I noticed via a pingback to one of my posts that someone is scraping all of my blog posts, publishing them at netscape9.com, and displaying Adsense ads next to them. I don’t know which route I should take first: get their Google Adsense account closed for violating the TOS, contact GoDaddy about the user using the Netscape trademark without permission, or get their hosting shutoff for copyright violations. I think I’ll do all three. :-D
Update: The owner of the site offers some clarification.
“Later this year, Digg will launch a recommendation tool able to expose members to fellow Diggers who appear to have similar interests, says Rose. ‘Digg will be smart enough to know what interests you,’ says Rose. The site will identify those with like interests in part by the previous stories they have dug and ‘buried’ — the site’s term for voting down a story.”
Oh, you mean like this?
Seriously, why is this news? They slapped a “width: 192px;” in their style tag, and I see it in half a dozen of my RSS feeds.
Somebody e-mailed me this satirical article about Digg’s userbase revolting, which “quotes” me talking about Kevin Rose defacing my blog. I’m undecided as to whether it’s actually funny, but I did like this bit:
“What, is our Alexa ranking gonna drop from 73 to 74?” said Digg CEO Jay Adelson. “You know, for every 30-something who decides he’s got something better to do than digg a couple hundred stories a day, there’s a 15-year-old kid willing to skip his homework and take care of that for us. We’re not worried.”
Had I read that quote in any other context, I probably would have reluctantly believed that Jay said it.
Update: The site that was hosting the original article is now gone; here it is for posterity:
Digg Users Form Union, Refute Site Changes
SAN FRANCISCO (CAP) – In a rare show of solidarity on the Internet, users of the popular website digg.com have banded together to form a union in response to Kevin Rose’s decision to remove the “Top 100 Users” feature from the site. They intend to boycott Digg until the feature is reinstated.
“This could be the start of Web 3.0,” said independent internet analyst Will Scurto. “Instead of user-generated content, it’s user-demand management. Gives a whole new meaning to gaming the system.”
The union, aptly named Digg Users United in Harmony, has already received the backing of the ACLU, and is reportedly close to hundreds of thousands of dollars in venture capital funding to help support the effort. DUUH is the brainchild of once-and-future top Digg user, iliv2dig4u.
“We made Kevin Rose what he is today,” said the 28-year-old iliv2dig4u in a phone interview from the basement of his mother’s house. “Until he gets this fixed, we’re urging all Digg users to go use Netscape, where at least we can be recognized for all the free work we do to help these websites make money.”
However, the list has not totally disappeared from the Internet, having popped up on an independent blog run by Christopher Finke. Although Rose left a mean-spirited message on Finke’s blog about the rogue list, Finke said that doesn’t tell the whole story.
“I erased most of it because it was pretty childish,” Finke told CAP News. “It said something like, Baby, baby, stick your head in gravy, and then something else about bubblegum and the Navy. Kinda weird coming from a guy who’s almost 30.”
For their part, Digg staffers don’t believe the union or impending boycott will have any effect on the site itself.
“What, is our Alexa ranking gonna drop from 73 to 74?” said Digg CEO Jay Adelson. “You know, for every 30-something who decides he’s got something better to do than digg a couple hundred stories a day, there’s a 15-year-old kid willing to skip his homework and take care of that for us. We’re not worried.”
DUUH’s new website to promote their cause is expected to be live by the end of the week, and their first rally will take place on ICQ over the weekend.
This week at the Netscape blog, I wrote about the allowances we’ve made in Netscape 9 for installing extensions targeted at Firefox 2:
“Since Netscape 9 will share an architecture with Firefox 2, it is very likely that most Firefox 2 extensions will work in Netscape 9 without modification. This is why Netscape 9 will allow you to install extensions that list Firefox 2 as a compatible version but do not explicitly list Netscape as well. This feature will give all users of Netscape 9 immediate access to Firefox’s wealth of custom extensions without having to wait for each author to update the extension’s compatibility file.”
This post originally appeared on the Netscape Blog.
It has been established that Netscape 9 will be based on Firefox 2.0. One of the greatest things about Firefox is its community of extension developers – if you want a feature that is not built into the browser, chances are that someone has written an extension to add it. We’ve even released several extensions of our own for people who use Firefox with Netscape.com.
However, chances are that you’ve run into an extension you’d like to install, only to find that it’s not compatible with your browser version. This is because extension authors must test and update their extension every time a new browser version comes out to ensure that it works properly with that version of the browser.
Since Netscape 9 will share an architecture with Firefox 2, it is very likely that most Firefox 2 extensions will work in Netscape 9 without modification. This is why Netscape 9 will allow you to install extensions that list Firefox 2 as a compatible version but do not explicitly list Netscape as well. This feature will give all users of Netscape 9 immediate access to Firefox’s wealth of custom extensions without having to wait for each author to update the extension’s compatibility file.
