What we have done to our planet, we are now doing to the Internet. We are filling it with waste. And the saddest thing is that online, making waste can pay off.
In order to get seen online, we desperately look for means to get in front of people. We want to be in the search engines, the social media, forums, blogs, video and whatnot. These are the things you read about, how to get traffic, SEO, using Twitter and all that. These are the games we play. The games we have to play. Even if we don't like to.
Doing stupid **** because everyone else is doing it too
It has become the norm to distribute same content all over the net. It has become the norm to artificially play the systems, like search engines, to make money. It has become the norm to do all kinds of stupid ****, just because everyone else is doing it. And doing stupid **** just because everyone is doing it is, well, pretty ******* stupid.
I'm talking about social bookmarking, article marketing, video distribution, blogging and how people are bending the rules to make money and get traffic to their websites. I'm doing it, you're doing it and you are telling others to do it. I am telling everyone to do it too. We do it, because everyone else is doing it too. Why? Because these things work.
The stupid **** we do
Let's start with the popularity contest on Twitter. Wouldn't it be cool to have 100000 followers? Sure it would, and it is very easy if you put effort to it. All you have to is follow enough people until 100000 have followed you back. Yes, it will take (some) time, but anyone can do it. And if done right, you can make decent money through tactics like this. And many think this is cool and the way to go.
Similarly, it's common understanding that as a part of search engine optimization, you need to do this thing called link building. I'm building links, because it's good for SEO. Why do we even need to talk about link building, shouldn't it all be organic? Why do we need to go out there and tell Google our blog is here. Why do those who shout the loudest end up winning?
Yes, I can create awesome content, but someone can copy your content and get more traffic than you, just because a search engine thinks their site is the "authority" as they have been doing some link building and you have not.
And speaking of content scraping, isn't it wonderful when people can so easily take your post, publish it as their own and not even bother linking back to you and rank higher in the search engines and get more traffic than the post you worked 7 hours on? I need to do stupid ****, because they are doing it, and I can't let them win.
What about social bookmarking? Why do we need to get our blog posts to Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx and thousands of other sites? Who REALLY uses those sites? There is so much crap on all of these, that I need to wipe my face every second to see if there is actually anything good in there, and even then I rarely find any, apart from the same top 26.5 tips I read yesterday. What is the point of a system which only exists is to make something else popular? What happened to sharing?
And social networking is hip and cool now, you know, the social media. We need to "be everywhere". Because there are hundred new sites ramped-up every day, and we have tools to automatically post to Twitter & Facebook, among other sites, why wouldn't we? I could be broadcasting the same status messages to several social networking sites, even that I'm only really active in two.
And then there is article spinning, which is the way some people are doing article marketing, where they use a software to create tens, hundreds or even thousands of articles, all based on the same original text, but in different order, with slightly modified words, etc. Is it just me, but isn't something wrong if we need to create clutter and post the same stuff in different order to 1000 sites?
There is only one way to make truly unique article and that is to write ONE article and publish it on ONE place, no spinning, no distribution. But that's not gonna do anything. No-one will know that post or article is there unless you promote it. You must share that post on Twitter. You ask people to bookmark it on Delicious, Stumble it, Digg it and share it to their friends on Facebook. These are all cool services and I like them a lot, but it makes me sick that we HAVE TO do this.
Is there a way out?
There are people who are doing all of the above "the right way", they are not doing anything "wrong", but I'm questioning why anyone needs to this **** in the first place...
- There is so much clutter online, that do we really want to be part of creating more of it.
- When did distributing the same **** all over the interwebz become the norm?
- Why do we need to game the system and borderline cheat to make things work?
Let us not get depressed over this, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though this is what we have to live with today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
I have a dream that one day we will find a way to make this work, look past our personal gain and help each other out instead.
I have a dream that one day we do not need to post our content all over the net just to get links to our site, but it will be enough that we craft amazing content for others to enjoy.
I have a dream that one day I can find the best source of information from the net instead of those who shout the loudest, and the truth will prevail over playing the SEO game.
I have a dream that one day we don't feel forced to bookmark our own blog posts with 100 social bookmarking sites and I don't need to join all possible video sites to get my videos spread all over the place.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, all over the Internet, people will give credit to each other for the work they have done. Link to each other, instead of copying the content and publishing it as their own.
I have a dream today!
- Inspired (obviously) by Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream".
So... what now?
I could teach you thing or two about link building, article marketing, social bookmarking and the hip-cool stuff, but I haven't yet figured out a way to do it without doing all the stupid **** everyone else is doing. Have you?
I do this ****, but I'm lazy. I wish I wouldn't need to build links, write meaningless list posts to get to front page of Digg/Delicious or I wouldn't feel the pressure to follow people on Twitter just because they followed me...
So I wrote this "angry blog post", because it was less of an effort to whine about it than just do it. Maybe I need some lessons from Yoda again.
I am Antti's eternal ability to not take action.
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