reproducing feeds in their entirety, particularly if its going to be used as part of public service which a) has or will generate profits from a service which is based on those feeds and therefore is a b) service which cannot exist without reproducing (i.e. “copying”) those feeds.

Until they do, they’re a lot like another kind of site or blog which fits that kind of definition.

Content scraper.

{an ugly word, I know}

Update: Eric Berlin, who’s initial Tweets prompted this post chimes in and, amongst other cogent arguments, echoes Mat Ingram’s sentiments: building a business around someone the full reproduction of other’s content doesn’t seem right.

74 comments

[...] Here’s the posts from the debate so far: Louis Gray, Matthew Ingram, and not to be missed, Deep Jive Interests. [...]

by Who Owns This Conversation? « The Real McCrea on April 12, 2008 at 1:21 am. #

[...] is basically nothing more than an RSS reader with comments. A number of bloggers, like Tony Hung and Eric Berlin are taking offense with this because they did not give Shyftr explicit consent to [...]

by Go ahead - ’steal’ my content : The Last Podcast on April 12, 2008 at 1:50 am. #

I know there are many different opinions on this, and it probably will last throughout the weekend, but I have to disagree. After all, isn’t the very act of creating an RSS feed permission to republish content? It’s not as if Shyftr is saying ‘here, read this feed.’ You have to add the feed yourself, and if you so desire, you can look at the feeds your friends have and add them to your list.

More of my thoughts in this post: http://www.thattalldude.com/main/2008/04/as-i-went-to-ch.html

Twitter @thattalldude

by Shawn K on April 12, 2008 at 2:43 am. #

@Shawn — that’s the problem … there is no commonly understood meaning for stuff that is published; certainly, that’s my understanding from a legal point of view.

Secondly, even if Shyftr isn’t adding the feeds themselves, the fact that it provides a place for them, and indeed wouldn’t be able to exist *without* the content of those feeds makes it dubious from a content ownership point of view (provided that you believe in such things, or that content owners have any rights at all)

Cheers
tony.

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 2:51 am. #

there’s a similar social reader – Mindity. It’s a desktop client (with OPML import/export!)
http://www.mindity.com/WhatIs.aspx

by Nick B on April 12, 2008 at 3:54 am. #

Here’s the posts from the debate so far: Louis Gray, Matthew Ingram, and not to be missed, Deep Jive Interests

by health on April 12, 2008 at 4:12 am. #

Good read Tony – will certainly keep the interweb fueled this weekend. What I would like to add, with the admission that I read ~96.4% of my stuff online via RSS, is what about the elements of the blog (blogroll, personalized comment systems, previous articles etc) that are lost as well in going through a third party. Yes I agree that they are in most RSS feeds as well, but I these distinctions help me decide to keep my subscription or ditch it to the ‘won’t miss it if I empty this folder” folder. I just don’t feel right going searching for those things through a third party. Beyond the ‘who owns it/where should the conversation take place’ argument, what about the blog/site itself as an influencer?

Brad

by Brad Buset on April 12, 2008 at 4:23 am. #

How do you define “entirety” when you write “when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its entirety”? Is this the distinction that makes services like Google News and Techmeme OK, and Shyftr not?

by JX on April 12, 2008 at 5:24 am. #

[...] a counterpoint, Tony Hung tells us all to NOT steal his content. Me? I’ve found that by being open with my content a lot of good has come back to me, so [...]

by Era of blogger’s control is over « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger on April 12, 2008 at 7:19 am. #

Shawn no just because I offer a full feed RSS feed it does not mean that I intend you to republish it. Process, most of the time yes. Personal consumption in a reader (even for a biz cause), yes.

Republishing it, hurting my google ranking and putting my content somewhere else outside of my control not so much in the sense of control but features like editing? No.

For you to be ‘allowed’ to republish my content, I want something back. Feedreaders like bloglines or Google reader earn money probably through sold attention data. But they give me something valuable back.

