I’m a huge fan of word of mouth marketing (WOMM). I dabbled in WOMM a bit while I was working for a tech company–we were selling enterprise blog solutions back then, and we used our own consumer-oriented blogging service to demonstrate the strong points of the software. And now that I write on and manage blogs for a living, word of mouth–or rather word of blog–marketing is still the game.

However, WOMM may not be as powerful a weapon if the wielder doesn’t know how to use it. It’s like a double edged sword. Use it properly and you have an efficient tool. If you don’t know how to work it, you might end up cutting yourself.

Last week, a local PR firm contact a handful of bloggers, which included myself. They were inviting everyone for a free breakfast Monday morning to celebrate the launching of the Power Breakfast line of Max’s restaurant. I gladly obliged–I got a couple of dozen free breakfast passes, which were shared among friends and family. We were regular Max’s patrons, anyway, so we were excited to be part of the marketing blitz. We planned to review the food and the experience on our blogs.

But when the day came, we were quite disappointed because the service sucked. At the branch we visited, we felt discriminated upon because we used free coupons. We saw paying clients served pronto, while we had to wait an hour just to get our food–and that was after we complained to the manager.

Apparently, it was only in the branch we visited where those of us who ate for free were given low priority. Someone’s going to be in hot water for that.

We did blog about our experiences, and boy did we give a bad review. Now people–or at least those who know and trust me and my blogger mom–would probably think twice about eating at that particular Max’s branch. Talk about word of blog marketing backfiring.

As it’s the holidays (well, in the US, anyway)- I’ll keep this one short. It wasn’t on my intended list of three samples! And it’s mainly for the benefit and ongoing discourse with Matt Mickiewicz of Sitepoint and anyone else out there who is reading this, and likes to trade on sitepoint. Last week there was a site for sale here. It was EFXscripts.com. We wanted it because we like the scripts that it sells and wanted to merge it with a site of our own which has some great, unique scripts, but hasn’t been performing well-: GorillaScripts.com. Plus it was a PR6 with seemingly natural backlinks, so cheap at the price.

Now for one reason or other, we were late to the bidding and somebody else bid at the BIN price. That was $750. Rather annoyed with myself, I messaged the seller and told him that I was sorry to have missed the bidding and that if for any reason the other bid fell through, I was willing to pay $1,000. So $250 over the BIN price. The seller responds to my message and says that I’m not too late as he hasn’t accepted the BIN from the other bidder. So the site was mine if I wanted it.

To my mind, this was unethical behavior on behalf of the seller. I was really in two minds as to how to proceed. The other bidder had won fair and square. My message was in the spirit of “if the other bidder doesn’t pay up…” In this case, I was saved as I got a secondary message from the seller saying that the original BIN bidder had upped his bid to $1,050 – outbidding me. So I was able to gracefully exit.

This example, Matt, is intended to show you how your policies, in bending over backwards for the seller- have created a “black market” of behind-the-scenes bidding. It was the seller’s choice to create a BIN price- he/she didn’t need to. And if it was too low, tough luck. Plus this sort of sale will make future “valuations” practically impossible for buyers, as unlike in the past- one can’t really gauge the “going rate” for a particular type of site.

I do have some suggestions. Here’s the first-: sellers should be forced to sell to the buyer who does a BIN on their auction- if the buyer meets certain criteria (prompt payment, etc).

[tags]sitepoint,scripts,BIN,PR6,blog sales,ethics[/tags]

In my last post, I explained why I feel that buying off sitepoint has become so deadly dull these days. So here is the first example of a recent blog buying experience we have had-:

Widgetoko.com

Okay, we really, really wanted this one. It was listed at sitepoint here with a fairly low starting bid. While it was listed as PR0, it had some fabulous backlinks- including from Digg’s frontpage, Scobleizer, Lifehacker, Wired and other mayor websites. Just a backlinks and a future pagerank check showed us that Bob’s your uncle!! A nicely customized design and short, slick, unique widgets. A perfect match for our own more content-heavy Bloggy Widgets.

So we waited and waited….two minutes to go. The current high bid was $1,001. So we put in the suggested bid of $1,050 (that’s us- “saloschin”). What happens? The auction extends for 4 more hours, automatically. We monitor it. Phew! We still won the bidding- got the email from sitepoint and take the “seller has not yet chosen to accept your bid” as just the usual red tape stuff. Hang on. We don’t hear from the seller- so we message them. And then we get the reply saying “sorry…site already sold to the previous bidder..”.

