One of the cool things about teaching at a University is the very strict code of ethics, particularly on plagiarism. Unfortunately, we have no such thing out here in the blogosphere, instead relying on an honor code of links. In my opinion, sometimes top bloggers think they are above it, and simply hack content (Image: Hacker Software by dweekly).
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence when top-ranked blog content follows another marketing blogger with a very similar, yet slightly different post or worse, the rest of the marketing blogosphere. Sometimes this is subconscious, a result of going through a reader or listening on Twitter or Friendfeed. Perhaps a new twist of lemon, or some added pepper to a conversation that kind of started there.
This riffing on others is normal. It’s a part of what we do out here, discussing ideas, and moving them forward (or backwards). But there’s a caveat; it’s the cross link.
When there’s no cross-link or credit given to the original source that caused the person to write about said topic, then there’s an implied claim to original thinking. However; when this happens time after time, especially when it follows other marketing bloggers’ prior conversations, you have to assume that some less than kosher — content hacking — is occurring.
There’s only so long you can do this before people stop linking to you, before the influencers who helped build a reputation begin quietly disappearing into the night. This is the generous web, not the selfish web. Reputations get tarnished by stealing content. I am much less likely to trust a blogger who fails to cross-link.
I know of a top blogger who has this kind of an issue going on. Like when another one seemed to be doing this a couple years ago, grumbling is occurring on the backchannel. I have to wonder how much longer the words top will be associated with this particular reputation.
Similarly, there was a discussion a couple of weeks ago about blogger humility that I intentionally avoided. I thought it was interesting, but off the mark. I am not a subject matter expert on spiritual assets, but it seems interesting to want to claim humility. My suggestion: Give credit to others (a.k.a. cross-link), let others talk for you, and don’t hoist yourself on a self-proclaimed pedestal that positions you and associated friends as humble.
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