Podcasting has become something of a buzzword lately, and several of the bigger Web presences are beginning to index lists of podcasters. In a process similar to the way a search engine indexes sites using keywords, iTunes and Yahoo have begun pointing potential listeners to podcasters' RSS feeds.
Back in late 2004, George Lambert, better known to us CyberArmy members as Marchon, became an early podcaster over at his site, Marchon's Corner. He has been active in the development of the technical side of podcasting, and even has a patent application in process for podcasting technology. He also began a free service called Podkeyword that used keywords as a way for podcasters to get noticed by search engines. This is where the "problem" began.
I spoke with Marchon about Podkeyword and he had these things to say: "I think of myself as a village elder, so the idea of podcasting seemed interesting. I hate to say it, but my experience with podcasting felt like I was there too early and did not "catch the wave" of things people were interested in...."
"Our approach to finding feeds was to make it simple with Audio Bookmarks, like I do at the beginning of my podcasts...my vision for keywords was to link keys with relevant topics or advertising content to make finding it easy. I did examples, and people use them, but have not adopted audio tagging yet."
"Podcasters used my keyword service, but did not exploit it. There was no money to be made, and podcasters didn't have much. As the community expanded, there was little trust in people who talked about a commercial future... so I figured that I should wait. Time was on my side. I watched the stats on the service go up, and figured that I should just maintain it. I stopped pushing for new subscribers until I thought the market would be there."
Erik Marcus apparently saw the benefit in this, signed up with Podkeyword, and chose several keywords that would allow a potential listener interested in things vegan to actually find his podcast.
The key thing to remember about this entire situation is that by his own admission, Erik signed up with Podkeyword, which is run by Marchon as a free service to help his fellow podcasters get the word out and direct potential listeners to podcasts like Erik's.
Recently, Erik discovered that iTunes and Yahoo were directing interested listeners to Podkeyword (in addition to his own URL), to access his RSS feed, which didn't seem right to him. I think that any reasonable person would thank Podkeyword for the exposure that allowed his podcast to build such a large listenership as Erik's had, but Erik decided that Podkeyword was now a "Podjacker", and attempted to contact iTunes and Yahoo to redress this horrible wrong by removing any reference to Podkeyword. He was apparently frustrated by not receiving a quick reply from Yahoo, so he proceeded to ask Podkeyword to drop the link.
This brings us to the crux of the problem. Marchon promptly (and rightfully) complied with Erik's request and removed the link to the RSS feed (which Erik had been given at no charge). Lo and behold, two thirds of Erik's hits disappeared.
Clearly, this outcome was triggered as a result of Erik's request to have his link removed. However, Erik seemed to think that it was instead an outrage perpetrated by the "Podjacker", and therefore, it was his right to be restored to Podkeyword. He then contacted Podkeyword and asked to be "temporarily" restored to get his listeners back.
Podkeyword told Erik that he could restore himself at no cost by simply signing up again and relisting his keywords, but Erik had other ideas of how this should be done and demanded them. When he was told that these methods were either impossible or that they would fall under the category of coding and consultation, Erik felt he was being wronged and that what he required should have been provided to him free of charge.
"Extortion! Hijacking! Podjacking!" cried Erik, and he proceeded to contact legal representation and a number of media outlets with a story that would seem to indicate either deception or amnesia based on the aforementioned facts: ", for some mysterious reason, Yahoo had my RSS feed listed as:
http://cooking.podkeyword.com/.
I was baffled. Who on earth was behind podkeyword.com, and how did they manage to get their feed rather than my official feed listed for my show?" Clearly, Eric seemed to be "baffled" by the fact that his listeners, by a three to one majority, had found him through the efforts of Marchon and Podkeyword via the keyword "cooking".
A lot of media outlets and bloggers seemed to jump on this non-story with the ferocity of a pack of distinctly non-vegan jackals, and in the process they overlooked the three salient facts that Erik himself has admitted were true, namely: Erik originally asked for the listing at Podkeyword, later asked to be removed (which was promptly done), and then was offered a chance to re-list himself at no charge when he realized he had essentially shot himself in the foot. However at this point, any attempt on Marchon's part to communicate with Erik was met with a terse "talk to my lawyer."
The result of this string of ill-advised actions is that a podcaster, who was running Podkeyword out of the goodness of his heart, has been branded as a hijacker and extortionist by a large cross-section of the bloggers and media outlets who haven't got the basic journalistic integrity to investigate the facts before indulging in attacks.
