I’m mad and I may be overreacting but I don’t care.
Some asswipe who’s name I won’t mention here stole my article almost word for word, including my lame joke, at EzineArticles. Mine is over a year older than his. I remember writing that particular article. I did a few minutes of research and then sat down and wrote it all out from my head, so I know it isn’t an issue of me copying from someone else, and then him copying from me. Or him copying from the same source that I got my information from.
Anyway, I clicked on the “report this article” link on his article page and am looking forward to a reply from EzineArticles. Until then, I’ll try not to be any more immature about it and keep quiet. I just had to rant a bit first.
But just so you know, you can’t steal other people’s content just because it’s on a free article directory. It’s still their content and there are restrictions as to how you can use it. Also, don’t forget that each article directory has their own policies and TOS. Blatantly ripping off someone’s content almost word for word and then submitting it as your own is obviously against any article directory’s policies.
Don’t do it, or you’ll pay for it later. Theft is theft.
June 2nd, 2008
I subscribe to a few different magazines and there’s one thing that they do to their subscribers that pisses me off so I’m going to have another little rant if you don’t mind.
Once your subscription is about to expire, these magazines will mail you the standard renewal notice. In the letter they send, they always say the same thing in big red letters.
“RENEW NOW OR PAY MORE LATER”
Well guess what?!
The last time I received that letter, I didn’t renew now! Oh my goodness, I didn’t renew. What to do, what to do? I was going to burn in hell because I didn’t lock in at that special subscription price. Life as I knew it should have been over right?
Luckily for me, my life was spared when I received another letter a few weeks later. This one was especially interesting because it was essentially the same as the previous one, but with a lower price.
A Lower Price!
Those bastards lied to me. I’m not happy now.
I could have believed them with that initial letter and renewed my subscription and fork over 20 big ones. Instead, I called their bluff (cause I’m smart like that) and ended up paying only 12 bucks.
Now, while this was beneficial to me, I can say that I’m not too thrilled with this magazine’s ability to blatantly lie to their loyal customers.
I know this is a marketing tactic from the days of old but is it really ethical?
Whatever that answer is, it doesn’t really matter. The whole point here is that I may not be a loyal customer for long. I would bet there are others who feel the same way. (I hope anyway, or else I’ll feel like giant tool.)
I’m sure you can apply this type of tactic to many online endeavors as well. I’ve seen a lot of things similar to this in email marketing where people offer a program or product for a certain price, then lower it for future customers. (In some cases they’ll even give it away for free.)
What a great way to lose credibility and trust.
To make a long story short, just don’t do this. Be honest. Stick to your word. It’s worth it.
April 29th, 2008
Something that manages to really irk me is when people use frames on their website but don’t allow their users to resize them. If it was sized properly in the first place, that’s fine. But when you have a huge block of text or especially when you have a form in the frame but it’s cut off and you can’t resize the window, it’s extremely irritating!
So please allow users to resize frames on your website.
April 25th, 2008
