Regifting VS Repurposing http://su.pr/190Q3V
by OsakaSaul on January 25, 2012
I went looking for my mom in Google – by searching “funny regifting stories.” You can imagine my dismay in discovering not one of you has nominated my mother for the regifting buffoon of the year (dis)honor, despite her years of giving clearly the wrong thing to the wrong person. (I’ll look for your mom – and my mom, assuming she’s roughly hand-wrapped a Ronco Slicer-Dicer “As Seen on TV” and did you in with it – and other regifting stories in the comments below, and we’ll see if I can’t beat your best regifting story.) What I did find was from a Cosmo article with a collection of funny regifting stories, I found these stats:
Top 5 Excuses Why People Regift
1. It was a perfectly good gift that I simply didn’t want or couldn’t use: 90.8%
2. It was something I knew the recipient would genuinely like: 45.3%
3. I didn’t have money to buy a new gift: 36.9%
4. I didn’t have time to buy something new: 27.7%
5. I didn’t like the gift recipient, so I didn’t care what I gave him or her: 12.5%
Source: Regifting Stories – Funny Regifting Story – Cosmopolitan
As I get deeper into blogging, you know what occurred to me? Those five regifting reasons read pretty darn close to the reasons people tell me they “repurposed” content to populate their blog:
1. It was perfectly good material that the author simply didn’t want to share or couldn’t figure out how to share where it would get seen much.
2. It was something I knew my readers would genuinely like.
3. I didn’t have money to pay authors for my blog – but wanted contributors anyway.
4. I didn’t have time to write something new.
5. I don’t get business from my blog, so I don’t care what I publish.
Dishonorable mentions:
6. “What’s never been said before anyway?”
7. “The guy’s going to appreciate getting seen more; I did credit him, after all.”
8. “Publish or perish, I can’t simply go mute can I?”
9. “Its just a blog post – not like I printed it in a book or included it in a screenplay.”
10. “I spent all this time building a my crack team of content sharers; we share each others’ blog posts here and there, and so, I must take advantage of that, open the fire hose, and spew as much ‘content’ as the system can handle…”
You want CMS action, and have yet to bask in the not-so-warm glow of being recognized for your…
Douchebaggery
No, that's not my car - but I seem to have silver paint on my key...
little patience/big car (is a not totally unlike) little patience to write/big CMS
Because we all need CMS. (And I didn’t have the time to locate a parking spot that I would have had the time to back my fuel hog into.)
Hell, even when I see you douching it up, I usually don’t have the nerve to call you on it – since if you are a blogger and we share each others’ posts, sooner or later you wind up helping me with something and so, I really would rather not offend you. As for controlling your reputation, I am safest keeping my opinion to myself.
Content Repurposing
Here is Ezine Articles on the subject. Ah, but article author Cathy Strucker only discusses “…taking intellectual property you have created and using it in another way.” Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/110568 Not a word about ye ole copy > paste > credit someone who has not given you permission to use their material > “voila,” instant blog post.
So, where do you stand on bloggers lifting the work of others and using it to lure social media consumers to their sites? Is it fair play when a blogger credits an author – who he has not garnered permission from – and grabs the entire article…?
Your blog is like your house
I wont tell you how to act.
I may, however, silently judge you and then rethink my sharing of your blog to my social media streams. And if you’re a particularly offensive host, I probably wont stay long – or return for more.
While we have this special opportunity, while I am not calling out anyone in particularly, least of all you, the situation is perfect for me to ask you to consider my stance on the blogs of others:
1. You put your name on it, you tie your professional profiles to it, and thus, every thing you slap up to your blog represents you. Professionally.
2. Maybe you are profoundly respected and also known to use very foul language when speaking with nearly everyone. It might not work for me, but you might be the type of character who makes that work – and so, on your blog, as well, that aspect of your persona might not be a thing to hide.
3. Stanley Kubrick directed films less and less frequently from the beginning to the end of his career; there are great bloggers who leave us work which resonates, though they do not publish daily. Maybe you’ll be okay if you don’t publish daily as well.
Rules on reblogging / repurposing the material of others: strikingly similar to those for regifting
1. If just one rule-of-thumb is best for you: don’t do it ever. You’ll never be able to play it off well if you get caught.
2. You actually get caught far more often than you think you do, but people often settle to remember you for it – rather than calling you out for it. (Unless the original gifter/author is them.)
3. What you leave under your blog header for us is like what you leave under the Christmas tree for us; rock-solid take-away value and a dearth of thievery/pawning off your “lifts” from others’ writings will be something we will remember you for – every bit as much as it was clear you put much thought into what you gave us for Christmas.
It all matters, at least that’s my stance.
