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The secret of being Dugg, exposed
I wrote an article about Smashing Magazine and was going to post it next week. Not sure if I’m still going to.
You’ve probably seen Smashing Magazine at least once; almost every entry they “write” has made it to the front page of Digg because of their abuse use of Top X Lists.
The reason I’m considering not posting my original article and giving them any more praise for mastering the art of being Dugg, is because it seems that they like to borrow their lists from others.
Today’s post which has almost 1400 Diggs at the moment, is called “83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen“. A couple people have commented on Digg saying it looks a little familiar to another post on another blog, “80 Wordpress Themes“. In fact, it looks exactly the same other than them adding 3 additional blogs to the list.
I could be mistaken and both sites might be owned and written by the same individual, albeit highly unlikely.
So, I’m not sure whether or not I’ll ever post anything else about Smashing Magazine. I’d like to hear what they have to say about this “borrowed interest” first. Anybody want to step up to the mic?
UPDATE: Read Vitaly Friedman’s comment below. Amazing how quickly he got back to us. I’m still not a fan of republishing content from one blog to another. But thanks for clearning up the issue Vitaly nonetheless.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I think YGG should post the 84.5 beatuiful Wordpress themes you (probably) haven’t seen.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Seeing how they blatantly copied the other site enrages me. What a joke.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Oh btw, Digg this
February 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I hope they notice this article and reply with a comment.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
As do I
February 9th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Actually some of the content is from another blog that I read.
http://www.jonwaraas.com/good-wordpress-blogs-themes-listed-by-jon-waraas/
All of the ones he listed, including his own (Drunk Loser), are included in the list
I noticed that as soon as I saw the list. Pretty lame that you have to rip off someone else’s content and not even give them a nod for inspiring you..
February 9th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Dear friends,
I’d like to bring more clarity in the issue. Indeed, myself and Sven Lennartz are working on both magazines at the moment. DrWeb.de, the project Sven started 9 years ago, focuses on German-speaking audience (you can find his name at the bottom of every DrWeb page). And you will also find my name in the article we published previously on Dr. Web (http://www.drweb.de/weblog/weblog/?p=767).
Smashing magazine has not only more resources to offer, but it focuses on English-speaking audience. Some articles are, however, translated in English to present them to you.
I hope that will make the situation more clear.
Thanks for you interest and support.
February 9th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
It’s not only about republishing. It’s about preseting information to a wider audience. Dr. Web has a large audience in Germany, and in Europe, but we’re willing to help web-developers all around the world to get the information they are looking for. Many articles are written for Smashing Magazine only. Our main aim is to make sure that the valuable information we have and collect finds people who might actually use it.
It takes many hours of hard work to create the articles like these. All resources are hand-picked and selected manually. We want to achieve the highest quality of the content. We want to present this quality of content to you.
In fact, we smash you with the information, which will make your life easier. really. ;)
February 9th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
2Aaron: we would never use any content without referring to the site we’ve found it at. What is interesting about the article you’ve posted is that it appeared after our article in Dr. Web was published. I don’t think I was able to steal this content before it was created?
February 10th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Actually it seems that your first comments started on the same day as Jon’s post date stamp. Either way there are some similarities that are not able to be explained by chance.
Maybe he selected just 5 from your list but it seems odd that his own site which is http://www.drunkloser.com is included in your list plus the others that he listed without exception.
February 10th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
2Aaron, well, I see your point, let’s just take a look at the source code…
The images are directly hotlinked from drweb.de, so it’s quite impossible that this post was written before ours was published in Dr. Web, don’t you think? (I have made a screenshot, if it’s necessary).
March 7th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
[...] or vice versa. Travis from YoungGoGetter.com was questioning these similarities in his post The secret of being Dugg, exposed. I’m not sure whether it’s been added to Smashing Magazine’s About page later on, [...]
March 7th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
[...] or vice versa. Travis from YoungGoGetter.com was questioning these similarities in his post The secret of being Dugg, exposed. I’m not sure whether it’s been added to Smashing Magazine’s About page later on, [...]
March 10th, 2007 at 7:12 am
[...] from Drweb.de. Some users consider us being a spam machine and bury us on Digg. Some bloggers write about us, trying to prove that we use some unfair methods to generate traffic from Digg. OK, we’ve [...]