Comments on: Why automating related post links on other sites can be high risk http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/ Technology, music, video, art, news, reviews and muse on the web Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:11:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Cher http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-802219 Cher Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:02:07 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-802219 Blogging is a good way to get related content. But it should not be done for the sake of posting. You need to get a grip on the subject matter. Blogging is a good way to get related content. But it should not be done for the sake of posting. You need to get a grip on the subject matter.

]]> By: TDavid http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800866 TDavid Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:26:10 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800866 Hi Andraz - I have done an indepth review of the Windows Live Writer Zemanta plugin and offered your team some wish list items. It's not for me in its current state (buggy, unreliable). Also your TOS needs some refining and loosening. You'll find the link to the review above or below this comment. Thank you again for stopping by personally. I like company reps who do that. Hi Andraz - I have done an indepth review of the Windows Live Writer Zemanta plugin and offered your team some wish list items. It’s not for me in its current state (buggy, unreliable). Also your TOS needs some refining and loosening. You’ll find the link to the review above or below this comment. Thank you again for stopping by personally. I like company reps who do that.

]]> By: 5 wish list items that would improve Zemanta service and their Windows Live Writer plugin » Make You Go Hmm http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800865 5 wish list items that would improve Zemanta service and their Windows Live Writer plugin » Make You Go Hmm Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:25:08 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800865 [...] the last post on automated related links in posts I mentioned liking the relevancy provided by the Zemanta service and promised to check into the [...] […] the last post on automated related links in posts I mentioned liking the relevancy provided by the Zemanta service and promised to check into the […]

]]> By: Andraz Tori http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800854 Andraz Tori Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:22:32 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800854 I have to agree with Eric that every tool that can get abused will get abused. :) I'd just point out one thing about Zemanta - "the recommendation pool" which means blogs and sites that we recommend links to is hand picked. You can however give Zemanta your own list of RSS feeds that you want suggestions from and Zemanta will happily oblige, but those feeds won't affect others. Oh and about the brand... We have some pretty high-profile users such as Real Networks official blog, HP Marketing Blogs, Chris Brogan, some start-up CEOs, Geekdad blog at Wired.com, etc. Hopefully that brings some confidence to the table. bye Andraz Tori, Zemanta I have to agree with Eric that every tool that can get abused will get abused. :)

I’d just point out one thing about Zemanta - “the recommendation pool” which means blogs and sites that we recommend links to is hand picked. You can however give Zemanta your own list of RSS feeds that you want suggestions from and Zemanta will happily oblige, but those feeds won’t affect others.

Oh and about the brand… We have some pretty high-profile users such as Real Networks official blog, HP Marketing Blogs, Chris Brogan, some start-up CEOs, Geekdad blog at Wired.com, etc. Hopefully that brings some confidence to the table.

bye
Andraz Tori, Zemanta

]]> By: Eric Ward http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800853 Eric Ward Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:06:19 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800853 TDavid - I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying no that matter how potentially useful any tool is at ID'ing related content, there still has to be a human making a choice to include ot not. And then, EVEN WITH THAT in place, even with that vetting, the vetter's choice to include any given link is still only as useful as the intent of each vetter. To say it less nicely, there are hundreds of tools that have been created over the years that were designed in some form or fashion to identify content and allow for the sharing, aggregating, tagging, forwarding, linking, etc. Spammers ALWAYS find them, and ALWAYS pollute them. It's the very nature of the web. Yes, the tool could be used by a reference librarian blogger with a PhD, and each included related link would be perfectly relevant. That happens now. But such tools always end up being used far more often by 80 million people who just want to spread links for some other motive, usually personal financial gain. I'm not cynical, I've just seen it going all the way back to the days of usenet. TDavid - I’m saying the opposite. I’m saying no that matter how potentially useful any tool is at ID’ing related content, there still has to be a human making a choice to include ot not. And then, EVEN WITH THAT in place, even with that vetting, the vetter’s choice to include any given link is still only as useful as the intent of each vetter. To say it less nicely, there are hundreds of tools that have been created over the years that were designed in some form or fashion to identify content and allow for the sharing, aggregating, tagging, forwarding, linking, etc. Spammers ALWAYS find them, and ALWAYS pollute them. It’s the very nature of the web. Yes, the tool could be used by a reference librarian blogger with a PhD, and each included related link would be perfectly relevant. That happens now. But such tools always end up being used far more often by 80 million people who just want to spread links for some other motive, usually personal financial gain. I’m not cynical, I’ve just seen it going all the way back to the days of usenet.

]]> By: TDavid http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800835 TDavid Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:51:23 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800835 Eric - are you suggesting the Sphere results -- the tool, in this case -- pictured above are showing truly related results? Or that the user of that tool (Jason Falls in this case) is somehow at fault for not vetting this 'tool'? Open for debate but my guess is most readers are expecting to see something marked 'related' to be, well, related. Eric - are you suggesting the Sphere results — the tool, in this case — pictured above are showing truly related results? Or that the user of that tool (Jason Falls in this case) is somehow at fault for not vetting this ‘tool’?

Open for debate but my guess is most readers are expecting to see something marked ‘related’ to be, well, related.

]]> By: Eric Ward http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800834 Eric Ward Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:37:17 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800834 Force and reinforce vetting and then, even with forced vetting, the quality and veracity of the related-ness will only be a reflection of the intent and motives of the vetter. The tool is not the problem. It's the user. Force and reinforce vetting and then, even with forced vetting, the quality and veracity of the related-ness will only be a reflection of the intent and motives of the vetter. The tool is not the problem. It’s the user.

