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Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

tynt.com

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Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#11

Interesting concept, but this is not designed to find where your content has been copied onto other sites/blogs. That would be an cool service.

That service is called Google.

And if you're looking for a slightly more scalable solution than "Find a sentence from Page A which is juicy, Google it, record results, repeat for all 10,000 pages on my website", you may be interested in CopyScape.

For example, if you feed them www.tynt.com, they'd tell you that feedmyapp.com has borrowed a few sentences from them. (It makes sense, as the borrowed phrases are part of a listing for tynt.com)

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#13
Years ago I applied a trick I learned from the Associated Press. Back in World War I, the Associated Press suspected that the Hearst newspaper chain was copying their stories from the Russian front, and they began running stories about a fictitious general Nelotsky. When the Hearst newspapers picked up the Nelotsky "story," the AP called them on it, pointing out that the first part of the general's name is just the English word "stolen" spelled in reverse. I used a similar technique on my most plagiarized webpage,

http://learninfreedom.org/colleges_4_hmsc.html

mentioning a college that doesn't actually exist, but has a name from the Greek word for "steal." That finally got one persistent thief to acknowledge that my site was his source.

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#14
post #10
post #2

From their about page: Tracer inserts a java script tag into the html code of your website to non-invasively track users interactions with your website content. The only change the user sees is when copied content is pasted into an email, blog or website, we automatically add a link back to the originating site at the end of the content. What happens if the user just deletes the link, as I have with the above quote?

I'm pretty sure this service is not meant for the technically inclined. If someone who is technically inclined was worried about this, they would understand that they could use Google and/or a custom web crawler that searched over a subset of sites you cared about[1]. [1]After all, if someone copies your work and no once sees it, who really cares? The scope of your web crawler must be limited somehow. You could simpl…

I think that there is a difference between services not meant for technically inclined people and those built by non-technically inclined people. In its current incarnation, I do not see how this service is useful, even if you are not technically inclined.

I think there is a need for a service like this (that watches the web for people republishing your content), but Tracer is not it. Tracer is just a silly JavaScript hack.

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#16

Years ago I applied a trick I learned from the Associated Press. Back in World War I, the Associated Press suspected that the Hearst newspaper chain was copying their stories from the Russian front, and they began running stories about a fictitious general Nelotsky. When the Hearst newspapers picked up the Nelotsky "story," the AP called them on it, pointing out that the first part of the general's name is just the E…

Map makers (at the street level) did a similar thing.

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#17

Years ago I applied a trick I learned from the Associated Press. Back in World War I, the Associated Press suspected that the Hearst newspaper chain was copying their stories from the Russian front, and they began running stories about a fictitious general Nelotsky. When the Hearst newspapers picked up the Nelotsky "story," the AP called them on it, pointing out that the first part of the general's name is just the E…

As do encyclopedias and dictionaries..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829ta_talk_al...

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#18

Great idea! Now we can finally, with accuracy, determine what portion of the internet population uses the click-drag technique when reading long blog posts. Yeah!

i believe this still works with copy (apple-c) and paste (apple-p), which i do all the time. not just click-drag.

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#19
post #2

From their about page: Tracer inserts a java script tag into the html code of your website to non-invasively track users interactions with your website content. The only change the user sees is when copied content is pasted into an email, blog or website, we automatically add a link back to the originating site at the end of the content. What happens if the user just deletes the link, as I have with the above quote?

It doesn't work if javascript is disabled. In addition, NoScript doesn't like it (even with javascript enabled).

Re: Tynt: What's being copied from your website right now?

#20
post #16

Years ago I applied a trick I learned from the Associated Press. Back in World War I, the Associated Press suspected that the Hearst newspaper chain was copying their stories from the Russian front, and they began running stories about a fictitious general Nelotsky. When the Hearst newspapers picked up the Nelotsky "story," the AP called them on it, pointing out that the first part of the general's name is just the E…

Map makers (at the street level) did a similar thing.

Although some of those ghost streets were simply city projects gone wrong (ran out of money/support), so only some errors on maps are traps.

There is one (somewhat) famous example of a trap, in the placement of two fictitious towns in Michigan, Goblu and Beatosu (this being back in the day of their rivalry).

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