AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#2The Oatmeal responds: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d7e24/my_job_was_to_ga...
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#3The Oatmeal responds: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d7e24/my_job_was_to_ga...
And his response is (aggressively paraphrased): "it's probably spammy, but so what? they're my friends, they're a small shop, and the guy pointing it out is probably a competitor."
Not very compelling.
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#4If this is true (and it rings truthy to me), then (a) this AMA is a service to humanity, and (b) we should start aggressively flagging these things off the site.
I say this mostly because I hate those stupid infographics; chartjunk!
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#5If this is true (and it rings truthy to me), then (a) this AMA is a service to humanity, and (b) we should start aggressively flagging these things off the site. I say this mostly because I hate those stupid infographics; chartjunk!
I like an observation I ran across (http://www.bogost.com/blog/information_is_beautiful.shtml):
The problem is this: infographics like this may be beautiful, but they are not
necessarily informative. Specifically, pretty charts often fail to synthesize the
meaning, relevance, and impact of information as it pertains to decision making.
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#6If this is true (and it rings truthy to me), then (a) this AMA is a service to humanity, and (b) we should start aggressively flagging these things off the site. I say this mostly because I hate those stupid infographics; chartjunk!
I like an observation I ran across ( http://www.bogost.com/blog/information_is_beautiful.shtml ): The problem is this: infographics like this may be beautiful, but they are not necessarily informative. Specifically, pretty charts often fail to synthesize the meaning, relevance, and impact of information as it pertains to decision making. I think they're fine in the same way that comics can be fine: Dilbert is funny b…
If you haven't read VDQI:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi
I highly recommend it. It was written decades ago and presages all of this; it tears into this USA Today chartjunky design style with a satisfying fervor.
In this case, while the crappiness of the design may be what sets me off, the license to complain about it comes from the fact that it's apparently all part of a huge SEO scam.
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#7I don't see how this is spam, and I am surprised that people are offended that the authors of these info graphics are trying to make money.
They drew up an info graphic that you thought was entertaining. In exchange you show your friends by linking that site. This is no different than any other type of link bait, be it an inflammatory article or some sort of interactive map you would see on the New Your Times website.
Spam is different. Spam is junk blog comments with a link to another website. Those comments bring no value and diminish the value of the site. You would never link to one of those comments to show your friends like you link to these info graphics.
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#8I don't see how this is spam, and I am surprised that people are offended that the authors of these info graphics are trying to make money. They drew up an info graphic that you thought was entertaining. In exchange you show your friends by linking that site. This is no different than any other type of link bait, be it an inflammatory article or some sort of interactive map you would see on the New Your Times website…
Not complicated! They are asking you to repay the favor of creating the infographic by lying to Google and claiming that a site that paid them is the best resource on the internet for mesothelioma or college textbooks or whatnot.
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#9I don't see how this is spam, and I am surprised that people are offended that the authors of these info graphics are trying to make money. They drew up an info graphic that you thought was entertaining. In exchange you show your friends by linking that site. This is no different than any other type of link bait, be it an inflammatory article or some sort of interactive map you would see on the New Your Times website…
Not complicated! They are asking you to repay the favor of creating the infographic by lying to Google and claiming that a site that paid them is the best resource on the internet for mesothelioma or college textbooks or whatnot.
This is no different than a startup paying an SEO company. In the end, both places researched and surfaced something that the end user will find interesting. I dont see anything wrong with that.
I think it's Google's job to decide what is relevant or not in the search result. Personally for me, I am waiting for the day when Google decides to de-list sites like eHow.
PS. sorry mattmiller, I accidently down-arrowed you, and I can't undo it. I meant to up-arrow you.
Re: AMA: My job was to game Digg using infographics
#10I don't see how this is spam, and I am surprised that people are offended that the authors of these info graphics are trying to make money. They drew up an info graphic that you thought was entertaining. In exchange you show your friends by linking that site. This is no different than any other type of link bait, be it an inflammatory article or some sort of interactive map you would see on the New Your Times website…
Not complicated! They are asking you to repay the favor of creating the infographic by lying to Google and claiming that a site that paid them is the best resource on the internet for mesothelioma or college textbooks or whatnot.
I see what you mean, but I would call that moderately unethical. The reality is there are probably less than 5 legitimate mesothelioma websites (FDA, Wikipedia, maybe some charities...) and the rest are all junk put up to get ad-sense dollars and leads for lawyers. Every single one of the hundreds of thousands of other sites is doing much less ethical link building.