Belated Wellsphere Blowback

You will be added to the collective.

Through the power of collective blogging (and Twittering), yet another storm is brewing about Wellsphere in the face of their being bought out by HealthCentral for an undisclosed millions of dollars. HealthCentral currently has over $50 million in VC funding, so this isn’t chump change. Wellsphere claims thousands of medical “experts” in its network and boasts unique page views in the millions per month through its presence among its network “partners” (ie, unwitting bloggers).

Well, it’s more “penetration” than “presence” in the end, because the kicker here is that Wellsphere not only doesn’t pay their partners a damn thing, but worse, outright steals content from bloggers’ own sites and rebrands it as Wellsphere’s own unique content without any attribution whatsoever. Dr. Val exposes all of this quite plainly in a recent post, and many other stories are coming out on Twitter with the search hashtag of “#wellsphere.”

Full disclosure dictates that I reveal that I too was contacted by them last year; however in a moment of what I can only describe as serendipitous procrastination or distraction–whichever–I let the email sit there for a good while. When I took another look, I just didn’t see the point. I never got so far as to read the heinous Terms of Service agreement, because just on its face it seemed like I wasn’t going to get anything except a pretty badge on my sidebar (woowoo!  not.) and a warm glow for knowing I was going to help promote health information to their general online community. And it’s the last point that makes this whole thing stick in my craw–the CEO heading this whole thing may very well have been a complete and utter scumbag, but the request letters came from the Chief Medical Officer person–a physician named Dr. Geoff Rutledge. Through him, the entire modus operandi was predatory, taking advantage of what would be an accurate soft spot of medical bloggers who would of course feel altruistic about disseminating health information and/or being a part of a health network.  It’s the blogging equivalent of a schoolyard bully offering his protection services for lunch money.

If I could turn back the clock knowing what I know now, I’d have signed up gladly. I would have put the little badge on my page, and watched my page hits go–nowhere.  Meanwhile, my content would be sucked and rebranded as Wellsphere’s own. So I’d make posts like “Wellsphere — You’re a Bunch of Thieving Mongrels” and change my “featured blogger” bio to include heinous, non-consensual acts done to me at the hands of Wellsphere’s handlers.

But if you have more to add on this story, all is not lost! Tonight at 9pm EST The Doctor Anonymous Show on Blogtalk Radio will be devoting a part of tonight’s broadcast to this issue, so please tune into follow more and support the cause.

Because resistance is NOT futile.

Time to shut down the blog

After careful consideration of some advice I read online and my own personal feelings, it’s with a sense of ultimate inevitability that I am shutting the blog down. After all, “text-based websites aren’t where the buzz is anymore.” I mean, social media sites like Facebook and Flickr are all the rage. “Blogging is so 2004.”

If you are wondering why the quotes above, it’s because they are lifted from a fine example of Silicon Valley douchebaggery in a turd of a piece written by Paul Bou …. tin of Valleywag. I’m not linking anything, and I certainly don’t want Google bots picking up more attention to the likes of that hack.

So to be clear (which I haven’t been on purpose): I am not shutting down the blog. It might be presumptuous of me to say, but if you are reading this you might have felt a pang of “What? Oh no!” or maybe that pang was just GERD (stay away from spicy foods already!). It just bothers me that individuals in Silicon Valley so predictably decide they are going to steer the direction of technology single-handedly because “they” are tired of what they consider “yesterday’s” technology, all on the basis of what was talked about at a drunken Michael Arrington party. Not surprisingly, I’m not alone in my opinions. (you can get the original link to the Wired article from these links)

Look, I’m not even a D-list blogger. My blog still exists for two reasons: 1) I’m stubborn, so I don’t pack it in easily, and 2) while I love comments and community, I still write for myself primarily. It’s why you don’t see ads on my site (no personal issues with those who do have them), and it’s why you’ll never see me write about search engine optimization or ‘monetizing’ (no word/phrase is more annoying except perhaps ‘game changer’) my site. If I were to throw up some AdSense text in the corner to see if I can make enough to pay my hosting, I’m open to that, but I have enough problems posting on a regular basis just with my life the way it is than to have to feel it’s a “job.” If I’m not #1 or even on the first page of Google page ranks for search queries, I couldn’t care less right now (that may change as my needs change).

All signs point to the fact that I should have died a blog death a year ago, but I’m still here. Why? Because the people I’ve made connections with are still out there, and this blog is one way I keep in touch. It’s still the journal of my personal life journey at this time, whether I’m currently in classes or not. It’s still my primary identity online, before Facebook, before Twitter, before any number of Web2.0 sites that won’t be here next year.

Regarding Twitter and Web2.0 media, here’s more of what Paul excreted:

Twitter — which limits each text-only post to 140 characters — is to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004. You’ll find Scoble, Calacanis, and most of their buddies from the golden age there. They claim it’s because Twitter operates even faster than the blogosphere.

As a writer, though, I’m onto the system’s real appeal: brevity…Twitter’s character limit puts everyone back on equal footing. It lets amateurs quit agonizing over their writing and cut to the chase. @WiredReader: Kill yr blog. 2004 over. Google won’t find you. Too much cruft from HuffPo, NYT. Commenters are tards. C u on Facebook?

“Commenters are ‘tards?” What an asshole. Other than spam, I’ve deleted probably only 2 comments in three years. Granted, I’m not high-traffic, but a sweeping generalization like this deserves to be called out. Commenters, along with the writer(s) is what builds a blog community. Bloggers who don’t allow comments had better be book-selling authors who’d understandably have too many comments to manage without staff, or they’re egomaniacal blowhards who don’t want to have to open what they say up for conversation. Sure, I’d reserve the right to limit conversation on a post, but not the site.

As for amateurs being limited on Twitter to 140 characters, I have two things to say: 1) “amateurs” don’t give a shit about 140 characters; they’ll just send 4-5 tweets until their overly-long paragraph (like this one ) gets typed. If they don’t “get it” in the blogging world, they aren’t going to “get it” in the micro-blogging world. 2) Brevity and thoughtfulness together in language is always a beautiful thing, but let’s face it: 99% of the time, Twitter isn’t about wordsmithing in a 140-character limit, it’s about writing about the dilemma you’re facing between what to have for dinner or how much sleep you didn’t get the night before.

And if Paul’s hypocrisy wasn’t already evident, check out the entirety of the hypothetical tweet that is the last sentence. That’s no amateur writing “C u on Facebook?”, that’s a real pro.

A professional asshat.