Mark Allen

Member since: Dec 7th, 2005

Mark Allen's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
TUAW.com	4 Comments
Engadget	2 Comments
Download Squad	1 Comment
Engadget HD	1 Comment
Engadget Mobile	3 Comments
Blog Maverick	1 Comment
The Jason Calacanis Weblog	3 Comments

Recent Comments:

Apple screwed you: So now what? (TUAW.com)

Sep 5th 2007 9:35PM "nearly a million of us supported it anyway out of loyalty to the brand and a desire to see the product succeed." -brunetm

Wow. Last time I checked Apple was a corporation, not a cause. A corporation that made really nice products, but still a corporation. You deserve to be taken for every cent you have if you honestly that crap.

If you didn't think the iPhone was worth $600 when you bought it, you should not have bought it. End of story.

You get a sticker with your Zune (TUAW.com)

Nov 13th 2006 9:59PM I've never gotten a sticker with any of the iPods I've ever bought, including a 1st gen.

Blog Pimpin (Blog Maverick)

Nov 9th 2006 3:05PM So I hate to use this comment to pimp my own blog, but I wrote a very related article last week called "Stop Blogging": http://www.studiomoustache.com/blog/2006/10/31/stop-blogging/

Newsgator is not stealing our content (or "One more time: our full RSS feeds are for individual, non-comercial use ONLY." (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Oct 22nd 2006 11:33PM I guess my main point was this: products like Bloglines, Newsgator and others make your content more valuable, and to take the attitude that they are making money off the back of your labor is incredibly conceited. You provide an invaluable service to them, and they provide an invaluable service to you.

Do you think some of your smaller blogs would be able to survive if it weren't for RSS? I for one can count on 5 WIN blogs that I probably wouldn't ever read if I didn't subscribe to them in NetNewsWire (Joystiq, Adjab, WoW Insider, TVSquad and TUAW). Not that I don't enjoy reading them, I just wouldn't have the time or attention to do all that work.

Newsgator is not stealing our content (or "One more time: our full RSS feeds are for individual, non-comercial use ONLY." (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Oct 22nd 2006 5:40PM My previous post was based on the assumption that Newsgator was leaving your ads in the feed. The screenshot was conveniently cropped before your ads would have appeared ;) If they leave your ads in the feed, I still think you benefit way more than you lose by making it easier for people to access your content at the cost of some ad dilution. If they are removing your ads and replacing them with their own, then you really would be "giving away your primary asset." That would be wrong, but I don't think a company like Newsgator would ever do that.

Newsgator is not stealing our content (or "One more time: our full RSS feeds are for individual, non-comercial use ONLY." (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Oct 22nd 2006 5:09PM I normally agree with nearly everything written here, but this post is waaaaay off base.

Feed readers such as Newsgator Online make it easier for readers to find your content, and rather than viewing them as trying to find ways to make money off of your hard work, you should treat them like an invaluable partner and be doing everything you can to help them spread your content. After I started using a reader, I immediately started reading at least 5 more Weblogs, Inc. blogs than I had before. That translates to more site page views across your network along with an increased mind share and brand loyalty. While I obviously don't have any numbers to back me up here, the benefits of making it radically easier to distribute your product have to greatly outweigh the costs of an extra ad feed by your content.

Blogs really should be looking at more monetization opportunities than just ads anyway. Is it the fault of the company making the reader that your business model is so fragile that you have to try and cripple the very technology that is helping make your business successful?

This line of thinking sounds very old-media (read: doomed) to me. You may not like having ads placed next to your full feeds, but someone else (a little smaller, a little hungrier, a little less of a control freak) won't mind and will gladly allow feed readers to use their full feeds. What happens to to your traffic then? If there was a tech blog that was almost as good as Engadget that didn't force me to click through to their site for every article just because I was foolish enough to use a free web-based feed reader, I'd switch over to the almost-Engadget in an instant. This strategy hasn't worked for newspapers, and it won't work for blogs. You never come out ahead by trying to lock up your content. Never.