Now this was all wrong! Firstly, the previous bidder was “private” but had his username revealed to us in the message from the seller. A certain “Problogging”. Damn! We know that one. No less than the former owner of this blog, David Krug. Of all people to be pipped at the post by!! And beaten by a bid of $1,001- lower than ours? Weird!
Did we get a fair shot at winning the site? No. The seller should have indicated that a higher bid had been offered prior, giving us the chance to again increase our bid. How much did the seller actually get? Supposedly $1,001. That’s what it says. How much were we prepared to pay? Approx. $3,500. The seller sure didn’t get that.

In conclusion, neither the seller nor the buyer’s best interests were served by this auction. We didn’t get a fair chance to obtain the site and the seller didn’t get the opportunity to get the highest price that he could. And the whole thing was a rather annoying, frustrating “cloak and dagger” experience that left a bad taste in the mouth. Sitepoint’s policies, while clearly well-intentioned, are actually creating a fundamental lack of transparency- which cannot be good for trade.

Plus, where was the fun? If we’d known that “Problogging” was bidding against us- hell, we’d have paid double just for the fun of it!

And as a follow-up, I’m wondering if the blog sale even went through? Checking the “who is” on the domain now and it seems to still be with the old seller. I don’t know why this is, but what I do know is that such an experience will not serve sitepoint well, long-term- with the potential to lose both buyers and sellers. The current sales lack so much of the articulation and banter of the olden days- and I’m wondering if this will also give sitepoint less “search phrases” to be linked with- enquiries from the SEs in mind, and thus bring down their performance- at least in the marketplace. Time will tell!
[tags]sitepoint, widgetoko, lifehacker, wired, bloggy widgets, widgets, online auctions, david krug, problogging, digg, scobleizer[/tags]

Buying websites off sitepoint used to be a lot of fun. Rather like with eBay, it was the closest thing- adrenalin-wise, to gambling- that I know. As a former art dealer, one of the favorite part of my jobs was bidding at auctions. Swooping in at the last-minute for a piece of art that you desperately wanted, meanwhile poker-faced as if to say “ah well, I’m don’t really care about this one- it’s just an impulsive whim…“And while that sort of inter-personal energy isn’t the same online, it’s still a lot of fun bidding at online auctions- especially if it’s for something you desperately want. This is of course is the cornerstone of eBay’s success, and the element that cleverly backs this up is the feedback system for buyers and sellers.

While sitepoint has never had such a feedback system, it has always been a great place to buy and sell sites because of its inherent prestige and clout, i.e: if someone plays crooked, there will be consequences and the moderators are very professional. Also, every member was always “open” in that you could see his/her profile, how many posts they have made (& then read them)- and make contact at will.

These were the good old days! Auctions were completely free to list. The seller determined things like the BIN price, the length of sale and bidding format and, on the whole, everything was open and transparent. Private deals were possible, but everything was pretty much ‘out there’. In other words, the “spirit” of a true auction process was retained. If a seller declared the end time for an auction to be 17.00 EST on a specific date, then even if a higher bid came in at 17.01- the seller was ethically bound to sell to the bidder that was in time. So much ‘swooping’ last minute was possible! It was also possible to have open, honest discussions about the merits of that particular auction, with other members weighing in on the pros and cons and giving their advice- without being moderated out. And asking the hard, probing questions.

These days, all that has changed on sitepoint. I can see why the management at sitepoint wanted to shake things up from the rather chaotic, amateur process that was in place before. But in doing so, they have also managed to kill much of the charm and fun of bidding, as well as make it much harder to get a bargain. They have also made it harder to be 100% sure that you have won a site or to gain the useful advice and sometimes OTT battering of other members.

The first change that took some of the fun out was the over-zealous moderating. That members can only ask pertinent questions in regards to the sale if they are genuine buyers. They have drawn the line of “sabotage” too far- so that even fair, reasonable questions get moderated out. Rather like referees over-protecting goalies in footy!! The seller should be allowed to answer the difficult questions, while now, under current rules- they just whinge and duck them.

The second policy that has spoilt the fun is the separation of “established sites for sale” and “turnkeys”. Why? Because of the lack of definition in terms and the misunderstanding that most sellers and buyers have for what a turnkey actually is. So many buyers who would usually consider a “turnkey” won’t even visit that markeplace- thinking “I only want something established” and ditto sellers not listing there. While it makes sense in concept, in reality it has made for less excitement and fun.

