The Next Web

» Ep4: Companies Who Make Money: Datapresser

   

Ep4: Companies Who Make Money: Datapresser

steven Written on September 27, 2008 – 2:16 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

Many of you have been surprised by the sheer number of articles that we have been publishing on TheNextWeb recently so I’m going to let you into a little secret on how we managing it. It’s all due to a new piece of software that we oversaw a Techcrunch writer using (we wont say which one - see if you can guess) at the TC50 conference called Datapresser.

Industrial espionage is common in all businesses and we feel it is important in the blogsphere to do anything we can to “keep up with the Joneses”. Thus upon seeing TC using it and curious as to its functionality we forthwith conducted a due diligence investigation.

Once we set up this software, we were astonished to see that its function is to create articles for blogs automatically. Yes believe it or not, this tool uses the latest technology to create unique articles for Wordpress. All you have to do is select a topic of interest, add in a few links you would like to be included in the article and press go.

So how does it work? It uses something called Mad-Lib (pattern replacement) technology which works like this:

{|Custom|Suzy, Sally, John, Jacob}
{|Custom|is, was, will be, wants to be}  
{|Custom|a Doctor, a Nurse, an Actor, an Acrobat}

Here are the results of that Mad-lib script

John wants to be a Nurse.
Or
Sally was a Doctor.
Or
Suzy wants to be an Acrobat.
Or
Jacob wants to be an Actor…etc.

Now what Datapresser does is take this process to a whole new level, not only do they have a massive database that you plug straight into which allows you to mix and match content until your hearts content but also they have a number of other tools which when used in conjunction with Datapresser, further enhance the uniqueness of the articles.

“Wellscripted content made by Datapresser can pass human inspection by Google or anyone else!”

It’s a numbers game

Many might ask what is the point of creating so many articles, well if you was a diligent TC reader you would have noticed the recent article on TC, entitled The More You Post, The Higher You Rank. See it’s a numbers game.

“The more you post, the more chances there are that someone else will link to one of your posts. (Technorati rank is based on the number of recent links to your blog).”

Remix the top ten

So while we’re happy that our visitor numbers are rising rapidly we also realize the only hope we have in this race is to use the same software as the major players in order to keep the quantity equal to theirs. So for the last two weeks all the articles we’ve published have been made using it and we’ve had really good results, plus no one has even noticed!

Even this article your reading was made using Datapresser (with only a few tweaks as it tends to go on and on about itself).

What we have done is set it up to automatically read the rest of the main blogs in the morning, then Datapresser rehashes the theme of the top 10 articles and recompiles these into unique blog posts on the same topic. It’s bloody marvelous. It means that we can set it to publish 10 or even 20 articles a day while we sit back and got on with other work.

It’s what all the top blogs are doing these days but they’d never admit it, as once the cat is out of the bag everyone will be at it…

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

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About the author: Steven is a web applications developer, living in south of France, originally from London. His current project is Myplaylist.biz. In the nineties, he was a designer / director of a highly successful design, manufacturing and distribution company (Intimidation).

20 comments/trackbacks to “Ep4: Companies Who Make Money: Datapresser”

  1. Nov 3, 2008: Is TechCrunch Wrong for Spinning Content? : BlabrMouth.com

    [...] respective markets and no one is going to touch them in a million years. Then I read a post over at TheNextWeb.org where Steven Carrol dishes a bit of dirt. Seems he ran into a writer for TechCrunch at the TC50 [...]

  1. By Edo van Royen on Sep 27, 2008

    Absolutely astonishing, just think of the applications possible or the (negative?) consequences this will have on the blogosphere !

    Disclaimer: This comment was generated automatically(or not :P)

    [Reply]

    By nickycakes on September 27th, 2008:

    Honestly….what “consequences” could this possibly have on the “blogosphere”? You honestly think content generation and blog spam are a new trend in 2008?

    [Reply]

    By Edo van Royen on September 27th, 2008:

    If you mean to emphasize that this is “old-news”, I then must be honest and say that I wasn’t aware this already happened. However, once this hits mainstream, rest assured that other blogs will start using it as a way to generate content.

    What could be negative? Take for instance the fact that a program such as Datapresser doesn’t actually add anything to the blogosphere as a whole, but mixes and adds up existing stuff. So overall: Less creativity and more of the same, don’t you think ?

    [Reply]

  2. By Steven Carrol on Sep 27, 2008

    Edo van Royen

    We have heard that TC have developed an auto commenter tool too, don’t worry we’re working on our own one now…

    This comment was not generated automatically but soon we will have that functionality too!

    [Reply]

    By Edo van Royen on September 27th, 2008:

    Steven, I’m looking forward to the day I find out that I had a discussion with “robots” without noticing, sounds like the future ! :)

    [Reply]

  3. By Drivingsouth on Sep 27, 2008

    I guess this tool doesnt give you exclusives, does it?

    Is this automated copy-cat for blog posts?

    I Wonder if quality goes down due to quantity going up, since you just feel compelled to “write” (or click?) about “stuff”?

    Don’t really understand the consequences for the blogosphere, if any. I guess it just automates a previously “manual” copy-cat’ing process…

    [Reply]

  4. By Sean on Sep 28, 2008

    My guess is Erick Schonfield. That guy’s stories are usually terrible. ALthough I guess that’s not much of a compliment to this software.

