
Why Content Sites Are Getting Ripped Off - dwynings
http://www.cdixon.org/?p=1199
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ggchappell
Not at all what I expected. I was imagining some new explanation for why
people some people copy blog posts and present them as their own. That, in my
mind, counts as "getting ripped off". But the fact that a writer is not able
to generate high advertising revenues--how does that constitute ripping him
off?

In any case, I figure that, if intent harvesting is where the money is on the
net, then those who want to make lots of money on the net ought to _do_ intent
harvesting, rather than complain about how whatever they are doing is not
lucrative.

Or am I missing something?

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lawrence
Agreed. Ripped off implies something unfair or sneaky. There's nothing to
prevent content producers from moving down the sales funnel.

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palehose
Whatever happened to conflict of interest objectivity? People are less likely
to trust a review from someone who is making money off of saying how great a
product is.

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anigbrowl
Quite true, but it's hard to do all the work required for objective reviewing
with no revenue.

To stick with the camera example in the original article, for any expensive
purchase people will likely read reviews on a few specialized sites (eg
dpreview.com) and on discussion forums where they can ask experts, other
owners etc. But I'd wager there's a lot more ad revenue that goes to, say,
cnet.com even though their reviews are superficial and crap. In the old days
if you wanted to buy a decent camera you'd buy photography magazines and pore
over the reviews, readers' letters etc. - and that's where the glossy full-
color adverts from Canon, Nikon etc. would be (and still are, but the
magazines have really shrunk). I don't think websites do nearly as well as the
print magazines did even though they may be putting in just as much work and
delivering just as much value to their readers.

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jrockway
Content sites should incentive their users to buy things in a traceable way.
When I worked in affiliate marketing, there were publishers that gave
purchasers a percentage of the commission. Sharing a bit of the advertising
revenue encouraged the user to not forget to use the affiliate code or
whatever.

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raheemm
Looking at my own purchasing behavior online - the strongest intent generator
are product reviews - especially the ones I find on Amazon. I almost always
read a review from amazon and then proceed to buy it from the cheapest online
source.