]]> By: Mark Dykeman http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800833 Mark Dykeman Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:36:54 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800833 I chuckled to myself when I saw the "go blind" post get served up by Zemanta at Jason's blog, but I had no idea it would spawn this! :) Excellent points about related posts automation. I've never ever thought about linkrot before, so that's a take-away for me. Thanks! I chuckled to myself when I saw the “go blind” post get served up by Zemanta at Jason’s blog, but I had no idea it would spawn this! :)

Excellent points about related posts automation. I’ve never ever thought about linkrot before, so that’s a take-away for me.

Thanks!

]]> By: TDavid http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800832 TDavid Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:58:51 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800832 Andraz - nope, haven't tried your service yet from the writer side but as mentioned in the post, I'm planning to give it a try at one of our blogs. A negative note: I have seen posts from this blog appear in other blog posts using your zemanta related posts section and unfortunately a disproportionate number of these posts are on blogs that I'd label borderline or outright splog/spam. That's been what has kept me away from your service to be honest. Jason's is one of few legitimate blogs I've seen it used on. And when I took the time to analyze the related links, I was impressed. I also like your author must click requirement. What I'm wondering specifically if you can do is this with the links at the end: link 1 - <i>my unique comments about this link #1</i> link 2 - <i>my unique comments about link #2</i> ... and so on OR even better: allow me to write unique comments about the link, choose the exact link text (an alternative on the post title perhaps) and include at the end. By what Jason did -- adding his name to the heading after Zemanta -- doesn't tell me <i>why</i> he chose to include the link (or even what the order of links was? Most favorite to least? How he clicked on them in your interface?). Seems like a vague endorsement, at best. It doesn't give any direct opinion or analysis from the author which to me as reader is important, sort of like a link dump post, only the link dumps are all related to the post. Doesn't surprise me that some writers are shamelessly using your service to pilfer other writer's slants without crediting the source. There isn't really any way you can prevent that from happening from a technical perspective, so not a dig against Zemanta, but I must admit the Zemanta name is a bit marred because of where I've seen it being used. Maybe you guys should provide some sort of quality control for the blogs that use it? I know that's an moderation nightmare, but being associated with spam/splogs even unwittingly can be damaging to a brand. Andraz - nope, haven’t tried your service yet from the writer side but as mentioned in the post, I’m planning to give it a try at one of our blogs.

A negative note: I have seen posts from this blog appear in other blog posts using your zemanta related posts section and unfortunately a disproportionate number of these posts are on blogs that I’d label borderline or outright splog/spam. That’s been what has kept me away from your service to be honest. Jason’s is one of few legitimate blogs I’ve seen it used on. And when I took the time to analyze the related links, I was impressed.

I also like your author must click requirement. What I’m wondering specifically if you can do is this with the links at the end:

link 1 - my unique comments about this link #1
link 2 - my unique comments about link #2
… and so on

OR even better: allow me to write unique comments about the link, choose the exact link text (an alternative on the post title perhaps) and include at the end.

By what Jason did — adding his name to the heading after Zemanta — doesn’t tell me why he chose to include the link (or even what the order of links was? Most favorite to least? How he clicked on them in your interface?). Seems like a vague endorsement, at best. It doesn’t give any direct opinion or analysis from the author which to me as reader is important, sort of like a link dump post, only the link dumps are all related to the post.

Doesn’t surprise me that some writers are shamelessly using your service to pilfer other writer’s slants without crediting the source. There isn’t really any way you can prevent that from happening from a technical perspective, so not a dig against Zemanta, but I must admit the Zemanta name is a bit marred because of where I’ve seen it being used. Maybe you guys should provide some sort of quality control for the blogs that use it? I know that’s an moderation nightmare, but being associated with spam/splogs even unwittingly can be damaging to a brand.

]]> By: Andraz Tori http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800830 Andraz Tori Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:26:41 +0000 http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081201/5741/#comment-800830 Currently you can click on them and they get included at the bottom. Soon you will be able to select part of text and click on them and that part of text is going to be linked. Oh, and about vetting Zemanta links... I don't know if you tried it yourself, but author has to click on every single link that he wants included - and thus formally vetting them. Zemanta is not auto-linking anything without authors explicit action. Now, there is the question if author actually goes and visits the link before including it, which is different from author to author, but from our experiences more professional authors do take those recommendations very seriously and check before approving. Interestingly enough we also got some feedback from the writers that say they are only reading related articles themselves to get more information and write better story, but never offer those links to their readers. That might not be the web we'd want, but the tool can also be (and is) used that way. Andraz Tori, Zemanta Currently you can click on them and they get included at the bottom. Soon you will be able to select part of text and click on them and that part of text is going to be linked.

Oh, and about vetting Zemanta links… I don’t know if you tried it yourself, but author has to click on every single link that he wants included - and thus formally vetting them. Zemanta is not auto-linking anything without authors explicit action. Now, there is the question if author actually goes and visits the link before including it, which is different from author to author, but from our experiences more professional authors do take those recommendations very seriously and check before approving.

Interestingly enough we also got some feedback from the writers that say they are only reading related articles themselves to get more information and write better story, but never offer those links to their readers. That might not be the web we’d want, but the tool can also be (and is) used that way.

Andraz Tori, Zemanta

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