But many people are suggesting the treasure trove of social networks as a source of links. This comes with a major caveat, NOT ALL SOCIAL NETWORKS CREATE LINKS EQUALLY.

Twitter has been pressured (probably by Google) to attach ‘nofollow’ tags to outgoing links on tweets. What does this mean? It means you can post nonillion (yes, that’s a real number) links from as many Twitter accounts as you can marshall and it won’t count as a back link. Sorry.

The 'nofollow' tag, the link killer

Facebook does the same. In fact, Facebook has a function called UntrustedLink, which essentially is an anti-spamming tool. It adds the ‘nofollow’ tag so that search engines do not follow the link. This means no link credit.

What it can help you with is getting traffic through those tweets and hopefully those will get indexed by the search engines. So once again, build links by doing something remarkable. Then links will come to you, and of course you can always supplement that with traditional link building. But remember, if it’s too easy, you’ll get penalized, or no credit at the least.

Digg and Delicious are still search engine and link friendly, but it appears that Reddit is not. Any other updates on link friendliness? Comment below!

It appeared that the entry was pretty blatantly copied from a piece called Waterfall Transforming Into White Hooded Monks.

Here are the two pieces below:

Needless to say there are some striking similarities in the waterfall section. Similar direction and an almost identical pattern.

The real give away is where the ‘milk’ breaks mid stream in some rocks, and the placement of the hoods and ‘monks’ is pretty much unforgivable. See close up below:

Plagiarizing works is nothing new, but in an almost admission of guilt, Sinead has apparently deactivated her Facebook page, probably due to the sheer amount of criticism she may have been receiving.

The real loser here is Cadbury though. Crowd sourcing is a great way to engage consumers for local markets and build a reputation, but crowd sourcing also involves the public and their apparently devilish ways.

Cadbury may have seen some advantage in the fact that any publicity is good publicity (hence this post) but it seems that the disheartened other designers who hopefully have not done such work, may have lost their enthusiasm for such a campaign.

Cadbury did respond with this though:

In Cadbury’s defence, they do have a rule that entrants “must ensure that:  (a) The entry is the entrant’s original creation and has not been copied, adapted or amended.”

Is it plagiarism? And how does Cadbury come out of this?

UPDATE: The term that should be used is spec work, not crowd sourcing considering there was no intention of collaboration between designers. Credit to David Airey for catching my mistake.

UPDATE: Cadbury had this to say:

Congratulations Paul!

]]> http://www.benjaminroyce.com/2010/02/cadbury-ireland-facebook-contest-shows-crowdsourcing-drawback-plagiarized-works/feed/ 19 http://www.benjaminroyce.com/2010/02/five-social-media-marketing-stats-that-will-blow-your-mind/ http://www.benjaminroyce.com/2010/02/five-social-media-marketing-stats-that-will-blow-your-mind/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:18:48 +0000 Benjamin http://www.benjaminroyce.com/?p=220 This article is great for showing the looming beast on the horizon. It touches more on Facebook than anything but so it should, it is the largest network and probably the most thorough.

For those of you out there that are considering such plans in social media, networking or whichever term you use, the statistics are quite staggering.

Check it out here:

http://ow.ly/175Qk

Image from suicidemachine.org

The mass defriending, purging or cleansing of your Twitter followers, or Facebook and MySpace friends, and LinkedIn Connections is what I’m talking about. Like a nuclear option, or as some hippies say, ‘Getting off the grid’.

A new site dubbed The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, has made that process a little more expedient.

I did it once, to my MySpace account. Not because my reputation was sullied, but because I got sick of MySpace’s notoriously long load time. But it felt great anyway.

It was inevitable. Anything that booms, has adjustments and detractors. My former boss told me of stories of secretaries that refused to switch from typewriters to computers. Way to be on the wrong side of history! But you can’t blame them with the online dis-inhibition effect and the ruining of reputations online.

Is it anything to worry about? Not really. Social media and social media suicide campaigns aren’t in direct competition. Like a candidate in an election that boycotts his own race, he/she will  not win, but merely make a statement about the election itself.

Don’t tell the Iranian government, but dissent is an important bumper on the rails of ambition. It is never glamorous or popular, but it serves a purpose.  See the following:

“Even when dissenters don’t have enough votes to to change The Court’s (referring to the US Supreme Court) opinion, they still affect the process.” – Ori Brafman form Sway: The Irresistible  Pull of Irrational Behavior

“It makes the other person take account of the point. They have to answer it or they have to take it into account” - Justice Stephen Breyer, US Supreme Court

These guard rails of logic are helpful, but dubbing it suicide might be a bit much. It is possible to be a “Negative Nancy”. I remember a student that would almost ubiquitously start any response with “It’ll never work…” What kind of help does that bring to the table? Well depending on what follows. Answer it, or account for it I say.

And much like a repressive regime, unfortunately Facebook has threatened legal action against the The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. Especially since the young CEO of Facebook just said that privacy online is not to be expected anymore as a ‘social norm’, you would think he could take a lesson in timing.

Maybe the solution for Facebook is to take a look at Google and apply the motto “Don’t Be Evil” a little more generously.

Go on, let them ‘commit 2.0 suicide’. Why not? They won’t be tweeting, posting or updating about it now will they?

Also see: Social Media Backlash?