The third policy that has really affected the process of buying & selling on sitepoint negatively- are the fees. From being free, they went to $4.95, then $9.95, then $14,95, then $19.95 and now just $20 (for “established sites”). What this means is that a lot of sellers who own, technically speaking, “established sites”, will be completely put off listing their $100 sites up for sale, as they’re losing 20% before starting! So for those who are looking for real “bargains” at that sort of level- hoping they can get such a site to be worth $1,000 with a bit of work- are denied the opportunity and their hearts just sink as they go through the many sites for sale for the $000s. And then with the ones who are still up at that price range- you nearly always find that they’re really not worth anything at all- which is why they don’t mind paing the fee and taking their shot.

And the fourth and last reason why sitepoint‘s new rules have diminished the experience is the actual bidding/selling process. Firstly, some of the auctions can go on forever. When you see “time to go…27 days…”, you lose interest pretty quickly! Then, if you do wait until the last moment to bid- in the hope that you can get the site at the best possible price, and get the better of your bidding rivals (!), suddenly- if within 24 hours, the auction’s time period is extended for 4 hours more! What is more, because of the new “privacy” option- which nearly everyone seems to be using, one can’t see who one is bidding against- and therefore judge their patterns and see who are the cheapos and who are the real players. And you can only clock up “credits” (via posts) with “PM stats please…“
After all this is said and done, you have bid and won the auction. Or so you think…another irritating last hurdle to jump through. “A winning bid has been made (or BIN)…but the seller has not yet accepted or declined the offer…so you can make an offer…”.

Aargh!!! So after all that, I don’t even know if I won the site or not??

Seemingly, these latter policies are in line to help the seller achieve the best price possible. The question is if it does, in reality, achieve that. In my next post, I’ll be giving three recent examples of our own experiences on sitepoint- as evidence that not only has sitepoint become a boring place to buy sites from, but that it also doesn’t work in practice as it should.

You can see sitepoint’s new “auction guidelines” here.

[tags]sitepoint,buying sites,auction, online auctions,turnkeys,privacy,blog sales[/tags]

Many will point out that much of Sentinel’s technology overlaps already existing products. Copyscape already provides algorithm matching of text, Feedburner already helps detect RSS scraping and Google Alerts can provide automated checking for duplicate content.

It seems, on the surface at least, that much of Sentinel’s functionality has already been filled. However, the potential for Sentinel, and why I am excited about it, isn’t because it can replace those services, but because they can fill in holes that they leave behind.

First off, as I discussed previously, Copyscape is ill-targeted at bloggers. It’s reliance on the Google database gives it only limited usefulness in the rapid-fire world of blogging. Delays in updates to the Google database blunt its effectiveness. Also, since many splogs and scrapers are blacklisted from Google, some of the worst offenders may not show up in Google at all.

Though Sentinel will be limited in that it will only check for plagiarism once every so often, it’s checks will be for the content immediately available, using RSS feeds to pull the latest versions of all blogs. Also, Copyscape searches are not automated and will only provide the top ten results. Considering the high rate of false positives with the service, that could leave the vast majority of misuse undetected unless you pay for the Copysentry service, which only protects ten pages at the most basic level.

(Note: There is no Google API for its blog search tool so, as of yet, no outside service can search through it. There is, however, a Technorati API.)

Google Alerts, while automated, will share many of the same problems. Also, setting up a GA for each blog entry is a time-consuming process that doesn’t mesh well with the nature of blogging. Since the automatic generation of Google Alerts is prohibited at this time, there’s no way to integrate GAs into blogging products. Also, GAs only (reliably) detect full fledged copy and paste jobs and have no ability to detect partial reuse and/or modified content.

Finally, Feedburner, though providing valuable feed statistics and some impressive tools to deal with RSS scraping, has severe limitations. Since it can only detect reuse of your feed, it’s possible for scrapers to grab from other sources, such as Technorati watchlists and your site’s original, unprotected feed, without detection. I’ve noticed at least a few sploggers scrape some or all of my content without Feedburner noticing.

In that regard, Feedburner might be seen as a compliment to Sentinel. Feedburner detects most traditional scraping immediately and Sentinel, hopefully, will be able to pick up the rest.

The bottom line is that, while Sentinel may overlap existing technologies, it also fills gaping holes that they’ve left behind, offering a layer of protection unlike anything seen bloggers have seen before.

