Better Health - Latest Comments in How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

sarah — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:49:08 -0000

And that isn’t even the tip of it.
The real scam by wellsphere is that they tell you to put their widget on your blog which means you’re linking to their site while they put a rel nofollow on the link to your blog from their site… that is a nasty SEO trick.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Singletude — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:17:30 -0000

As someone whose blog was ripped without my permission, I'm trying to spread the word about Wellsphere's Health Blogger Network Participation Agreement, which you can find on their site. Part of it reads as follows:

"You hereby grant Wellsphere a royalty-free, paid-up, non-exclusive, worldwide, license to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and publicly display your Health Blogger Content on Wellsphere.com. If you request that any of your Health Blogger Content be removed from Wellsphere.com, the foregoing license shall terminate and such Health Blogger Content shall be promptly removed from Wellsphere.com. To make such a request, please email Wellsphere at support@wellsphere.com."

So as long as you request that your content be removed, Wellsphere has no further authority to use it.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

hjohns — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:28:56 -0000

he is on facebook, so is rutman

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

michael — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:11:15 -0000

TBTAM, you're right on the money on the biz model. This is practically many of the new web2.0 biz model these days, where UGC (user generated content) is what brings in the advertising money for big corporation.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Sophie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:29:32 -0000

I was going to say how glad I am that I went with my gut instinct and declined the many email invitations from Geoffrey Rutledge but thinking back, it wasn't instinct at all. I did some research and all the signs were there from the inside scoop blog posts from ex-employees to the actual Terms of Service.

But they did make it all sound very tempting and flattering so I can see why people signed up. I guess it's true what they say, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

SterileEye — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:51:18 -0000

Thank God I declined their offer some months ago!

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

ex wellsphere employee — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:51:21 -0000

wow. about 30 of us have been waiting for these clueless morons to be exposed. we tried to warn the public of them and their less than ethical behavior. i'm sad to say but had any of you done a tiny bit of diligence you would have been been presented with some major warning signs. a simple google search of 'ron gutman' is telling.

here are a few gems(you must read the comments):

http://ceppi.blogs.com/arbi...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2...

http://venturebeat.com/2007...

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

AmyT of www.diabetesmine.com — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:40:33 -0000

I couldn't believe that so many bloggers fell for the trick of publishing Wellsphere's promotional icon that touts them as a "Featured Blogger." It's clearly just another way to drive their own traffic.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:46:30 -0000

Don't like the way this company treated you? Then maybe you shouldn't have signed that contract granting them permission to sell your stuff.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Doug Bremner — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:06:17 -0000

My flattering email made flattering references to my work history and other things which in retrospect were probably just cherry picked from my online cv. I googled the name of the Dr. (Like, do I know you?) and was a little insulted when I found some sites listing the form email, so I ignored that and the followup emails. Btw I used to write for huffpost and Arianna's quote to the NYT about how they don't pay the bloggers but they help them publicize their sites, books, etc simply isn't true. I got sick of writing things that were tied to the news and having it not posted for three days, or not at all, or having things that went against their bias not posted, or having to compete with women writing about their open marriages, etc, etc.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Phil Butler — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:51:51 -0000

Bravo on the Google SERP's. Duplicate content hurts really bad and I would not be surprised to know Google has already penalized someone.

As for this story, I would like to invite interested parties to help me do a piece on Sitepoiont about this. Use my email if so inclined.

Always,
Phil Butler

P.S. Calling BS is fun

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Casey — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:51:13 -0000

I was also approached by Wellsphere. I am a "mommy blogger" and not a health blogger. I do write about breastfeeding, but I found it odd that he would flatter me, my blog, and my writing to such a degree. I ignored his e-mails after the initial one because he had no answers when I asked how he saw my mommy-day-to-day-life blog fitting in with blogs on new treatments for rheumatoid arthritis. I'm glad I did.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Lee W. — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:10:14 -0000

Wellsphere is a business. One whose lawyers did a good job of writing CYA language to avoid possible lawsuits for stealing other people's content. How to fire back? Hit em' where it hurts, in the Google SERP (search engine results pages).

I suggest that all bloggers who feel screwed by Wellsphere petition Google to consider penalizing the business for its shady practices. Google can override the official “lawfulness” of pulling RSS feeds and claiming property rights on the content ... and operate from an ethical point of view.

Wellsphere’s hidden print is what the internet IS NOT about…and Google has the power to make the content that they’ve stolen worthless in terms of search engine ranking. That might be our best hope.

