Random Home Business Thoughts - Who is DINHO?
Yesterday, I got a Google alert for my name. It came from a website I have heard of, but not really visited. The website has a subscriber base of about one quarter of what IttyBiz has, give or take, and doesn’t have a bad design. Definitely in my niche.
I dutifully followed the link and saw an article with my name on the byline and my photograph in the top left corner. Here’s what it said, with identifying details removed:
“This week’s [name of series] is a special contribution that [website] Founder [name of dude I’ve never heard of, hereinafter shortened to DINHO] lined up from Naomi Dunford. Naomi Dunford writes for IttyBiz, a blog for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and other work-from-home types. Come by for marketing tips, small business advice, and the occasional very bad joke. Naomi shares with use [use?] her top ways to get a new business off the ground.”
Um, WTF?
The funny thing is, this article was indeed written by me. I wrote it for a client who never paid me about eight months ago. Since I had no use for it on my own blog, I gave it to a website looking for guest posts. Apparently, the dude with the website I submitted it to sent it to these guys and said they were free to publish it.
So I emailed the webmaster dudes and said:
From: Naomi Dunford
Subject: Who is [DINHO]?
Hi. I’m Naomi. I notice that I wrote a post for your blog. While I’m delighted by this, I was wondering if you were ever going to tell me that I did so. Tried to contact you via your contact page and realized you didn’t have one.
Also, maybe I should meet [DINHO]. Since he hooked up the interview with me and all. :)
Here’s the response I got:
Hi there Naomi,
Thanks for the email.
We were forwarded this blog post and asked to post this by [Other Dude I’ve Never Heard Of] at [The Original Website].
I am glad you are delighted with the posting as it is great exposure!
Would be great to get a post on your site as well in the future!
Also, we may be looking for some writers for our new site launch of [our site] later this summer. What would you charge us to write a blog for [our site] on a home-business topic? 5 posts per week minimum? Let me know what you would charge us on an ongoing monthly basis as we are looking for some great writers that want to help us, help like-minded entrepreneurs!
I fucking HATE IT when I’m sarcastic and nobody gets it.
I can’t figure out whether or not to be annoyed by this. I mean, they didn’t scrape my site, they scraped some other dude’s site. I got a link and a little bit of traffic. Maybe some people subscribed and I can subsequently upsell them a bunch of crap they don’t need? Is there money to be made here?
Jamie says (sarcastically, because apparently I need to make that clear now) that I should quote him my consulting rate and see what he says. “Well, a blog post takes about two hours and I bill $100 an hour, so that’ll be $4000 a month.”
Let me know your thoughts. Should I be pissed? Should I laugh? Should I go all diva and start screaming “DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM?” Should I write a real blog post instead of this filler copy?
I can see it now:
“Hello! My name is Na-omi Dun-ford.
You scraped my content.
Prepare to die.”
/braces for all those who are all “What the hell does that mean?”
“I am glad you are delighted with the posting as it is great exposure!”
That made me laugh out loud!
You may as well link to the blog you made it easy enough to find. :p
I would just ask them to take it down.
HAHAHA! I was going to leave an intelligent comment (I think), but Dave made me laugh and now I lost it.
I would, personally, be very upset. Content reproduction without prior permission is wrong, no two ways about it. I don’t even think that ‘but this is the internet, it’s different’ is an excuse or a good enough reason. Your writing is YOUR WRITING.
OMG - this is nuts - you are not nuts!
I feel like I would give the details of this website/blog on a post (without the links of course) so we can all be wary of anything on there if we happen to fall upon it.
It’s just that the whole idea of sharing and transparency is lost on this DINHO and co. And I don’t like that - come on, give up the goods.
Oh, and then still write for them but maybe under an alias?
t.d Wia (they don’t know who I am) :)
They could at least get it right. You write for IttyBiz? You *are* IttyBiz. I think I’d at least want the truth in there, that you never met the guy and add to the article the way you want to. If you didn’t care the article was “out there”, then maybe not be pissed.
I don’t see how people don’t “hear” your sarcasm. Hello? McFly?
I LOL’d at the “great exposure” comment, too!!
Wow. Just wow. You have way more patience and composure than I do. But then…I’d probably just shrug it off…its not like you can say anything that will change them.
At least they didn’t say, “Naomi Dunford, the topless lady who writes for IttyBiz, a blog for entrepreneurs…”
In a way you’re endorsing his blog by allowing your post to remain. Permission must be given directly, or by someone with the authority to give it.
Hey,
It irks me too when folks pretend they don’t get my scarcasm AND dance right on past the core issue - especially when they also turn it around on me and make me an offer (hmmm - perhaps designed to through me off the trail … ?).
