Think simple. Spam different.
I have to say, I’m really impressed by the results of the comment spam campaign apparently being run by the loser lowlives at macinstruct.NET. Though sleazeballs who would sell their own mothers for ten page views, they seem to have done a very good job of figuring out how to successfully place comment spam, and have it stick. They’ve got a very impressive roster of placements to stick long enough for Google to find them: JD Lasica, Les Orchard, Dean Peters, Peter Merholz, Molly Holzschlag, Charles Miller, Morgaine LeFaye…
Oops, that one was a mistake. I thought Alexander Morozov was more cunning than that. On that entry, he left both a macinstruct.NET comment spam, and a Rod Kratochwill fake linking to his radio.wblogs.com-without-the-e spamsite. Despite having been suspicious of the very first of the “Think simple. Learn different.” comments I saw, it wasn’t until then that I viewed source on macinstruct.NET and saw that it was just another of Alexander Morozov’s stolen content Javascript-cloaked porn spam sites, like wblogs.com-without-the-e.
Alexander Morozov, whatever your real name is, I’m impressed. That was very well done: using the Mac-love of bloggers to calm their fears, stealing content from a site that cluelessly delivers their HTML as text/plain so it doesn’t display in Firefox, and thus lots of blogger will have never seen it, putting your link in the comment body on sites where HTML is allowed but the link from comment names is redirected: you did good. Shame you went to the well a bit too often, so I saw it more than once, and started searching, and double shame about that one with both the Rod K and MacInstruct spams.
Jay, are you listening, or do I have to submit this one (which, of course, I don’t have myself :) ).
hmm.. so what we’re seeing is evolution. MT was the route taken to create a robust (hmm ..nice albeit slightly dated buzzword) system which has given them the experience and reputation to launch into something they can actually turn into a business (in this case, business being defined as something that turns a profit), namely; TypePad. In which case what you say makes a lot of sense Phil: ”if it doesn’t make sense for MT, that probably means it isn’t really entirely for us.”
The species known as MT-Bloggerus (namely us) has therefore also evolved (relative to 6a) from useful lab rats into an as yet unspecified species that are kinda handy to have around for those mad scientist ideas, but we don’t butter the bread so perhaps our significance is somewhat diminishing. As you so clearly pointed out, users versus paying customers.
In a nutshell, their motivators have altered.
Regarding your post above Jay, it almost sounds like a case of ”hey, if you won’t come play when we invite you, we’re going to play a different game instead so :P nyah nyah nyah” kinda thing, so they went ahead with TypeKey. Well, not really :P nyah nyah, that’s just me taking the piss, but you know.. it’s such an effective tool (MT-Blacklist), why would they not incorporate it? Then again, if there’s the possibility of having MT-Blacklist developed further down the line as an income driver, then that’s all good for you Jay (and well deserved).. even if it’s a free plugin with a small subscription (or royalty to Jay) for automatic updates, which would kind of make sense now I think of it; it would fall in line with what it seems they intend TypePad to be – a low/no maintenance (for the subscribers) reliable and complete blog service. hmm.
Maaaaaaan, you MT users sure like complaining about it. I’d’ve switched to something else by now. :)
GFM
hehe don’t get me wrong, I really like MT :)
just trying to speculate what their current direction really is..
MT 3.0, Comment spam and miscellany
A lively spirited discussion (and one you should read) is ensuing over at Phil Ringnalda’s blog about fake blogger sites, comment & trackback spam, and MT 3.0. Also an intriguing, yet hard to implement idea: Moderating the URLs…