What does a site that just takes away the content give me back? Nothing. And as such I am not okay with it, and to be frank: Licensing rights kick in and are very simple on this.

by Nicole Simon on April 12, 2008 at 9:05 am. #

[...] can get “the dirt” on Shyftr from Louis Gray, Tony Hung and Mathew Ingram but the angle that I want to explore is whether all the activity happening [...]

by Are Pageviews Still Relevant for Bloggers? | Mark Evans on April 12, 2008 at 10:49 am. #

[...] places has some measure of legitimacy and is worthwhile to pursue. Opposite Gray and Scoble sits Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests, among others, who finds that an entity of Shyfter’s making “crosses the [...]

by Shyftr: Good, Bad, and Potentially Quite Ugly : Tech Web Daily on April 12, 2008 at 11:04 am. #

I suppose if these kind of scrapers are taking content then maybe the blogger should run ads actually in the body of the post a la TechCrunch.

Scrapers have been ‘stealing’ jobs for a lot longer than blog posts and that seems to have sorted itself into a kind of ‘equal status’. The battle may of course only be simmering……..

Great post.

by Peter Gold on April 12, 2008 at 11:15 am. #

Is this the right link for Tolou? http://www.tolou.com/

kamla bhatt

by kamla bhatt on April 12, 2008 at 11:54 am. #

Great post, Tony–and there are some important comments here as well.

In my work with Placeblogger.com, we decided some time ago to aggregate only 200 characters from a feed because we wanted to drive traffic back to the source. This is a good model for sharing content with others and giving back to the person who’s created the content.

Now, this is different from when I publish my own full feed for my blog, The Constant Observer. When I publish my full feed, it’s as a courtesy to my readers, who come back to my site to either read the whole thing again, to see comments, or to leave comments.

If comments along with the post are going somewhere else, where I can’t respond to them, and I’m losing not just the conversation but also all the stuff the Nicole Simon noted, and, to add insult to injury, someone’s making money off of it, what, then, becomes my reason for writing anymore? Seems like, with Shyfter, my content, my comments, and any authority and social/networking connections I might make are being co-opted by someone else–and that, IMO, is worse than Google not knowing you’re there.

by Tish Grier on April 12, 2008 at 12:13 pm. #

@Khamla — no, you’re right. Its changed. The name has no “o” after the “l”, but two “u’s” instead.

That’s the problem with these web2.0 names. Sometimes you can never remember the deliberate mispelling; or, sometimes the name is so creative (as with Toluu) you have a hard time remembering it correctly at all.

Cheers
t @ dji

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 12:26 pm. #

@Tish — (thanks for stopping by!) some good comments, and glad to hear that Placeblogger is doing what I believe to be the right thing.

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 12:35 pm. #

@nick — thanks, Nick. But that came perilously close to comment spam, seeing as you’ve dropped the exact same message across a bunch of blogs this morning.

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 12:36 pm. #

@Brad — good question. And that sort of its the heart of it. Is it right that the original blog potentially get none of the acclaim, conversation, traffic, or whatever kind of metric you want to use?

Is that *ok* for bloggers to merely know that their thoughts and opinions are being used for conversational fodder *elsewhere*? That they have to be content with that?

And that’s besides the topic of it being repurposed, retooled, or merely recopied, plus or minus appropriate credit.

Cheers
t @ dji

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 12:40 pm. #

@Peter — ads in the middle of your post isn’t such a bad idea, actually (if you’re having this problem and its recalcitrant and neverending). :)

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 12:41 pm. #

[...] conversation that took place on Twitter, Friendfeed, and later across a number of blogs, including Tony Hung, [...]

by An argument against Shyftr and communities built around full-text RSS feeds ¦ Online Media Cultist on April 12, 2008 at 12:54 pm. #

@Nicole — you may be right in the end. I wish someone who was an expert on copyright issues would comment on this whole thing. :P

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 1:11 pm. #

[...] on Shyftr. While some seem to like the service, others talk about theft. Tony Hung feels Shyftr has crossed a line : However, in my mind, when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its [...]

by You can’t claim an idea once it’s out there, just set it free « Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior on April 12, 2008 at 1:11 pm. #

syn•di•cate: to publish simultaneously, or supply for simultaneous publication, in a number of newspapers or other periodicals in different places
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/syndicate

An historical definition, perhaps, but is RSS really any different? How can you call it “scraping” when your site is all but saying “here’s an easy way to access my content!”? Furthermore, how can you claim it’s done “without the original consent of the author” when the feed (in Shyftr) clearly displays a Creative Commons license – a license that is ironically absent (that I can find) from your own site.

