justAna: Wellsphere on trial

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Wellsphere on trial

Gianna has left this comment and I would like to know what do you think about Wellsphere:

I'm sorry but Wellsphere is a load of crap that comes after us with ass-kissing emails about how wonderful we are...and they're all form letters...the same line of crap to everyone...

I never put any of their stuff on my site...

They just want free content and when I asked if they were going to have pharma ads the guy told me eventually they would...

They'll tell anyone they're hot shit just to get the content...

I don't like having my ass kissed by people who haven't even read my blog...

January 14, 2009 10:47 PM

For those who are at the site: Why did you join? Thank you.

10 comments:

Nunya said...: i joined because of the ass kissing emails! i answer questions that are posted, but other than that - nothing. i just like having another permanent link to my blog so people looking for info can find me.; January 16, 2009 at 2:59 AM
soulful sepulcher said...: I didn't sign up for any sort of perks, it looked interesting and it's a social networking thing too. I've found a lot of good blogs to read from it, and it's a diversion. I have had personal emails from people there, not form letters though. Running conversations,the person even admired my dog via the photos and my garden.

It's one of those things that probably appears that I take seriously, but it's for fun, which is good.(for me); January 17, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Ana said...: Stephany,
I've searched "Cymbalta" at Wellsphere. Your article was the first one on the list and the fourth one was also yours.
I also see it as a social networking.; January 18, 2009 at 6:14 AM
Unknown said...: My blog is on it but I do not promote their site at all. I get the same emails as everyone else and shortly after I joined I realized that it was a lot of hype and not a lot of substance.; January 24, 2009 at 9:31 PM
Christopher C. NC said...: Hi Ana, I got the ass-kissing e-mails from Wellsphere like hundreds of other bloggers around the web. I consider what they are doing content theft. For a link, a bad one at that, you give them equal copyright privileges to all your work.

I am sure their business plan is to build the site with enough traffic to make it a nice target for advertisers and then put it on the auction block. Everyone who contributed the content for free gets nothing and a new ad agency has access to all words, photos, and ideas to use and sell as they like.

Here are three other posts on this topic.

http://outsideclyde.blogspot.com/2009/01/fog-on-internet.html

http://www.assertivepatient.com/2008/06/wellsphere-use.html

http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2009/01/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-garden-voices-and-other-cautionary-notes.html; January 26, 2009 at 6:27 AM
susan said...: I joined but never bothered to put the badges up, or anything. I have only gotten one hit from them.....I thought it would be a way to bring hits to my site but I still haven't found a full proof way to do that.

We would bet better off with our own network.; January 26, 2009 at 6:28 AM
Ana said...: Thank you Christopher!
I've just found this comment on the second link you left:

"Hi Jeanne,
Thanks you for posting this info about Geoff Rutledge. I too received the same email that you and obviously many others have also received. His Stanford and Harvard credentials made me smell a rat, so I googled him and found your blog and several others and thus found out he was all for Geoffrey!Like you I have put hours of work into my site and he wants to replicate it for free while offering me the opportunity to ride on his coattails! He sounds like a narcissist to me. Once again, thanks for replicating his letter, mine's the same, he's definitely not into the personal touch! PS Love your website."

Wow! This is scary!

I guess I'm going to get out of it.

Susan,
I don't like their badges. They are too big and ugly.
When they invited me I declined but saw that many people were there.
I guess I will write to them to get out.
I didn't know Mr. Rutledge's connections with Harvard.; January 26, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Christopher C. NC said...: Ana, you are welcome. I hope you will do a post on how and if you are able to have your content removed.

A more tech savvy person than me also mentioned that from random searching on a topic that might be on your blog it could go to the same content on Wellsphere first because it already has more links and traffic giving it a higher page ranking/authority over the original source of the content. This is compounded by the fact that when you click on a blogger's post it opens on Wellsphere because they have republished your entire content on their site and it does not take you to the original bloggers site. Plus it could look like the smaller blog was lifting content from Wellsphere instead of vice versa.

The sole link on their site back to the original blog author has to be one of the smallest I have ever seen and very hard to find. If Wellsphere really wanted to give proper credit and drive traffic back to the blogger there would be multiple links and the posts would open directly on the bloggers site.

Wellsphere is stealing content. That is all there is to it.; January 26, 2009 at 4:18 PM
kw said...: I have seen their big ole badges on sites that I admire, along with awards. I may have joined them, but I don't recall!

Like Susan, I was looking to increase traffic, but I can barely keep up my blog, let alone other sites!

Thanks for the info. If I ever get any suck-up forms, I'll know to ignore the flattery.

As to our own site, I've been developing one, but verrrrry slowly. As I said, I have enough trouble taking care of my one blog!; January 26, 2009 at 5:12 PM
Ana said...: @Christopher,
Exactly! This is really pissing me off.
They republish and your posts it seems you're a Wellsphere's employee.
Thank you very much for the informations.
I'll write when they give me back my work.

@Dano,
I also saw many blogs I admire with the badges. I have deleted all of them.
If you need any help to the site you're creating I think you should ask other people to work on it.; January 27, 2009 at 4:19 AM