Thursday, April 26, 2007

I'm wanted...

...but do I want them?

I received an email yesterday an (edited) extract of which I show below:
Our editors have handpicked your blog based on the interests of our members. If you would like m*L*t to syndicate your blog you have nothing further to do. If you do not want us to syndicate your blog, kindly respond to this email and let us know.

<<snip>>

As an added incentive for having your blog published on m*L*t, m*L**t will provide bloggers a javascript feed to place on their site. The feed will show all users from m*L*t who have subscribed to your blog.

The benefit of the javascript to you is that any of your readers that join m*L*t via your site will be credited to you as a referral and you will earn money based on their level of activity. It is a great way to promote both your blog and m*L*t.
{I've starred out their name - didn't see why I should give them free publicity.}

wall of spam
wall of spam,
originally uploaded by chotda
My gut reaction was to say no. Unsolicited, it felt like spam. They were offering to make me money from my blog... but I'm not interested in charging. The lack of detail about who they are and why they had chosen me made me feel a bit uneasy too. Also, I didn't like their assumption that it was OK to re-purpose my work and that I had to opt out rather than them asking me to opt in. So I said no.

I went and had a look at their site anyway. I found David Warlick's 2 cents blog there, so maybe it is OK. However, my visit convinced me I didn't want to be a part of it. Main reason is that they seemed to have a separate commenting system, so that people could be reading my blog and commenting on it without actually ever coming near my blog! As far as I can see... that's a silly idea.

Of course I may be missing the point. Perhaps it's a really good system and I'm just being a grumpy old analogue kid rather than a new world digital man. If I'm missing something, please let me know.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I sense a bit of Malignant Narcissism! (Enjoy!)