Shyftr: I’m not impressed

I admit it; before writing that last post I hadn’t even looked at Shyftr. But now having done this I’m appalled by what I’m seeing.

Shyftr is taking blog posts in their entirety and duplicating them on their site. In the wake of this the discussions that are emerging are completely independent of the original content and as such serve to circumvent the author entirely.

This makes me question what the purpose of having a blog is anymore. If the originality of author content is no longer respected the unique value of their blogs is undermined and its overall purpose and value comes into question.

Scoble sees no issue with this (“Era of blogger’s control is over“), saying “This is a trend that the best bloggers should embrace. Me? I follow wherever the conversation takes me.”

Scoble is obviously a collectivist, and sees the individual’s role in information aggregation as a means to an end – effectively, the purpose of the individual is to serve the collective. Personally I completely disagree.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier today this trend is not going to benefit the wider discussions that take place in the wake of provocative or thought-provoking pieces. In fact, particularly given Shyftr’s highly questionable model, this trend is going to be far, far worse.

Looking at this another way, Shyftr is making money by copying content. Users have no motivation to visit the original site and authors are cut out of the equation completely.

For authors wanting to express their own thoughts and opinions and who value the input of other people as a means to embetter themselves and facilitate personal or professional development Shyftr is a knife in the back.

I’m not impressed.

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