Tag: rss

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Time to reboot the feed reader

I used to love SharpReader. I was using it before RSS was vogue. The difference between consuming information by going to individual webpages vs using a feed reader is like riding a bike on the Interstate versus driving a Ferrari. I had to give up SharpReader because it was tied to a single box and I’m not. I work anywhere and everywhere and I need to be able to access my data from any device. I switched to Google Reader and have never looked back. Unfortunately, I lost all the articles in SharpReader that I’d marked as a favorite during the transition.

As I scan and read in Google Reader I use the star to mark my favorites so that I can return to the article and read it again (not that I ever do). I rarely but once in a blue moon add an item to my shared items.

I’ve come to a point where my feedreader more resembles bookmarks rather than a useful way to consume content. Many of the feeds are dead or stagnant. I have some like Fark that I don’t read anymore. Some have changed hands and are actually spam now. I’m going to drop my entire feed list. I’ll export the entire list first and probably publish it somewhere for reference. My one concern is losing my favorites. I can find nothing that talks about whether or not there is a way to save my favorites and whether or not removing a feed that had something marked as a favorite will also delete that favorite. I’ll experiment with it this weekend and figure it out.

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Cathy recognized by Alltop

Featured in AlltopI think Cathy’s writing is fantastic but I happen to be biased. I find Domestic Psychology a pleasure to read (again with the bias). I am tickled to announce that Cathy has been recognized by Guy Kawasaki and has joined the likes of Jack Lail in Alltop! Cathy is in the Alltop Life category along with some familiar blogs such as xkcd.com, indexed and Sarcomical. Congratulations to Cathy! (Does this mean I don’t have to program anymore?)

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Need input from SEO/copyright experts

Hello world of Search Engine Optimization! The content thieves are frustrating. But does having someone reprint the first few sentences of a post and link back to you really hurt? What does it do for pagerank? Isn’t it simply a qualified link back to Reality Me? For example, hawaii-vacations.expert-travel-help.info has reprinted Darren’s prize list. Should I really care? Is it worth the fight?

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Content Theft Worsens

If you follow my comment feed, then you may have noticed that I am getting huge amounts of trackback spam. Why not just turn off trackbacks? Because these people are stealing my content, and likely your content, for their own personal gain and the trackback is the easiest way to find them. Yes, they generate a link back to Reality Me which in theory should help my page rank but not when it is with duplicate content. I have installed the Antileech WordPress plugin but I am still figuring out how to use it without cutting off my feeds to legitimate readers. If you do end up getting a "this content is stolen" message instead of the actual post, please email juggler at gmail.com and I will fix it. That said, can you confirm which feedreader you use based upon the following:

  • Blogdigger/2.0 (http://www.blogdigger.com/; contact@blogdigger.com) Referred by: http://www.zimbio.com/Jaycees/trackers/7/Blog+Search+Tracker
  • Feedfetcher-Google; ( http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 6 subscribers; feed-id=3701543567382179734) Referred by: http://www.google.com/reader/view/
  • Feedfetcher-Google; ( http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 9 subscribers; feed-id=8604077678671105327) Referred by: http://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my
  • Feedster Crawler/3.0; Feedster, Inc. Referred by: http://ranchero.com/
  • Gregarius/0.5.4 ( http://devlog.gregarius.net/docs/ua) Referred by: http://blognetwork.knoxnews.com/feed.php?channel=81
  • Liferea/1.4.3b (Linux; en_US.UTF-8; http://liferea.sf.net/)
  • NewsGatorOnline/2.0 (http:/www.newsgator.com; 1 subscribers) Referred by: http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/WebEd2.aspx?fld=0
  • NewzCrawler/1.8 (compatible; MSIE 6.00; Newz Crawler 1.8; http://www.newzcrawler.com/ )
  • SharpReader/0.9.7.0 (.NET CLR 1.1.4322.2407; WinNT 5.1.2600.0) Referred by: http://127.0.0.1:12108/sharpreader/page.html
  • Wasabot/1.4 (+ http://www.wasalive.com ) Java/1.6.0_02

I am assuming that Blogdigger, Gregarius, and Wasabot are used by content thieves.

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Anyone want to do a group project?

I’ve never done an open source project before. Here’s my proposal. We write a WordPress plugin that helps create a blacklist of known content thieving IPs. When an IP from the blacklist requests the RSS feed or direct link from the WordPress blog, we deliver an anti-theft of content notice instead of the actual content. The plugin will have the ability to deliver a custom message allowing people the personal choice of making the payload as obscene or marketable as they like. I have some thoughts on implementation since the splog delivering the content might have a different IP than the scavenger. For instance, the plug could alter the comment interface to include a check to mark a comment or trackback as potential content theft. The plugin would then have to examine the server logs to try to draw a correlation between when the real content was posted, the IPs that requested the RSS or post, and the time the stolen content was posted. With large samplings to a single database I think we could be very effective at blocking the thieves. Now, what’s the abuse potential here?

After getting this working on WordPress, I think we could extend it to other platforms.

Update: Looks like Owen Winkler (Antileech) has already written this! Kudos! Lorelle gives an overview and also recommends Digital Fingerprint Detecting Content Theft WordPress Plugin.