This morning, Digg removed ranking information from user profiles. I commented on the story, pointing to my top users list for people who were still interested in their rank. Digg CEO Jay Adelson responded to my comment thusly:
“We no longer display that rank information, so don’t be surprised if Chris’s list is no longer accurate (or stays unchanged). (A Netscape developer?)”
Well, my list has been updated since then, so we can safely assume that I wasn’t using that information (which I’ve said from the beginning). As long as Digg displays the name of the user that submitted each story, it will be trivial to determine the top users. I’ll continue to aggregate the data until I’m forced by Digg (or asked nicely, with a “pretty please”) to take it down.
Side note: I love the “(A Netscape developer?)” parenthetical that Jay included. I’m not sure of its meaning though. Is it “How did a Netscape developer manage to crack our code and get this information?” or is it “Netscape has developers now?” In any case, it’s irrelevant, but I still laughed.
My restoration of Digg’s Top Users page yesterday got a lot of press around the Web:
Both the list and my blog post about the list were submitted to Digg, but both were buried off of the front page. (Buried, or manually removed?)
Michael Arrington mentioned the list at TechCrunch, and the readers commenting on his post inexplicably turned against Netscape. Even though my actions had nothing to do with Netscape, the fact that I write code for them as well apparently makes my reproduction of the list “lame”:
“If this would have come from someone NOT at a competitor (in this case Netscape), I would have thought ‘cool!’ The fact that this comes from someone at Netscape makes me think ‘lame!’.”
Deep Jive Interests (a personal favorite of mine) was the first to wonder how long it would be until I heard from Digg’s infamous legal team. Nothing yet, but I’ll blog about anything that comes in.
This blog somehow decided to go with the headline “Netscape Bringing Top Digg Users Page Back.” I think if Netscape was sponsoring this effort, they’d want some kind of mention somewhere on the page. What? It only links to Digg? That’s awfully strange.
Like many others, Technacular incorrectly reported that I was scraping user profile pages for the rank number that is displayed there; kudos to them, however, for being the only ones to update their post after I sent them a clarification on how the script actually works.
Additionally, my blog was linked from Techmeme, blurbed on Download Squad, and mentioned at ValleyWag.
Oh, and there’s one question that I’ve been asked a few times that I’d like to address here: Sorry ladies, but I’m already taken.
I’ve updated the Greencode WordPress theme (which I’m using on my site) to version 0.3. Since version 0.2, I’ve added a print stylesheet (screenshot of a printed page below), optimized the header image to reduce its size by half, and fixed a few miscellaneous bugs.
You can download the newest version from the Greencode homepage.
Digg removed its top users list this morning. However, as I mentioned yesterday,
It’s an exercise in futility. A competent programmer could easily throw together a page scraper to determine the top submitters, so when the dust settles, Digg will still have problems with pay-for-play, but the most prolific users will no longer be recognized by Digg for their work that makes the site so successful.
To prove my point, I’ve done exactly that: I’ve put together a script that displays the top 100 users at Digg, with the list being updated twice per day. You can see the list here.
Update: I do work for Netscape, but this has nothing to do with them. I did this on my own time and of my own volition.
Also, I didn’t create this list for any mean-spirited reasons; I enjoy Digg and the service it provides, but I think Kevin made the wrong choice in removing the top users list. I’m not trying to profit off of this, and I’m not trying to scalp members from Digg for Netscape. I’m just proving a point – this data is easily attainable by anyone who is motivated to get it. Removing the top users list from digg.com does little in stopping people from finding out who the top Diggers are.
Kevin Rose writes on the Digg blog:
Some of our top users are being blamed by some outlets as leading efforts to manipulate Digg. These users have been listed on the “Top Diggers” area of the site that was created in the early days of Digg when there was a strong focus on encouraging people to submit content. The list served a great purpose of recognizing those who were working hard to make Digg a great site, as well as a way for new users to discover new content. Now, as the site has matured and we regularly get 5,000+ content submissions per day, we believe there are better ways to discover new friends based on your interests and what you’re digging.
After considerable internal debate and discussion with many of those who make up the Top Digger list, we’ve decided to remove the list beginning tomorrow.
It’s obvious that Digg is removing the “Top Digger” list exclusively to try and thwart companies that aim to recruit Digg’s top users into some kind of Digg payola scheme, and I don’t blame them for trying to stem that tide. They shouldn’t, however, claim that they’re getting rid of it because it will no longer serve its purpose of helping users “discover new friends.” The purpose of the “Top Diggers” list is to recognize the Top Diggers – plain and simple. Users may have added the top Diggers as friends, but most likely as an attempt to get more recognition for their own submissions.
It’s an exercise in futility. A competent programmer could easily throw together a page scraper to determine the top submitters, so when the dust settles, Digg will still have problems with pay-for-play, but the most prolific users will no longer be recognized by Digg for their work that makes the site so successful.
This post originally appeared on the Netscape Blog.