Conclusions

In the end, bloggers will have to decide whether or not they want to use Sentinel. However, since the basic version of Sentinel will be free, there will be little reason not to.

If it goes as it appears to be, it will likely service the merely curious, the protectors of copyright and the copyleft crowd alike. Anyone who is remotely interested, for any reason, about where their content is being reused will likely find something to smile about when using Sentinel.

But in terms of pure copyright protection, Sentinel will likely be very hard to beat. both for its brain and for its immediacy. It will be very interesting to see if and how Sentinel affects content reuse, both legitimate and illegitimate, after it is released.

Until then though, anyone who is interested in Sentinel should visit the Blogwerx site and add your email address to their list of potential beta testers.

It should be a very interesting launch.

If you think that you have what it takes to review blogs on a regular basis, do email us here.

Please send us a sample link of blogging that you have done and we’ll then send you a trial review to do. Don’t worry- if we don’t take you on, we won’t use your trial review….

Each review should be 250 words long and pays $5 USD, and the contract will be for 30 reviews- so you’ll receive $150 via Paypal, paid in one lump sum upon delivery. We will provide you with the blog urls that we want reviewed.

You can visit Bloggy Award and see the sort of reviews that we have done over the past few months and check out our judging criteria here.

Since Sentinel, when parsing RSS feeds, ignores all punctuation and most extremely short words, it can easily see through most simple text manipulations such as restructuring sentences and introducing false paragraph breaks. However, Blogwerx took things a step further and built in a thesaurus to Sentinel’s algorithm, making it capable of detecting copies that have been rewritten in minor ways and, potentially, even articles that have been “spun” by synonymizing software.

If this works as planned, it will put Sentinel a generation ahead of other plagiarism searching techniques, most of which require the use of a “dumb” search engine that only detects exact matches.

A drawback to the synonym checking feature of Sentinel is that, most likely, it will not be available to users of the free product. Though Blogwerx’s programmers have been able to add the feature to the service without hurting speed, the latest version of the software can process up to ten million feeds per day with the potential for many more as the service expands, the added burden of the service still prohibits it from being freely available at this time.

However, if early signs from Blogwerx are any indication, the paid versions of its service will begin at approximately five dollars a month, making it comparable to Feedburner and the most basic versions of Copysentry, the paid version of Copyscape.

One of the more interesting side features to Sentinel is the ability for users to mark infringing blogs as spam blogs (splogs). After three strikes of confirmed plagiarism, the blog is officially listed as a splog and moved into a database that will be publicly available via an API.

This could, potentially, be used to create applications that work to prevent scraping or aid search engines in blacklisting useless blogs. It can also make an excellent addition to other splog databases, such as SplogSpot, that work to catch all junk blogs but may not spot outright plagiarized blogs.

I rarely get excited about upcoming anti-plagiarism products. Most seem to be overpriced, underfeatured and virtually useless to your average blogger or Webmaster. I also rarely feel the need to tread on the territory of such notable sites as Techcrunch and Mashable by covering upcoming Web 2.0 startups.

However, Blogwerx is an exception to both rules.

Blogwerx’s main product, Sentinel, which is still under development, has the potential to forever change the way blogs detect plagiarism and content theft by automatically checking for duplicate content and reporting its findings back to the site’s creator.

It’s a powerful tool that, if it works as planned, could easily change the plagiarism game for good.

What Sentinel Does

The basic idea behind Sentinel is pretty simple. Take your RSS feed along with archived entries from it, compare that content to that of other RSS feeds available on the Web and point out any large blocks of matching text. This then allows the user, and blog owner, to investigate any similarities between his feed and others for potential misuse.

According to Blogwerx, their matching algorithm works similarly to those used by Copyscape or Turnitin and is able to match partial blocks of text. This not only helps stop plagiarists that steal only a paragraph or two of writing, but also lets you see where you’re being quoted or otherwise legitimately reused. It can also help you see other sites that share quotes and other information that you wrote around, letting you see who’s talking about the similar issues in a way most search engines can not.

These checks will take place at regular intervals. Free users will have to wait the longest, up to two weeks between checks, while paying customers will get more frequent checks based upon their account level. After the checks are done, the user will then be able to view the results and follow up on any similarities that interest them.

In short, it’s a powerful system that has a variety of uses beyond just plagiarism fighting. However, the most interesting and potentially useful feature lies in the search algorithm itself and how the Blogwerx team gave Sentinel more than a pair of eyes, but also a brain.