In particular, consider the following excerpt of the full license (Section 3a): “… Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license … to Reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or more Collections, and to Reproduce the Work as incorporated in the Collections”

So in fact you do grant implied (RSS) and explicit (CC) permission to syndicate and share your content. But what about the license conditions? Attribution is clearly not a problem, as the Feedburner link and author are impossible to miss (as in any feed reader). Similarly, as the work is reproduced in full, it would not be considered a derivate work. But what about Noncommercial?

Well, what constitutes commercial use? The language of the license isn’t particularly helpful, but without advertisement in or around your content, I find it rather difficult to see its use as “primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation”. Sorry, but “deriving the present benefit of existing” probably doesn’t cut it for the courts. Not to mention that the success of Digg and Slashdot, which don’t actually reproduce article content, would indicate there are viable business models around the community side of the site, independent of the republished content.

You create content, your feed publishes it, a reader aggregates it, external communities comment on it. Shyfter is just a convergent user interface on the same old process. If you don’t have a problem with Google Reader or Digg, what’s so special about a combination of the two? If your content justifies a visit “home”, particularly for a conversation including the author, Shyftr won’t change that.

by Keith Dahlby on April 12, 2008 at 1:12 pm. #

@Keith — clever chap, bringing in the dictionary definition of syndicate.

Here’s what would be even *more* clever. You say I have no CC on my site?

I *DO* have the creative commons license … on my *feed*, which is where Shyftr is pulling the content. Its a partial one and its been there since I started publishing a feed.

So no, its not a full license as you go on to write, its a partial one that (as you can probably imagine), where people can share as long as it is non-commercial, that it is attributed, and that it is non-derivative.

As I see it Shyftr violates the non-commercial thing (that they don’t have ads now doesn’t make it a non-commercial enterprise) and the non-derivative thing (they’re building a social network around feeds, so yes, in fact, that’s derivative).

You can read it over here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

My feed is over here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/deepjiveinterests

… and *lo*, there is a badge in the top right hand corner (if you’re using your browser to take a look at it).

Now, the fact that Shyftr is imposing ANOTHER CC license on top of mine makes it doubly outrageous, as the implication is that they have the right to assign a CC on another’s work.

Lastly, the difference between Digg, Slashdot and Shyftr? The difference is that Shyftr is lifting my *entire* post. By only highlighting the topic and stubs, Digg and Slashdot only provide a pointer to there the original content is.

Cheers
Tony.

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 1:38 pm. #

[...] friend Tony Hung has a longish and typically thoughtful post on the topic. The Scobleizer says bloggers essentially have no control over their content any more [...]

by Shyftr: Feed theft or social news reader? - mathewingram.com/work on April 12, 2008 at 1:47 pm. #

Clever chap? I’m still curious how reading a feed is “scraping”…

And have you actually seen your stuff on Shyftr, or are you just making assumptions? The license I was referring to is the one from your feed, which Shyftr is kind enough to render on your behalf, much like FeedBurner’s stylesheet. What on Shyftr’s site gives you any indication that it claims your content as its own?

As for the rights your license grants, the “Commons Deed” you reference is just a “human-readable summary of the Legal Code”:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode

Section 4 is very specific about the restrictions on the use of your content, and I don’t see anything that Shyftr would violate more than any other (commercial) feed reader or community site (by your comments-as-derivative argument). The former justifies its existence through the reproduction of others’ content; the latter justifies its existence by facilitating conversation about others’ content. If you accept these justifications independently, why is Shyftr at fault for bringing them together? Am I missing something?

by Keith Dahlby on April 12, 2008 at 4:17 pm. #

[...] take place after we post on our blogs. The former editor of the Blog Herald Tony Hung thinks aggregation services have crossed the line. I tend to disagree. It’s like Restaurants having policies that you are only allowed to talk [...]

by You can only talk about the Restaurant in the Restaurant : The Blog Herald on April 12, 2008 at 4:53 pm. #

[...] of Splogs are doing, taking the feeds and republishing with out the original consent of the author. Tony Hung thinks Shyftr crossing the line and i agree with [...]

by What Shyftr does is content theft on April 12, 2008 at 5:30 pm. #

Mart, very intersting post, I have done a follow up to the whole ‘bitchmeme’ – http://blog.fav.or.it/2008/04/12/fractured-commenting-again/

Not sure if you have come across fav.or.it before – but we built it from the basis that blog owners need to get more comments not less! I have been blogging for over a year, and to me the most important things 1) my readers 2) the contribution from the readers in comments.