    But wow - thanks for the insight on this. It is a bit shocking what it is capable of.

    [Reply]

  5. By Albert on Sep 28, 2008

    Mind to share which of your past articles have been created with Datapresser?

    [Reply]

  6. By kchan on Sep 28, 2008

    this is insightful.. i’ve just started to blog and this is a shocking find! .. what a shame nobody earn money the honest way these days :|

    kchan

    [Reply]

  7. By Ivailo on Sep 28, 2008

    I am not sure whether using this is a good or a bad thing for the blogosphere, I would tend to think that it’s not good as if all big blogs are just rewriting each others content, who is going to cover some of the new exciting start-ups not covered by them? Of course you could also say that this would give you more time… So as I said, don’t know if this is good or bad.

    However I really respect the fact that you have told your readers about this. As you said, lots of people are using it, but no one talks about it.

    [Reply]

  8. By Andi on Sep 28, 2008

    This is a bad piece of software. It does not create value, because value is made by human beings who share their unique kinds of view and the knowledge they have. No piece of code can replace the value a human being generates. I really have big disrespect for blogs which just copy content.

    This has nothign to do with the next web.

    [Reply]

  9. By Brent on Sep 29, 2008

    I had a hunch the article was auto generated. It is the least readable and had the most mistakes of any next web article I’ve read.

    Just a couple of weeks ago I unsubscribed from TC because I got so damn sick of having to skim over 60 useless articles a day just to find the two or three worth reading.

    I’ve kept my subscription with Next Web purely because you guys are at a much better noise-signal ratio. I’d hate to see you fall to the same level just to ‘keep up with the joneses’.

    If you follow your competition, you might follow them up or might follow them straight into the ground. Focus on your readers, rather than competition!

    [Reply]

  10. By David Petherick on Sep 29, 2008

    I think you’ll find that Steve is pulling your leg, but it making a valid point about 1) The fact that this tool is out there and is being used and 2) Having a gentle prod at Techcrunch who seem to be using this tool. Maybe of course they are beta testing it to do a review.

    While I can’t be absolutely 100% certain about the tools other writers use to create their articles, I can say that all of the articles I have created for the Next Web are hand written, and not pushed together mechanically with any ‘content creation’ tools - and I think that is true for all of the writers here.

    The only tool available on the Next Web Blog is from Zemanta, an excellent resource which suggests related links, photos and tags for articles - but only makes these suggestions based on what is within the article that is written. We’re thinking of trying out a crowdsourcing grammar checking tool to improve the quality of the writing, as so many of the authors are not native English speakers, but that’s the extent of it.

    Real people write the content here, using their brain as the main software tool. I also regularly check through and amend articles - as a native English speaker, I can pick up typos and grammatical errors far more readily than my enviably multilingual colleagues.

    I think this software is a logical, but very cynical development, and it’s not the kind of tool The Next Web is going to advocate or use. There is a team of great writers and editors here, and although we’re as keen as anyone else to make producing interesting, insightful and compelling articles easier, using this tool is not how we are going to do it now, or anytime soon.

    This tool creates a mechanical regurgitation of other people’s content, and is largely targeted at SEO ‘pimping’ for Affiliate and Adword-driven sites. That’s certainly not what this blog is about.

    [Reply]

  11. By Andi on Sep 29, 2008

    Hi,

    I don’t want to sound provocative - but the first thought I had while reading your article was: THIS is NOT the next web. I will do my best not to link to any content which is produced automatically. It is nice to see people monetizing their content, even if a great part is quoted and so on.

    But you usually read the blogs which really create content or create unique collections of links and reviews to their contents, if you have a healthy mind.

    What you call “unique” means a unique collection of human readable sentences - unique in the sense of “array_unique($myArray)”. This is not what unique content is.

    If Techcrunch is reporting about Datapresser or not - I don’t care and I am sure that in the long run no one will really care about those sites, because they generate just those silly random links via SEs, where we all click on the back button very quickly.

    If you have a healthy mind, you will see, whether the content is made by a human being who cares or one who confuses value with money.

    Wish the best for your blog, but I think this tool is really not worth an article. Just use it silently with an open eye - but to make it to an established way to make money is to rate VERY low.

    Creating content with human value and creating links to it, this is the web like today and the base for the NEXT WEB.

    Thank you.

    [Reply]

    By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on October 1st, 2008:

    ;-)

    [Reply]

  12. By Drivingsouth on Sep 30, 2008

    A CHALLENGE: Why dont you look at some statistics on the next web posts.

    An easy measure will be how many readers or comments you got in those automated posts compared to others?

    Find some info, share with us and take some lessons from it(if there are any lessons to take).

    [Reply]

  13. By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Oct 1, 2008

    It is funny to see how people take things serious unless you add a ;-) to the end of your story…

    [Reply]

  14. By jj on Oct 9, 2008

    Perfect! more useless, vague articles spreading around the web. Is it really *that* difficult to see that aiming for quality kicks aiming for quantity? Are people so dumb they don’t really care they read superficial, frivolous information?

    [Reply]

  15. By Dave on Nov 14, 2008

    Wow, readers of this blog sure are gullible.

    [Reply]

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