In typical sensationalist style, John Leyden of the Register(1) blatantly called Podkeyword an "extortionist [and] cyber-squatter [who is] demanding a payment [to] release the hijacked feed" and furthermore said that Erik was "the latest target of an age old crime." John also provocatively sub headed his piece with this gem; "Give us the dosh or the RSS feed dies." This is more appropriate to a Mickey Spillane novel than a journalistic outlet. John, give us the facts or the truth dies!
Louisa Hearn over at the Sydney Morning Herald(2) apparently favors the word "squatter" and says, "some podcasters are having their audiences swiped by squatters who are hijacking RSS feeds and then demanding money to remedy the situation." She mentions that Erik told eWeek that "the podjacker had since requested payment or a permanent agreement to its terms for his RSS link to be reinstated while he seeks a solution", without delving into what the "reinstatement" was. She thereby avoids the fact that Erik was asking to be reinstated because he was unhappy that his request to be dropped was granted and he lost two-thirds of his audience. She also avoids mentioning the same facts that John Leyden avoided.
Lisa Vaas, at PCMag.com(3) on November 30th, also joined the "Podcast Hijacked" school of journalism by beginning her piece with: "In an assault reminiscent of the early days of the Internet, Podcaster Erik Marcus recently found that his RSS feed had been inexplicably redirected."
"Inexplicably"? "Early days of the Internet"? "Assault"? Where were the editors who are generally loath to allow a sensationalist story such as this to be run without some preliminary fact-checking?
Vaas points anyone interested in following the story to her slightly lengthier piece at eWeek, where she has at least added the words "purported" and "reportedly" to her description of the events. She writes there: "Marcus then wrote back to Podkeyword to ask that his listing be temporarily reinstated on Podkeyword while he worked to fix things with Apple. Podkeyword reportedly responded that the listing would be reinstated only if Marcus provided an unspecified payment or agreed permanently to its terms." She fails to mention again the three salient points, and leaves her readers with the mistaken impression that Podkeyword was attempting to extort, rather than re-list at no charge. A cursory investigation would have shown that the "unspecified payment" and "terms" were in reference to certain demands made by Erik Marcus that went beyond reinstating the feed and would have involved additional work on a consulting level, if they were indeed fulfill-able demands.
In addition to PCMag and eWeek, Vaas' story also appears on Yahoo News, further spreading the same story to a wider audience that probably has less of an inclination to be critical of the "information" presented. On December 5, Vaas filed a much more objective story, but the damage had already been done. Malicious rumor, however, is clearly much more exciting and newsworthy - the journalists and bloggers who covered the story universally quoted the earlier column.
On the blogging front, Peter Forret apparently read John Leyden's piece in the Register and came up with an entry titled "Let's get rid of podkeyword.com". He went so far as to formulate a fictitious business plan: "So someone provides a mirror service for your podcast feed, gets it registered with major podcast directories and search engines and can then choose whether to just mirror your feed, alter it (e.g. insert advertising), or replace it by whatever he feels like. That, in short, is the business plan of podkeyword."
While the media was busy being caught up in this nonsense, the people who understand the tech behind podcasting were busily at work. When I interviewed Marchon, he had just finished coding the changes that would allow Erik's listeners to tune in. Podkeyword is now doing an http redirect to the requested URL at vegan.com for existing subscribers while they work out a transition strategy.
Marchon said, "I invested the time to implement a temporary solution to their problem that complies with the demands made in the original email. The keywords requested have been reactivated to allow previously subscribed users to still have access to the podcast without including it in any of our links, indexes or feeds. I have never wished Erik any frustration and always wished that he could find a way to make life better for his listeners."
(1)
The Register;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/02/podjacking/
Podcast hijacked by 'extortionist'
Give us the dosh or the RSS feed dies
By John Leyden
Published Friday 2nd December 2005 14:20 GMT
(2)
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/podcasts-hijacked-by-squatters/2005/12/02/1133422097915.html
Podcasts hijacked by squatters
By Louisa Hearn
December 2, 2005 - 4:36PM
(3)
pcmag.com
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1894843,00.asp
Podcast Hijacked, Held for Ransom
By Lisa Vaas
November 30, 2005
(4)
[blog.forret.com]
http://blog.forret.com/blog/2005/12/lets-get-rid-of-podkeywordcom.html
Let's get rid of podkeyword.com
By Peter Forret
December 2, 2005
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.
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