After last week’s announcement, many of you inquired about the target platforms for Netscape 9. The previous version of Netscape (8.x) was only available for Windows, but the news that I have to bring this week is that Netscape 9 will be released simultaneously for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
Because there’s not much else to say on the topic of operating system compatibility, here is a bonus teaser: Below is a screenshot of an FTP page rendered in two different browsers. Can you guess which one is Netscape 9? :-)
My latest teaser/progress report for Netscape 9 is available at the Netscape blog. More discussion at UFAQ.org and the Netscape Community message boards.
My “Firefox 2 Addons Team” t-shirt finally arrived in the mail! I’ll have to look into getting AOL to spring for shirts that say “I worked on Netscape 9 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and a great browsing experience.”
Update: URL Fixer was acquired and is now hosted at http://urlfixer.org/
Until URL Fixer got Dugg last week, I hadn’t had a good real-life example for my Social Traffic Monitor WordPress plugin. What follows is an analysis of the traffic my blog received from social news and bookmarking sites late last week, as recorded by the Social Traffic Monitor plugin.
This is the chart that the Social Traffic Monitor generated for my URL Fixer page, showing visitors per hour from Thursday morning to Monday morning.
The first small hump is when URL Fixer was featured on Download Squad (and subsequently, Lifehacker) on Thursday morning. (The page had been submitted to Netscape some time ago, which is why the plugin was already logging the traffic at that point.) The huge orange spike is when the post hit the front page of Digg, at about 11PM Thursday night. Traffic was huge that first hour, but it halved by the next hour, and then slowly tapered down as the post moved to the second page of Digg, and then the third, etc.
The orangish hump in the middle of the graph is traffic from StumbleUpon. As you can see, the traffic from SU was never as intense as it was from Digg, but it was more consistent, and longer-lasting. (Just as those are good qualities to have in chewing gum, they are desired assets of website traffic as well.) StumbleUpon continued to drive heavy traffic to the post for about 10 hours, and then in smaller amounts of the next day and a half. Most of the visitors to the URL Fixer page are still coming from StumbleUpon.
Overall, I received about 8,000 visitors from StumbleUpon, 4,000 visitors from Digg, 2,000 from Lifehacker, and about 600 from Download Squad. (Del.icio.us barely registered with about 200 referrals.) So although StumbleUpon sent the most visitors my way, it appears that the traffic coming from Digg was the most appropriate to the content: according to my traffic logs, from Thursday night to noon on Friday, over 60% of visitors to the page actually downloaded the Firefox extension. After that (when visitors starting coming from SU), only about 15% of visitors were downloading the extension.
If you have a WordPress blog and would like to track how many visitors you receive from social sites, download and install the Social Traffic Monitor WordPress plugin.
Update: URL Fixer was acquired and is now hosted at http://urlfixer.org/
After giving it a workout this week with all the visitors to my blog from Digg and StumbleUpon, I’ve made some changes to the Social Traffic Monitor plugin for WordPress, and I’m releasing version 1.2.
Since version 1.1, I’ve added StumbleUpon as a social news/bookmarking source, fixed a few bugs with logging non-social-referring sites, and I’ve added the option to supply a formatting string for the plugin’s output. What this means is that you can now call the plugin like this:
<php social_traffic('<div>%s</div>'); ?>
and the the plugin will replace the “%s” with its output, but only if it has something to display; otherwise, it will display nothing at all. This allows you to add borders, positioning data, or just your own custom code to the plugin’s output. (Calling social_traffic(); is equivalent to calling social_traffic("%s");.)
To upgrade, simply download and unzip version 1.2 and upload the included social-traffic.php to your wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Update: URL Fixer was acquired and is now hosted at http://urlfixer.org/
Just got this automated e-mail:
The domain chrisfinke.com has reached 90% of its bandwidth limit for January. Please contact the system admin as soon as possible.
Thanks a lot, Digg! I better lay low for a while… :-)
Update: URL Fixer was acquired and is now hosted at http://urlfixer.org/
While I was reading over the comments at Lifehacker’s post on URL Fixer, I came across this critique:
[…] I’ve run into one little problem with this sucker. I avoid bookmarks like the plague and, instead, create keywords to jump to sites by typing in one word or a short phrase. Anyway, one of my keywords was the term “intranet” which linked to my office’s internal database pages. This extension would always turn that into intra.net which would send me out into the web for a site that I didn’t actually want to visit. […]
This situation hadn’t occurred to me before, but now that I’m aware of it, I’ve updated URL Fixer to check first if the text in the URL bar is a shortcut URL, and if so, to leave it alone. Thanks, dashifen!
Update: URL Fixer was acquired and is now hosted at http://urlfixer.org/
Welcome, readers of Lifehacker and Download Squad. I hope you find URL Fixer as useful as I do.
Feel free to check out my other extension and software projects, and if you find any of it interesting, go ahead and subscribe to my feed. I typically write about Firefox extensions, my job at Netscape, and other technical items of interest on a semi-daily basis.