So when we built the service we decided that as long as the technology was mature enough we would support the creative commons – this we have done (although we havent yet made much noise about it) – and one great thing these days is that feedburner now supports CC – so no one can be excused from not having the ability to add a license to their feed.

I do see long term the CC being adopted as a standard way for all RSS aggregators to understand how they are allowed to use the content, we are glad we are the first (unless told otherwise) to start the ball rolling.

by Nick Halstead on April 12, 2008 at 5:48 pm. #

[...] owns this post? Are pageviews still relevant? Should blog content creators be upset? Is Shyftr crossing the line? Let it all just [...]

by Voices On Shyftr « memoirs on a rainy day on April 12, 2008 at 6:25 pm. #

[...] and where it takes place. We’ve got Louis Gray for the "Steal Me" team and Tony Hung for the "Don’t Steal Me" team. Then there’s Robert Scoble who should probably [...]

by Who Hasn’t Stolen The Conversation and Why The Money Is In the Conversation  »TechAddress on April 12, 2008 at 6:33 pm. #

The argument that RSS provides an implied license to republish content is as old as scraping itself. I see it all of the time and many, like a commenter above, like to point out that the second S stands for syndicate.

That ignores the fact that RSS originally stood for “Rich Site Summary”, the syndication one came years later. It also ignores that there has been no court ruling upholding an implied license with RSS feeds and most lawyers feel that, when it does, the ruling will be that there is none simply because the most common use of RSS, by far, is private reading.

Furthermore, even if there is an implied license, it would be trumped by an actual one. No matter what you call the technology, if I say that I don’t want it used for a certain purpose, it can’t be used for it. Just like how Google can not index or cache sites that don’t allow it.

If you want to read more on this topic, here’s an article on my site I wrote about this a while back, everything should still hold true:

http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/08/29/why-rss-scraping-isnt-ok/

All in all, the second “S” argument is a misunderstanding of copyright law, especially in this case where an actual license exists.

by Jonathan Bailey on April 12, 2008 at 7:22 pm. #

We talked about this years ago, just as Creative Commons was starting and just as people were debating the issue of full feeds versus partial.

Anyway, here’s one post, one from 2002, Bob Wyman did a take on the topic and he referenced Denise Howell who is a lawyer and did right fairly definitely on the topic. And those are just a few, there are hundreds more. All you need do, is search on the terms.

Your stuff is copyrighted, as soon as you create it. It’s still copyrighted even if you attach a CC license. Why on earth anyone would attach a CC license to a feed that doesn’t duplicate the CC license attached to their web site, I don’t know. Releasing your information into a syndication feed does not change the copyright (ala Nicole above).

Where the problems pop up is when is the act of distribution ended, and the act of copying beginning? If there is an implicit license to distribute, because of the nature of the feed, when does it tip over the edge to actual copying, rather than being just another distributing agent.

Then, if one assumes an act of copyright violation, how does one deal with it? Other than getting heavy hitters to link to you on a weekend on Techmeme?

The issue of comments on a post at another site has also been brought up in the past, and me thinks I see some people who were outraged in the past going along with the “words just want to be free” crowd. Whether they’ve changed their mind, or are just following the crowd is hard to say.

Short answer: don’t like it? Use partial feeds.

by Shelley on April 12, 2008 at 7:49 pm. #

@Shelley — thanks for stopping by.

a) I’ve acknowledged that its an old, old conversation
b) the solution re: partial feeds is also an oldie but goodie as well.

I’ve had partial feeds in the past — toying with the idea again.

c) yes, i plan to throw up the CC on this site as well. Like the comments policy, I didn’t have one up until something “happened” which suggested I do the right thing. Thanks :)

tony.

by Tony Hung on April 12, 2008 at 8:14 pm. #

I don’t understand. If you don’t want people to get your feed disable it. I enable my rss feed on my blog and the reason is….call me crazy…I WANT people to read it. I don’t care if they are on my blog or http://www.allthefriggingblogsintheworld.com as long as people are able to read it and to engage in a dialogue.

Also, isn’t this very dialogue what the internet is all about? What blogging is all about? What feeds are all about? It’s about getting people to weigh in, comment, and potentially even dare I say it, learn.

