November 2, 2009

Newsvine.com – Poor netizens?

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I recently bumped into one of the web’s newest bookmarking sites. Newsvine.com. Their site has a very newspapery feel to it, it navigates well and frankly I was looking to engage some new niche audiences (aka communities).

So, using a service called Onlywire.com I submitted (bookmarked) many of the sites that I write for, or read over the course. After only 3 days of site submissions to Newsvine.com I was banned for submitting “commercial works” that violated their “code of honor”. I quickly submitted a request for reinstatement and have been denied.

OK, so that was not very social of them was it? On none of my sites that I write for do I actively “sell something”. I provide news that people can use, advice and occasionally review a movie or two. No big whoop. Well, let’s look up under the hood of their “code of honor” to see what I may be missing….

1. Respect others. Check.
2. Self promotion, seeding of links, and advertising are not allowed. Hmmm
3. No interesting headlines, ever. (headline baiting??) Another Hmmm
4. Be impartial, yada yada, whatever that means. Check
5. Acts that circumvent this code of honor are prohibited. Yet another Hmmm

OK, so while #1 may seem infantile of them to mention in this age of new media, they want to ask everyone to play nice in the sandbox, fine.

On to number 2. So some human at newsvine.com actually read my bookmarked site to find that the name Mike McDermott was both the author of the post, as well as the submitter of the bookmark to the post. Brilliant! We have found a Web 2.0 company that is dedicated to wasting their time and efforts thwarting those who want to share their own works publicly. Fail. Seeding of links. Well, if I actually thought that 3 days of link “seeding” that included submission of 3 of my sites and 11 other random sites would benefit my SEO, well.. please shoot me now. Finally, no advertising. OK, I don’t sell anything but advice for free. Link snobbery me thinks.

On to number 3. No interesting headlines. OK folks, so now we have I assume the same poor human who double checked who wrote the post scouring the content to make sure that it matches the headline in a material manner, and that the headline is not grabbing enough as to bait a person to read it. Fail.

And number 4. Be impartial, don’t call people names, kick sand in their face. Me thinks that newsvine.com CEO had a horrible case of acne as a child and was tossed in one too many lockers in high school.Fail.

And finally 5. Don’t try to game our pitiful human subjects that we have scouring all of your posts. We will be watching! Fail.

So now that you know where I come down on this situation with newsvine.com, what are your thoughts? Does the web really need a tender of poor souls who must read through each submitted post to gauge authenticity, trustworthiness, value and content? And what of the product? Is it superior to Delicious.com? Does the content found on Technorati.com fail to meet the litmus test for quality content? How is newsvine.com superior in your opinion?

I am sure that if newsvine.com was certain enough not to return my note about rescinding my account ban, that they will also be certain enough to have those poor slags that work for them read my post and “send it for further review”.

If you (newsvine.com) are so afraid of what people have to share, why are you so committed to reading my posts? Sir, where is the “honor” in this?

Posted in Social Media