Simply Dumb and Wacko Jacko |
Ok, I chuckled and clicked through on this obviously photoshopped blogad from simplydumb.com:
Former king of pop Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe has revealed to an Irish newspaper that he is not the father of their children Prince Michael Jr and Paris.
Jacko with boobs, spooky!
Once at Simply Dumb, I looked around a bit and found it to be one of the B5media network blogs about weird and unusual stories where primarily snipped news articles are classified as “simply dumb” or “simply simply dumb” or various other categories. Duncan Riley is credited as the writer on the sidebar although most bylines I saw were using “admin.” I already subscribe to a couple weird, unusual, bizarre RSS feeds so I decided to dig deeper on this one.
As far as frequency of updates, it looks to be updated about once per day on average, by going back over the last month’s worth of blog posts (although the last set of updates were on the 8th and here it is the 12th). Partial text RSS feed. I didn’t care for the design, which is a black background with tiny slice of yellow across the top (what for?) and JavaScript errors in IE. Loaded fine in Firefox and Opera. Love or hate IE, you still have to make sure your blog works without errors in it unless it’s a competing browser only blog maybe. Numerous ads being deployed: Adsense, Adbrite, Chitika, etc, not a real clean reader experience when the content is primarily not original.
End result? Their advertisement on another blog through blogads sucked me in (good job), site content lacked much in the way of editorial and seemed more like simply splog (check the permalink above and see that it was entirely pulled from Webindia), left after a couple minutes, didn’t subscribe.
Wasted time, wasted opportunity, wasted ad, wasted money. The best part was the photoshopped pic which is thumbed above, and even that was a quick PS hack job if you clickthru and see the full-sized original.
Blogs like Simply Dumb continue to reinforce my belief that most of these blog network owners are more concerned about generating a sheer number of blogs — even when they suck like this spam weblog from a competing blog network that recently sold in the network package to AOL for millions of dollars — to bolster their numbers and attract advertisers ($$ ad revenue $$) as opposed to actually creating worthwhile content.
Wanna start a good blog network? Then don’t add new blogs just to increase the numbers, add new blogs with dedicated, passionate bloggers on the topic. Splogs primarily consist of content from other places.
I really have to wonder how search engines like Google will treat networks using obvious tactics like these over time? Will they penalize the good sites on the network? This is another reason I’m about as likely to join a network as urinate on an electric fence.
Hopefully worthwhile content won’t be subverted by these type blogs but it’s already happening. It seems to have worked against CNET’s editors who spotlighted the above mentioned WIN spam weblog as one of the top 100 tech blogs on the web and skipped other blogs that deal regularly with spam like Aunty-spam (no affiliation).
Did this post make you go hmm?
(Hmm, no ratings yet)
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As a note, SD is really just a venting point for stuff we come across. We don’t really do it for money (the only reason we don’t drop the ads is for the days when we get boing boing’d or whatnot). It’s not meant to be a content blog, just a larf for us. Hence no regular posting schedule, no real editorial, no real anything but effectively links to things we find that are funny
Comment by Jeremy Wright — December 12, 2005 @ 2:04 pm PST
Also, as far as design, all the b5 blogs will be moving to this style of a design: www.play-girlz.com. This’ll cut down the ads, make them more focussed and make the experience more visually appealing.
But, it’ll still be just a tiny side project for us, not a serious blog.
Sorry you didn’t like it mate
Comment by Jeremy Wright — December 12, 2005 @ 2:05 pm PST
Also, sorry, but where are the chitika ads? I see adsense and adbrite and a sponsor ad and that’s about it …
Again, sorry for all the comments. Slap a dumbass sign on my forehead
Comment by Jeremy Wright — December 12, 2005 @ 2:07 pm PST
No need to apologize for multiple comments, I like comments
I surfed around on the site quite a bit but maybe I was wrong on the Chitika, Jeremy. I don’t see it there now. Is it possible somebody else removed that?
Comment by TDavid — December 12, 2005 @ 2:48 pm PST
TDavid: Not likely someone removed it. The only person with privs who’s been awake during the last 6 hours or so was me. If you saw it yesterday I guess it’s possible, but it’s not on our list to be adjusting ads on SD right now…
Either way, we do appreciate the feedback. Some of the blogs contain more intrinsic value than others. This is one of the ones that’s basically just reblogging, so I hear what you’re saying.
Comment by Jeremy Wright — December 12, 2005 @ 3:35 pm PST
Yeah, this post was written a couple days ago actually. I tend to keep lots of stuff in the blog draft mode like that and then add/remove little bits of fresh information before posting. In fact I just mentioned you in another blog entry (in a positive way, BTW) that has been sitting in a draft mode awhile. That will probably be published in the next few days.
Comment by TDavid — December 12, 2005 @ 3:41 pm PST
Then, yeah, it’s definitely possible it was dropped. Mid-last week we started dropping Chitika across the network in favour of YPN and a few other solutions. Still fidding with the mix. So yeah, definitely possible!
Comment by Jeremy Wright — December 12, 2005 @ 3:43 pm PST
MJ was a hasbeen pedophile. People think he was innocent but what 40+ year old man goes on national television and says that he shares his bed with young boys. That they sleep together. Stranger’s young boys in your bed with an alarm that sounds anytime someone comes close to the bedroom yet he’s innocent?
His 3 kids I’ve always said were not his and now the world seems shocked that a black man and a white woman cannot conceive blonde blue eyed caucasians?
The news call him the Self proclaimed King Of Pop. Which is correct. No one gave him that title. He declared it. Even to the point that his 2 boys share the same name Prince Michael. What an egomaniac.
Genius? Savvy businessman? Let’s look at the first. Genius. His dad beat him and put him on stage and started his career. Quincy jones produced his 2 first solo efforts. Then Quincy left. Michael went down the tubes. Quincy isn’t even going to the funeral. What instrument does he play? Notice that when the money well ran dry, no more songs. Why? He doesn’t write shit. He buys songs and puts his name on it but in the end, no one would sell him anything cuz he couldn’t pay. He couldn’t even get a Vegas show when he tried. america did not want him so he went to Poland and The emirates. Asia loves him.
Savvy business man. He bought the Beatles catalog. What person in the world does not know that is worth something?? Do you have to be savvy? No. But here’s where his businessman title hits the tubes. his videos cost more than some movies. He bought himself into debt with neverland, the animals, the park, the spending binges etc etc.
His death? His death brings parallels to the real King. Embarking on a big tour, pills, heart attack at home etc etc. He wanted so much to be like Elvis he even married the king’s daughter in a bid to take attention off the pedophile charges that came in. Lisa Marie agreed to the deal as she saw this as exposure and she was trying to launch her own artist career and when she realised this was not working. she cut out.
I give him the following: Great entertainer, decent dancer, good stage presence. King, no. Genius, no.
He knew he could never do the 50 shows and had to bail out. The 50 shows were set up so that he could pay off some creditors….yeah great business man with $600 000 cash in his account and $400 000 000 in debts.
I was asked to sign a petition for MJ to dedicate HEAL THE WORLD to a certain boy who died that I wrote a song for but I didn’t sign for 2 reasons: 1) MJ and children don’t mix 2) I knew the shows would never happen.
Now Uri Geller (another crackpot friend of MJ) says MJ really had no clue how to do 50 shows.
Remember, he was going from not performing in say 20 years to doing 50 huge shows. that’s a big deal. u have to be ready. he was not.
MJ died 20 years ago and since then an empty reptilian shell roamed the streets looking more and more over the years like the Thriller that he was.
Comment by Ioloap — July 8, 2009 @ 7:59 am PST