It's not uncommon to read about companies who should know better making dumb mistakes with their user base. Facebook is a perfect example, so much so I don't even need to dig up a link. What is really dumb, is a site devoted to covering "2.0" news makes the same mistakes: DownloadSquad.
I started noticing today that the DownloadSquad RSS feed is sending some articles in a "click to read more" format. This annoys me, and I drop feeds that play these games (looking at you penny arcade). I went to leave a comment on the latest feed to let them know I wasn't impressed, and noticed the comment form changed. I you don't want to get an account (and I don't) you'll have to leave a comment then confirm your email by getting a confirmation link in your inbox. Don't like that either - what ever happened to anonymous comments? Not that I ever leave anonymous comments, but the forced "we need your real email" act has me thinking I need to use disposable email more often.
But the icing on the cake was when I returned to the blog, I saw I had a "profile" on the site. Indeed I am BlogSmith user #555222 - joined on Jan 5th 2007! I searched my email to confirm I never signed up for the site and it appears to have matched me to other comments by email address to create my profile. Looking back at the confirmation email, I see at the bottom a message "For future reference, you may avoid these confirmations by using your e-mail and password" following by an obviously computer generated password.
The real annoyance I have here is not a privacy issue (after all, my contact link below is my real email) - it's the impression that I have a BlogSmith account and am a user of the service - almost like I'm endorsing the product. Well, to make sure there is no confusion, I think BlogSmith sucks. (I'm making it a link so google understands I associate the words "BlogSmith" and "Sucks" together, the same way eStarling sucks.).
Posted By Mike On Thursday, December 13, 2007
Filed under blog downloadsquad |
Comments (4)
Dylan
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Thursday, December 13, 2007
8:40:52 PM
You know, my blog is violating 2 of the 3 principles you're complaining about.
One, I require people to login to post comments. That's because I don't want blogspam, and registration is a small price to pay. Now, granted, everyone who's signed up on my blog I know IRL, except maybe one or two users (and only one of them has posted comments). And while I do require the email address, I don't actually use it for anything or display it. I don't even have a forgot-your-password function.
However, taking your anonymous comments and building a profile out of them is... either silly or just wrong, I can't decide. Maybe both. I can see why they'd do it--you're posting on their service regularly, so they might as well upsell you on a free account. But still, it is a bit presumptuous.
Two, I often post "blurbs" to my RSS feed rather than the whole article. Of course, I do that for a couple of reasons, all related to the purpose of my site:
1. I tend to get really, really, <em>really</em> verbose sometimes.
2. Sometimes I go back and decide I'd rather not post something publicly, and I delete it or make it private. If that happens, I don't want the full text of that post sticking around for all the world to read on KnoxBloggers or Google Reader or whatever.
3. There are some articles that I don't really want to make private, but I don't want just anyone to skim. So, I feel better about putting just a blurb in for these articles, and people who are really interested will click and read more.
Again, though, DownloadSquad isn't a personal blog.
Your point is well taken, though, and I'm considering making the RSS feeds on Chainsaw Buffet show the first page of the article rather than just the blurb now. :)
Mike
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Thursday, December 13, 2007
9:13:37 PM
On a personal blog it's not bad having to create an account - on even having to create an account to read the blog. Either as a way to reduce spam or control content - it's your blog after all and you have full right not to publish someone's comment if you choose.
RSS Blurbs: In general, they are bad. The whole point of my news reader is to put all the content I want to follow in one place. However you can do blurbs correctly - arstechnica.com is a good example. The title clearly tells you what the article is about and the blurb provides a one paragraph summary of the story. The only reason to click to read more is if you want the details.
Dylan
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Thursday, December 13, 2007
9:35:53 PM
OK, now that I actually check the feeds, I see what you mean. Either show a blurb or show the whole article, don't just show half the article. (Arguably, I think most of my RSS feed blurbs on my blog and Chainsaw Buffet take the Ars Technica approach.)
There's a blog I found on MSDN (http://www.mikepope.com/) that does the cut-off-halfway thing with a lot of long posts. It kills me, because apparently our web filter at work has determined that his site is about Personals and Dating and thus needs to be blocked.
Tish
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Wednesday, December 26, 2007
11:06:47 PM
Hi, Mike! I hope you had a great Christmas!