Get over yourselves. Shyftr is another opportunity for you to distribute your content. Nothing more.

by RW on April 12, 2008 at 8:37 pm. #

How is this any different than Google Reader? I can read full feeds there. The difference is you can’t comment on feeds IN Google reader, but you can in Shyftr, correct? I’d think if this were stealing, a company as large and known as Google wouldn’t be doing it, right?

by GoogleReaderFan on April 12, 2008 at 10:37 pm. #

[...] Not on board: Tony Hung [...]

by So Not On Board With Shyftr : Network Blogging Tips on April 12, 2008 at 11:06 pm. #

[...] was going to talk about the finer points that both Tony Hung and Mark Evans brought to the table about how they didn’t think what was being done was so [...]

by WinExtra » Why bother saying anything on April 13, 2008 at 1:46 am. #

[...] couldn’t resist: the weekend’s bitchmeme was fractured commenting in the blogosphere. On Deep Jive Interests Tony started the conversation by getting riled up over Shyftr, Louis Gray pushes the meme forward, [...]

by Fractured Commenting (I’m late to this, but I’m early, too) :: sarahintampa on April 13, 2008 at 2:51 pm. #

[...] I raised the issue of whether Shyftr crossed a line in its usage of full-text feeds, and Tony Hung said he was pretty sure that it did. Other bloggers have also spoken out about the company’s attempts to [...]

by Shyftr changes its tune on shared feeds - mathewingram.com/work on April 13, 2008 at 3:28 pm. #

[...] BUT – and a BIG BUT unlike fav.or.it those comments stay within Shyftr. So quite a few bloggers are up in arms that they are losing comments + traffic because those readers are staying within [...]

by The fav.or.it Blog » Fractured Commenting - Again on April 13, 2008 at 3:59 pm. #

[...] In short, some bloggers, like Mathew Ingram (also a writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail) and Tony Jung, thought it went too far in its handling of content culled from feeds across the Web, while others, [...]

by Co-Founder of Shyftr Proposes Changes to Quell Bloggers’ Discontent on April 13, 2008 at 4:16 pm. #

Hi Tony,

Good post and interesting conversation. Having read through the 30 or so comments I am wondering what your position is with regard to:

1) Google Reader vs. Shyftr regarding allowing users to read the full content of the post (as raised by comment @37). Is it because Google Reader is not “publishing the content per se”?

2) why you think that the solution of using partial feeds is not giving enough control to the publishers who actually want to enforce the constraint you want to put on the use of the content.

Thanks
Edwin

by Edwin Khodabakchian on April 13, 2008 at 4:27 pm. #

[...] places has some measure of legitimacy and is worthwhile to pursue. Opposite Gray and Scoble sits Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests, among others, who finds that an entity of Shyfter’s making “crosses the [...]

by Shyftr: Good, Bad, and Potentially Quite Ugly on April 13, 2008 at 4:44 pm. #

[...] In short, some bloggers, like Mathew Ingram (also a writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail) and Tony Hung, thought it went too far in its handling of content culled from feeds across the Web, while others, [...]

by Co-Founder of Shyftr Proposes Changes to Quell Bloggers’ Discontent : Tech Web Daily on April 13, 2008 at 5:15 pm. #

@Edwin — to answer your questions

1. yes

2. I do think partial feeds are fine. In fact, Shyftr made some changes which are fine with me, and in fact, could have included the first 100 or 200 characters or so.

by Tony Hung on April 13, 2008 at 5:25 pm. #

[...] that Shyftr, the service that I have allegedly thrown under the bus, has rectified the item that I brayed so loudly about, which in turn, led to the leading news node on Techmeme for the [...]

by Deep Jive Interests » I Love Techmeme But … (Part II) on April 13, 2008 at 6:35 pm. #

So “building a business around the full reproduction of other’s content doesn’t seem right” but if it’s a portion of a business (Google Reader, FeedDemon, etc) it’s OK?

But alas, Shyftr has demoted itself to just another Digg clone, and the world returns to only reading and discussing in different tabs.

by Keith Dahlby on April 13, 2008 at 7:09 pm. #

@Keith — absolutely. The difference is that the intention of Google Reader or FeedDemon are private readers; their modus operandi is not to push full feeds out publicly as a “collection” for general distribution.

by Tony Hung on April 13, 2008 at 7:44 pm. #