Big money people discover the internet world of aggregate publishing.

Let’s go back just one year to the New York Times online revelation that they weren’t going to produce all their online content in-house anymore. Ahhhh, Nov. 1, 2007 must have been quite the day for the publishing giant… a real step into the 21st century publishing world. Aggregate content goes viral or something silly like that. And then, flashfastfoward to last month as *oh gasp in shock and surprise* Tina Brown discovers the aggregate animal, gets big publishing $$ to launch a *website* which contains blogs and other sources for *news and views*.

Aside note: Don’t ya’ll love the way she explains, over and over again, where she got the title Daily Beast? Apparently Miz Brown never heard of Google or the ability of web audiences to search for a term and *gasp accordingly here* deduce its origin. Really… watching Brown gush over the internet as if it is some new invention with Jon Stewart a few weeks ago almost made me do a spit-take all over my MacAir screen. endnote

Here’s the Times *er excuse* for pimping another source’s content and then acquiring advertising dollars for doing so:

But in a networked media world, where news consumers have access to EVERY piece of content produced by EVERY news outlet large and small (and with high quality news outlets proliferating on the web), media is undergoing a seismic shift — it’s no longer strictly about producing and distributing your OWN content.

Media is now about distributing the BEST content — and Times has embraced this new reality with the launch of its new technology section, which incorporates third-party headlines surfaced by Blogrunner (which the Times acquired very quietly last year — and which uses a TechMeme-like algorithm based on link patterns) and then selected with input from Times editors.

Blogosphere be damned.

Here is the point which took me a bit of ranting to finally reach:

Well-paid PR companies release daily dribble about their client’s new and visionary websites. Sites like the recently discussed Cookstr have the ability to pair “proprietary search functions with thousands of delicious, chef-tested recipes for all skill levels. COOKSTR.COM’s success stems from the team’s strong vision and background as well as their relationships with the top cookbook publishers in the country.” In my world, we call that “no original content” and we are bunged and banged by Google for such offenses. In the world of big money online publishers, all the net rules change and the heads of Hyperion and other paperpublishers scramble for the advertising dollar as they re-create search engine optimization to benefit the corporate whore. With such copious qualifications, how could these sites fail to create Niagara Falls-like revenue streams?

Plagiarism and pre-published content is called participation by the PR lipsmackers who bow and scrape for VC popularity points as they pimp their recent discovery of aggregating non-original content. Sites like Cookstr claim pre-manufactured, pre-packaged, already-available content as “Participating publishers for COOKSTR.COM include Bloomsbury USA, Broadway, Chronicle, Knopf, The Hachette Book Group USA, HarperCollins, Hyperion, Macmillan, Penguin, Robert Rose, Simon & Schuster, Stewart, Tabori and Chang, Workman, and Wiley. Also participating is the estate of James Beard, and there is a deal in place with A La Carte Productions, one of the world’s preeminent producers of food television.” See? It’s okay to take recipes from published cookbooks if you’re going to sell the books. It’s okay to hire Art Chang as your “head of Business Development and Finance” because he has been “a repeat entrepreneur, venture capital investor, investment banker, architect, graphic designer and waiter” and Kate Workman to edit the already edited recipes and articles, and throw in a couple a’million bucks* (estimate) to launch a website utilizing 2004 technology. It is not okay for Betty Blogmom to spend $7.99 for a domain name and $4.99 a month for webspace and utilize SEO or to compile already published content – Betty is a bad bad girl.

In my world, we call book-selling websites “Amazon Affiliates.” In my world, sites like Spam Daily News describe aggregate content as getting the milk for free or Cash in the Attic. In my world, we scramble for affiliate advertising pennies and Google AdSense nickles. In the corporate world, plagiarism and pre-published content is rewarded… or at least applauded by the Wall Street PR media whores.

Momma said life wouldn’t be easy. Meanwhile, pass me that big ol’ slice of sweet potato pie. It’s fresh and I used an old recipe of my MeMaw’s – got some fresh Southern Queen sweet potatoes from the Pig. And no, I won’t share the recipe.

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*I give Coookstr until May 2009 to burn through its cash reserves and fold. Probably won’t last long enough for new employees to wait out the pre-existing condition clause on their new health insurance policies. The Daily Beast? It’ll never catch on, it’s a horrid site. And there is no VC in Cookstr. That was just my ranting although it did cost less than a million of Schwalbe’s savings. Less than a million. Let us hope so…