Profile of a Hypocritical Blogger
Recently, a blogger found my list of 99 Websites where you can create buzz and he posted it on his blog, Brand Identity Guru. He also dropped me a polite email.
When I saw it, I was a bit unhappy because I’d spent two days on that post and it drives a lot of visitors to my site, so I did not want to have the list appearing elsewhere in full. I emailed him and let him know that I was not requesting he take it down, but I thought a partial list with a “See the full list” link would be more appropriate.
He complied within 2-3 minutes and the birds started cherping in my head again.
Then I realized my hypocracy. Hadn’t I just done the same thing with 100 Best Business Blogs?
Well, I may just be a hypocrite. I did call the Brand Identity Guru and let them know I was one. The difference, in my head, was that the list I compiled was for companies. The list of bloggers will benefit more from the links I copied, and it was my intention to give them all some visibility. – Weak, I know.
What do you think? Would you copy a list? Would you let someone copy your list?
Lead Generation Resources
Hey Ron
Interesting question!
I have done what Brand Identity Guru did before. I was reading a blog, saw a great list of recent blog posts in a certain category, and wanted to share the great list with my readers. I linked back to the original site, but I received an email asking me to take it down since it was ‘their’ list.
My reaction was, and is, that this a really selfish. Did they put the list up for link juice, or to share great content? I put the list on my blog to share content, but I generally come from the position of sharing and abundance, not hoarding and shortage.
I would let someone copy my list, but I won’t copy a list again.
Thanks Benjamin,
I know personally I am protective of that list because of the two days I spent compiling it. It is one of the #1 draws to this blog currently.
To answer your question on why – I think people want to share great content and build readership – not share great content like a free article repository.
Maybe the answer (and I have not done this in the past myself) is to ask permission before copying a meaningful resource.
Anyone else have experience with this they would like to share?
i would copy a list. but too many lists could be bad for my blog..especially coppied ones.. i’ll be happy if people copied my list… i’m trying to compile a list of 24 hour comics..but it is tedious work..
any tips?