All For The Sake Of Page Views And Money

This post is being written to let my audience know why I blog and also to clear up some questions and concerns about the entire Mashable ordeal from last night.

I Don’t Get Paid For This

money I don’t write for money. I’ve been paid to blog exactly one time when I signed up for Smorty, a service that pays you to blog about certain sites and services. I got paid $7 for it and I didn’t like the way I felt afterwards. So, I’ve never done it again. It’s never been about money for me. I just like to doing it. I love tech and I love sharing and finding out about new technologies and web services! I blog to satisfy the geek in me. This isn’t a job and has never felt like one. It’s more of a life hobby.
      

Conversations Not Traffic

Comment I’m here for the conversations first and foremost. Everything else comes afterwards. I don’t write for traffic, and though I mention my RSS stats every chance I get on Friendfeed and Twitter, they aren’t the most important things to me.

I’m more concerned about conversations. I try to optimize SheGeeks for better traffic and to expand my reach as much as possible because they bring in more chances for conversations. They are what makes me feel good about SheGeeks. CONVERSATIONS MAKE MY SITE VALUEABLE!

Sharing is Caring

communityIcon As cliche as this may be, I place a lot of value in that statement. I like to share the cool things I find out about on the web. That’s the purpose of SheGeeks; to share Corvida’s tech findings.  I want my audience to pass these findings along and share with others that they think might be interested. These tools, sites, and web services that I find are there for mass adoption and consumption, not just little ol’ me!


Feeling Hoodwinked

Smiley-Angry-256x256 However, I have a serious problem when people don’t give credit where credit is due. It doesn’t have to be only pertaining to me. It can be anyone. That problem escalates ten-fold when it’s from people , companies, or sites that I expected better from.

This brings me to my Mashable ordeal. Yesterday, I was sent an email by the developer of the Sobees desktop app suite. Though it was addressed to me, I’m more than certain that it was sent to others too. It would have been a big mistake on their part if they hadn’t. I was also sure about this because I’ve seen their products written up on other sites. Anyway, the email was just letting me know of their bTittleTattle app, a Friendfeed desktop app.

I immediately did 3 google searches to see if anyone else had written about the product yet, downloaded, tested, and wrote about the application, refreshed the searches I did earlier, and posted my write-up!.

I tweeted about it several times on Twitter because I have huge names and great people following me such as Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb), Sarah Perez (Grand Effect, ReadWriteWeb), Louis Gray, Steven Hodson (FriendfeedWatch), and two people in particular from Mashable: Adam Ostrow (Editor In Chief) and Kristen Nicole.
    

Why am I pointing this out?

winner_icon_starpoint These are big names in the circles I pass through! These are people who have also been very supportive of SheGeeks and I really look up to them as role models in my field of Tech. These are also people who may want to hear about the release of this product since it was more than relevant to some of their audiences.

3-4 hours later. Mashable publishes a review of bTittletattle. Great! I checked to see if any type of credit was given and also to see if they had another perspective on the app. NOPE! Really Mashable? Is that how we do things in this field now?

     
   

Why I feel I Should’ve Been Given Credit

This is totally biased and you’re welcome to put your thoughts in. But it’s how I feel and I’m standing by until I feel I have proof not to.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I had tweeted about my review several times and even asked for my followers to Stumble, Digg, or promote the article in some way if they liked it. So, it’s possible that someone from Mashable saw it, then again it isn’t. I’m not going to debate this, though I’m sure you know what I think the answer is.     
   

I’m just going to point out that they should’ve done their homework. Adam pointed out to me that this was a press release that was emailed to quite a few people. AND?! That doesn’t discount the fact that you need to do your homework, especially for something this new! Here’s a clip from a conversation that Adam and I had about the ordeal.

Corvida: […] so that I as a college student who reads, writes and thinks cannot have authority? U have to have a stamp from a corporate company and not an observer. Then why do you quote the likes of WSJ?

Adam: that’s not the case at all … it’s when the WSJ, RWW, or anyone has proprietary information

in this case, both you and us found out about the app, and you happened to write about it b4 us

it’s similar to a press release … if AOL sends out a press release announcing they’ve acquired Bebo, and I write about it 2 hours before TechCrunch, TechCrunch is definitely not going to link to us

Corvida: As a competitor they wouldn’t want to, but as a professional network, they know that they should and I’m sure everyone keeps tabs on everyone, even on the up-and-coming.

I’m not trying to be hostile or rude because you guys have credited SheGeeks before, the Color Wars is a prime example of that.

However, for this situation, I’m not buying what you’re saying at all, because 4 hours is more than enough time for just about every person on Mashable that’s following me to have picked up the fact that I had wrote about it and broke it first

If anyone would’ve done a search on Google around the time Mashable posted their article, there were 3 links for "friendfeed desktop application" "sobees btittletattle" and "sobees friendfeed desktop application". All of these links pointed right back to SheGeeks.net.

I’m just saying…

Maybe I didn’t deserve the credit. Maybe I did. Great arguments for both sides could be procured, but let’s be real here: people are playing a dirty game in tech these days and all in the name of page views and money. I just want some credit and conversations.

Conversation Between Adam and I.

Corvida Raven

A natural pioneer at grasping the rapidly changing landscape of technology, Corvida Raven talks tech in plain English on SheGeeks.net.