Ok, I get it. It’s easy for the reader. You go one place and get links to everybody’s stuff. But from my perspective it’s a bit different. I actually write some of the articles aggregators link to. Rarely do they even acknowledge it’s my link. Besides, there’s already a pretty good one of these out there for the shooting community. For the guys who create an aggregator it’s a simple decision. Why bust your hump writing articles everyday when you can just sit back and provide links to everyone else’s hard work and then sell advertising for it? Sounds like a good deal to me. Maybe, I’ll start one. At any rate, that’s the business plan for The Gun Feed, a new parasitic news aggregator. Here’s their press release.
Introducing The Gun Feed – Its like The Drudge Report for guns!
The Gun Feed is a new Drudge Report style news website that has just been launched. The Gun Feed is a 24/7 news website that is proudly devoted to the online firearms community, and that showcases the latest firearms news headlines from around the web. The website will be updated many times throughout the day, everyday and it will feature news links to articles on the second amendment, firearms related politics, guns and gear reviews, new product releases, blogger opinions and commentary, and anything else which comes along that might be of interest to Gunnies.
So go check it out… The website is now officially up and running and the first batch of headlines are now on the website to see. Bookmark it, make it your homepage, and visit back often because it will be getting regular updates from here on out.
BTW – It has a dedicated mobile page too so it works great on mobile devices… No app yet, but it is coming.
All correspondence, advertising inquiries, and news tips can be sent to TheGunFeed@Gmail.com… You can also connect with The Gun Feed on Twitter… @TheGunFeed
Its [sic] like The Drudge Report for guns!
I’m sure it is.
/grammarnazi
There are work horses and there are show horses
Stealing this! Thanks! HAHAHAH Sorry, couldn’t resist. That’s a great phrase!
Not sure why it bothers you so much? If people enjoy it and its worth a look, it will last.. if not, it will fail. Its hardly parasitic.. Not to knock what you do or the goodness of soldiersystems; you run a blog. There are tens of thousands of blogs, don’t take yourself so seriously.
Why do I take myself so seriously? Because you took the time to comment here, meaning YOU take it seriously. And millions of others take it seriously as well. This ain’t some hobby. This is how I feed my family. If someone made money off of your work and didn’t compensate you for it, you would probably get a little touchy about it too.
We have arrived in times where people look for the shortcuts everywhere they can. Companies use intern after intern rather than hire entry level employees to do the job. Others trade gimmicks for legitimacy. Others steal the IP of real innovators. I hate thieves.
I run a marathon. I’ve been doing this daily, that’s seven days a week, for just shy of five years. No shortcuts here. Before that I spent 21 years serving my country and then several years in the defense industry. I hate people who take shortcuts.
nah I don’t take it seriously.. I enjoy your blog and find it useful and informative.. it’s your business.. and as such I would expect you to work hard to run it. “Hating” someone who takes “shortcuts” is silly.. When you hate someone you give them all the power.. you are now a victim.. If their site works and people like it, kudos to them. either way its no sweat off your back. It’s a childish approach, that’s all I am saying. If someone in my industry were to set up a company and sell products with a 10% mark up.. I would say, damn they are silly.. that company likely will not last. I would not say I “Hate” them because they take “shortcuts” and they are not “doing it right”. There is no RIGHT WAY in business.. Whatever works. If these people’s method work better than yours with less effort.. good for them, that’s the spirit of business.
You are really serious about my blog.
Most, if not all of these sites that I have seen, either link to the original source or another aggregator, which eventually leads to the original source. At the end of the day, people that read SSD will continue to do so, while the aggregator will drive additional traffic to you from additional sources. It’s a good thing.
I’ve been building my traffic for five years the hard way. If aggregators didn’t exist, I wouldn’t stop writing.
TheFirearmBlog did that for quite some time and still does – quite successfully.
The Firearm Blog is not an aggregator. They will provide links to other blog’s stories but their primary business is breaking great stories on the firearms industry.
The Firearm Blog has sucked since it was sold late last year. breaking news? TFB will have it . . . last.
Interesting point of view on these types of websites. Did not know they were taking food off the table. Good for you for not taking shortcuts, I hate that shit too.
I get it. Aggregation in this “style” does suck the life out if me. But what you do, and, for what it’s worth, I do in my little slice of the guns-web is adding value and pulling eyes to products or media with sweat equity over a lot of hours and days/weeks/months by wrapping things up in a package. Not just teasing you to push the kitschy headline link. Big difference. Try doing it for the love of the thing you are curating for no cash. It’s a passion, and not an easy way out. Thanks for what you do!
I predict a cease and desist order from drudge, same layout, same style of the page title. Unless he’s feeling flattered at being outright copied in website design.
There’s already a few websites that attempt something like this, and do it with their own style, I don’t know how successful this will be at claiming a piece of that pie. I’m not terribly impressed though.
Not really impressed with what I see right now. I do love Drudge though.
I’m not really going to express my opinion about “aggregators” or anything but I do understand your frustration, with that being said though, why go so far as to basically give them a free plug on your blog? Do you think the majority of people that read your blog care enough to think “Well, SSD said they were lame and stole material, so I’ll NEVER, EVER visit it and make sure my friends don’t either!” Fuck no they don’t. People don’t give a shit about anything. I only WISH someone would give my business the same kind of free advertising that you just did for them. The whole time I was reading, I was thinking “is this some kind of reverse psychology shit to get us to go to this website?” I would have at least removed the link.
Could someone please explain how this is bad? From what I can tell, all it does is gather information of the same nature and put it in one place. How is this detrimental to writers? Why should the site have to give credit to the writer of the articles when it specifically links to the websites of said writers. Seems like a lot of whining about nothing. If I’m wrong please say so.
I believe the point he’s trying to make is that if other writers didn’t have their blogs for this aggregator to link to then it wouldn’t be able to make it’s own site upon which money is made from the adverts.
Manny gets it.
I have to admit, I do not get the fuzz about aggregators. There are two possibilities:
Either they just repost everything from a collection of sites, which makes them a slow, web-based replacement for an RSS feed reader that comes with additional advertisements.
Or they do some sort of editorial work, like filtering and selecting content, in which case they add value to the information presented.
*shrug*