I’d chalk it up, count the link(s) and Google alert as unsolicited wins, and let dirty dogs be dirty dogs. What goes around and all that…
Unless you really want to spend your energy wrestling ‘em into a tub somewhere (knowing they’re likely gonna wriggle out and get dirty elsewhere again), I’d just redirect my focus, brush off the dirt the interaction flicked your way and move on.
Oh, and I wouldn’t do biz with folks who don’t offer to voluntarily sort out wonky material concerns. Dirty by degrees is still dirty…
“I don’t care what they say about me, just make sure they spell my name right!”
P. T. Barnum
My favorite part? They actually THANK the dude for “allowing us to use the article.” Sheesh. Plus, it’s already been picked up by another blog without any credit to ND or IttyBiz. I would be supremely pissed.*
*That’s the American pissed as in angry, not the UK pissed as in drunk. Although the two are often related.
I agree with Nimic. An article by you on that blog means people would assume you wrote it for them and that you are in some way associated with them. You need to decide if you are OK with that.
I don’t need to tell you this - I’m pretty sure I’ve learned it from you (or was it Joel?): It’s your name, your brand, and you should protect it.
But even if you’re not OK with your article posted on that site, I don’t know if you can actually make them take it down.
*chants* Diva! Diva! Diva! Diva!
I would definitely go the diva route.
You can technically file a DMCA take down notice with the guy’s ISP. Since you’re the copyright holder, and can easily prove that. I’d ask him nicely to remove it first though.
It’s tough to say whether or not to be really pissed. I say be pissed, then calm down and figure out how to make the best of the situation. Can you get more subscribers from this incident, increase your income stream, or land a new client? Maybe. I don’t know.
Whatever happens, keep us posted.
Cheers!
I would ask them to remove it - simple as that. If they are really as savvy as they claim to be, they would have worked out immediately from reading your email that they should have contacted you first about using your material. They should have been embarrassed that you had to get in touch (however you could, seeing there’s no contact page - very professional) to find out the basic details about this.
Also, it doesn’t matter how young they claim to be ;-) it’s no excuse for a glaring typographical error in the introduction! You don’t want to be associated with that sort of malarky.
Me? I’d be all smoothly casual and completely in charge of the situation. Opportunity knocks. In strange, illegal ways.
Seize it. Make it yours. Only you could do something like this and pull it off.
You already wasted more time on it than it’s worth. Fuggadaboudit.
I read that article yesterday and wondered… It sounded a bit patched. And of course, your visage was oh-so-thumbnail.
“Would be great to get a post on your site as well in the future!”
Perhaps you could ask him to write a guest post for you… on “the ethics of scraping other people’s content”? Or how about “how to recognise sarcasm”? Since he offered and all…. :)
@Dave: The Princess Bride, man. One of my absolute faves of all time. You rocked my day - FUNNY!
@Naomi: It’s common sense, at least to me, that they would contact you first before posting your article, ESPECIALLY if they didn’t get it directly from you. It’s nice and all that they spoke highly of you, but are they being too sweetly innocent about the whole thing or are they seriously that moronic? You’re big enough and great enough that their one site doesn’t matter to you as far as stats go. You’ll make it up. It doesn’t seem a site you’d want to be associated with - it’s clearly not of your calibre (for one thing, they can’t write. And for another, they lack your kind of skills. And common sense.) I would definitely have a chat with them about how you *really* feel and then say that if they want to have something going as far as being clients (only if you’re cool with being associated with them) they need to do it on your terms. Which means keeping you on the down low for EVERYTHING they do regarding you and your biz. You may be able to teach them some IttyBiz skills, too, if you think they’d recognize them.
And don’t let them post here. They’re too dumb.
PS. I don’t see this as filler copy. It’s a totally relevant lesson. Like you’re giving us (your class) a case study. What would we as baby ittybizzes, do? I like. :)
Dinho?
http://www.topthat.net/webrock/images/dino.gif
That’s Dino
The “Do you know who I am?” route mandates you link to Eddie Izzard’s “Death Star Canteen” video. The Lego version…
You rock. Wish I could afford you…
Hmmm…Maybe the chucklehead read the post from JibberJobber dated June 20th titled, “Getting a Mean E-Mail, or Comment, or Post Online…What to do?” The point of the whole blog was “Assume good intent.” If that is the case it is even more proof for the point he doesn’t “know” YOU! I only read your blog regularly (read as have no contact with you personally) and knew you were flippin’ crap at him. At this point assume he was just too dull (aka not sharp) to duck in time, has a mess on his face and is in denial about getting busted!
