Mar 02 2009
Wikis being used for advertising
I seem to be having a bit of a run on interesting behaviour on my wikis. I was on my educational software wiki today and discovered a YouTube video had been added to the front page with the title ‘Latest resource’. Not wanting to be too territorial, I checked out what it was about. It was a short promo video for a new book on Web 2.0 that is available for purchase. I don’t appreciate people using the front page of my wiki as an advertisement space so I have deleted the video. I guess what is really rude is the way it was posted in a way to look as if it was me adding a new resource to page and no message to me first to check it was OK. At least whoever posted it (the history showed that the person wasn’t logged in when they edited so I can’t trace it back) thinks that my wiki is popular enough to warrant the effort!
5 responses so far
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Flickr/suzievesper
Facebook/Suzie Vesper
Twitter/suziea
YouTube/suziea
Del.icio.us/vespers1
GMail/Suzie Vesper
Blog/Suzie Vesper
Diigo/suzievesper
One of the ways I like to keep tabs on my wikis is to subscribe to the RSS feed of all changes and discussions. Click on Manage Wiki on the left side of the screen. Go to Notifications under the tools section. Choose the All Changes button. Copy and paste the URL into your reader. At least you’ll know when changes are made.
The best part of having an open wiki is seeing what people are willing to contribute. I haven’t had any ads placed on my open wikis yet, but at least the RSS will help me find if it happens.
I ended up changing my comment posting options on my blog for a similar reason. If someone posts after an entry is older than 14 days, it goes into my comment moderation. It seems like older entries attract the spam.
Overall, you’re right, they saw enough value in your wiki to post the video on the front page.
How annoying! But in all honesty, i’m surprised that it took whoever it was that long to figure out your wiki was worthwhile enough to advertise on!
Amanda
I know that Allan K has had something along these lines with her edublog site – she’s been ‘asked’ to make a donation so the site can remain add free which I feel is completely appalling. It’s the same with those widgets that you can add to your class blog that start shooting out advertising (Maukie the Virtual Cat)… it can’t have any place on your site but then what can you do…
Pretty sneaky behavior alright! I don’t think I would rush out and buy the web 2.0 book if this is the sort of digital footprint it is based on:)
This sounds a bit like the ads that Edublogs puts into posts – words are hyperlinked and an ad appears. It looks like the writer has created the hyperlink and is endorsing the product. Students’ blogs are also featuring these advertisements.
Ads in a blog are one thing but this is something else and I’ve left Edublogs because of it.