REPORT WELLSPHERE HERE: https://www.google.com/webm...

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:42:33 -0000

i'm one who got scammed. i've taken my blog private so they can't access my feed anymore and will be moving. asked them to cancel my membership.

fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Doc Shazam — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:36:45 -0000

Thanks for the expose on this. Doesn't US copyright law say that I own my own published work, as soon as it is published? How then could someone else take that away?

In any case, with the magic of search engines and "link love" from one health blogger to the next, the need for aggregators like this is simply not there.

If my blog, Mr. Hassle's Long Underpants, Can't stand on its own two flannel legs, then it wouldn't benefit anyone else's blog either.

I've ignored all such requests out of simple common sense and pride in my original work over the past 6 years

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Roy — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:07:54 -0000

Val, thank you for exposing this episode to the light of day. At My Three Shrinks, we tried to get Wellsphere to pay up for the access to our blog content, but no luck, so we told them no thanks.

But I don't feel they truly tricked people. Their intent was clear.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Kim — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:21:33 -0000

Thank you Dr. Val. Ron Gutman and his doctor should be SUED for the amount of harassing emails and tricks on the contract. Greed and slim over personal value and self worth! Shame on you Ron Gutman! Never thought a person could be in the health field and be so callous.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Fool Me Once... — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:49:01 -0000

I feel for all of you, but see my earlier post.

There is a much larger lesson here: don't trust MBA's who, for the large part, have few skills and little knowledge that they can monetize themselves without parasitizing the skills and knowledge of others.

Some MBA's come from a position of expertise in a domain. The MBA is a networking after-thought. These types don't seem all that common.

I don't know which type this Gutman character is, but I suspect a few former employees could fill in the details.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's more about the person than the degree, but I think there is something to what I am saying.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Mark Johnson — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:58:10 -0000

As a former employee of Wellsphere, I share in the pain of the bloggers who feel duped. Unfortunately, I got an up-close-and-personal view of how unscrupulous the management team at Wellsphere is and I'm not surprised by their behavior.

What I think is most unfortunate is that they've been rewarded for screwing dozens of employees, thousands of bloggers, and god knows how many other people. I hope that all of the bloggers included in Wellsphere's "network" pull out as soon as possible.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Lou — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:53:57 -0000

I'm one that got scammed. I have a drug addicted son, and have blogged about it for a year. I signed on with Wellsphere, and after a time I stared getting questions from their readers, as I was a health "expert". These were serious, potentially life threatening questions and I was very alarmed. It took many emails to Dr Rutledge & others to get my blog taken off the site. I'm a mom, not a medical expert. Is anyone else concerned about the site dispensing medical advice from amateur (for the most part) bloggers??

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:42:40 -0000

It's interesting how easy it was for this site to scam a bunch of highly educated people.

It would be interesting to see some of these folks think out loud about why they allowed themselves to be scammed, and then to think about how similar it is to the ways their patients get scammed by bad medical "news" or "information." Maybe they'd have a little more understanding of how easy it is to get scammed?

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Trauma Junkie — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:56:31 -0000

How crazy is that?

I was actually thinking of becoming a blog author for Wellsphere but I had a gut feeling that told me not to do so.

Nice job getting to the bottom of this, Dr. Val.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Karina — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:40:45 -0000

Hi Dr. Val,
I followed this through Enrico's (MexicoMedicalStudent) post today. Thanks for making this clearer for us.

I too was contacted by the same Dr. about writing for Wellsphere. I did not outrightly decline, I responded by saying I would look into it when I get the chance. Fortunately, I never got the chance.

Thank so much again for making this clear for everyone.

Best Regards,
Karina

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Janet Geddis — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:27:27 -0000

I was one of the duped ones--joined on a whim while knowing full well that the doctor who'd written me this "personal" letter hadn't really personally sought me out. I should have paid better attention to my instincts: Wellsphere's tendency to fill up my inbox with offers to feature my as a leading blogger, a community "expert," and to have me compete for best blogger awards smacked of promotion and not a genuine interest in health. Alas.

Re: How The Health Blogosphere Was Scammed

Fool Me Once... — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:54:22 -0000

Did any of you folks bother to Google Ron Gutman before you even entered into a discussion or agreement with them?

Had you done so, you would have found a rather long list of former employees who documented, in great detail, major issues with the ethics and motives of his operation. I have no idea if those links will turn up high in any searches now and I don't care.

I feel bad for those of you who feel duped, but it seems like it was avoidable. On the other hand, you all should feel your collective power and you should exercise it however you see fit.