Why don’t you just send him an invoice for your stuff he already posted? :)
Dave - Perfect! One of the best movie lines ever …
Naomi - On the bright side, they did give you credit for the article and linked back to you! I can’t tell you the number of times someone simply has copied and pasted my blog posts with just my name as the author - no back link, no bio, nothing! Usually it’s some healing arts person who thinks that it’s okay to steal in order to serve the world, or something. They tend to be the same type of people that I get hate mail from because I charge for my services … because us spiritual types should just manifest the mortgage payment out of thin air ….
I say, send them an outrageous proposal for your services in the hopes that they’ll understand the sarcasm this time, and be done!
Blessings,
Andrea
Here’s what I think:
PET PEEVE that it’s great “exposure” for you. “Exposure” means, “we’re cheap bastards who aren’t going to pay you for your content, and you should be happy because we’re giving you exposure.” As if that means anything. What it means in my world is that people think writing isn’t a valid vocation that deserves decent pay. I’d tell him to take it down myself. My 2 cents.
Call me what you like, but spell my name right?
You’ve a right to be upset, it’s not wasted energy, and this is not filler copy, this is important IttyBiz lesson stuff.
They lied. They advertise that Dude lined up this special contribution from Naomi. That links you two — that’s a lie. That alone is reason enough to tell both Dudes to take it down, run a retraction or correction, and remind everyone that it’s not kosher to use without permission (per use, per specific website).
It’s not about flattery, silliness (”exposure!”), their not getting your sarcasm (which equals stupidity) or bad business. It’s not about being a diva. It’s about protecting your name, your decision of who to guest post for or not, and THEIR readers need to know they’ve been lied to — hopefully this post of your has done that.
Maybe there’s a category called “Perils of Blogging” — there’s a lot to learn from this (like handing out articles on a contracted per use/per site basis.) That first Dude you gave the post to is a royal shit. The second is a total idiot.
And yeah, mail ‘em both an invoice - Dude Shit one may have even sold it to Dude Idiot, ugh.
Naomi -
Poor dude doesn’t know who he is dealing with. He’s going to have a field day. Give us his email and we can send him some love letters. :)
Shilpan
The great thing about the web is that anyone start a site/business. The bad thing is that there’s no prerequisite for common sense or professionalism to do so. I always consider the source before deciding how important ones words are. Clearly their words are of little importance when qualified by their obvious noobality.
I believe a voodoo doll is in order - Barbie will do if you can’t get hold of one.
This is worse than scraping - this guy is actually pretending that you willingly wrote for his crappy site for free. And then he has the cheek to assume that you’d be delighted to write several posts a month for something like a dollar an hour. I would send him an invoice.
The fact they had the nerve to use the word “exposure” with someone like you just totally cracks me up.
I like Cath’s suggestion about sending him an invoice. After all, you were lined up and wrote them a cool entry an all…
Off topic but all-important: LOVE the new side bar design for calling out the “read these first” titles, just great. And the key additions to the left sidebar, of course.
Even if they paid you $4,000 a month I don’t think you would do it.
If they didn’t get your sarcasm once, maybe it’s time to double it up. Fighting them or going the DCMA route is a sure waste of your time and will accomplish nothing.
Write back and say you would be delighted and that you are thrilled to be an honored blogger on their super illustrious website. Tell them that you always dreamed of the day when you would be fully recognized for your contributions and now you’ll be able to show your parents that they were wrong - about everything.
Ask them for a list of topics because you want to get started right away building up a notebook of raw material for their blog, stuff so amazing that people will literally trip on themselves to click on your posts.
Tell them you hate to even charge anything, considering the widespread exposure you’ll be receiving, but that some minor form of compensation that isn’t straight cash would be best. Tell them you are partial to Walmart gift cards or Publix Green Stamps if they have any of those still. Oh, and be sure to ask about if they have Pokemon trading cards because that would be the best of all.
If they bite, and you go round three with those idiots, just start sending them all sorts of insane rants that make no sense at all. Just write about whatever you want and just insert random keywords based on the topic. If they say they want articles on “home business”, write about the business of selling homes and how it has plunged in recent years forcing many realtors to return back to their own home to work as prostitutes. Or if they ask for an article on search engine optimization, write a big blob of nothing about organizing the wires behind the servers at Yahoo and how dangerous it is, plus the heat and demands of the job, which are nearly equivalent to the working conditions in third-world countries.
In other words, just make stuff up. If they actually send you a Walmart gift card, post a picture of it here and let us go laugh our heads off at your scam on them.
Holy shit Lawrence, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. If we ever get any kind of gift card I will definitely let you know. For some reason, I really like the idea of realtors returning to their homes to become prostitutes. Maybe I just have something against realtors.
Definitely send an invoice their way. Sarcasm seems lost. Hilarious post!