Why are OzBargain deals being replicated on Shopo?

L[Deactivated] on 12/01/2012 - 19:36
Last edited 13/01/2012 - 09:20

After reading this OzBargain - http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/60878 - on Wusthof Knives,
I did a bit of googling just to get a bit more info on the knives, and my search came up with this thread on Shopo :

http://www.shopo.com.au/wp-content/plugins/zingiri-forum/myb…

which appears to be a cut & paste of the original OzBargain deal & discussion; with just a little bit of editing.

Seemed a bit strange - what's the relationship between OzBargain and Shopo?

EDIT: Fixed spelling of shopo - just the one p (better late than never)

General Discussion

Comments

  • retiredfeline on 12/01/2012 - 19:46

    Yes, strange. Perhaps screenscraping? I wonder if all those commenters who got scraped like the new handles assigned to them.

    What would happen if you did an experiment and entered a comment in the OzB thread? See if it shows up on Shoppo later?

    • scrimshaw on 12/01/2012 - 20:49

      I imagine that this must be somebody's pet project, probably to experiment with programming or otherwise.

      What would happen if you did an experiment and entered a comment in the OzB thread?

      Interestingly, the content that is scraped and copied over to the forum seem to be selective -i.e the forum does not display all comments — it randomly choses comments from Ozb and posts it under a random alias.

  • [Deactivated] on 12/01/2012 - 20:07

    Here's another one:

    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/61155

    became

    http://www.shopo.com.au/wp-content/plugins/zingiri-forum/myb…

    a link to a previous OzBargain was removed, other than that it's pretty much the same; but yes - the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

    DayDream became BeautyQueen.
    JustHooked became ILoveLucy. Gotta be happy with those handles!

    Curiouser & curiouser. I suppose it's a way to get google hits and traffic to their site.

    • altomic on 16/01/2012 - 00:02

      the shopo link is now gone.

  • ozAzn on 12/01/2012 - 20:44

    Creepy.

    deconstruction of links above…

    wp-content is wordpress (blogs)

    and Zingiri is like an app for forums

    http://www.zingiri.com/

    which utilises myBB (bulletin board) [found using google, and had that brief description below the link]

    all info found using GOOGLE.

  • berger on 12/01/2012 - 21:28

    i am known as bargainhurter in one post.

    dodgy practises, mod input??

  • tonyjzx on 12/01/2012 - 22:57

    lots of sites do straight cut n pastes

    its just to drive traffic with no effort

  • Geewhizz on 13/01/2012 - 08:28
    +3

    They neglected to change some critical wording in this one - dead giveaway, I'd say:

    Smile HTC Sensation XL with Beats Only 1000 Tokens from CokeUnleashed
    http://www.cokeunleashed.com.au/index.jsp
    It needs 1000 tokens in your cokeunleashed account, so to all ozbargainers with 1000 tokens and more, be hurryyyyyyyy!
    steps:
    1. go to cokeunleashed website
    2. login
    3. click partners
    4. find page 13
    5. and click Get it now!

    • berger on 13/01/2012 - 08:46

      Lol.

    • YadaYadaYada on 13/01/2012 - 23:02

      The reference to ozbargainers has been removed when I went to look for it. I can't believe someone would do this - rip off people's posts and put them on their own site unashamedly!! and not just people's posts - almost all the posts! AND the worst part is, they are a member of this forum too!!! ><

      • Geewhizz on 16/01/2012 - 13:48

        Seeing as he's obviously reading this thread, I don't suppose we're allowed to tell him here what we REALLY think of him Scotty? lol

  • retiredfeline on 13/01/2012 - 08:42

    Has anybody worked out each OzB poster gets a particular handle, or the remapped handle is randomly chosen from a pool? Just curious.

    • berger on 13/01/2012 - 08:52

      Its randomly chosen, i was Bargainhurter in one thread, then a different name in another.

    • Geewhizz on 13/01/2012 - 09:00

      The comments are randomly distributed.

    • retiredfeline on 13/01/2012 - 09:05

      That's a pity, I was so looking forward to seeing what handle I got/might get. :)

  • ozzie13 on 13/01/2012 - 09:41

    It seems that Ron Gully (The Gully Settlement) is also the owner of BidMate.com.au if that helps.

    From the About Us page:

    "Safety and high Community standards

    At BidMate we believe in the highest Community standards.

    Honesty, trustworthiness and Community safety are a priority. BidMate utilizes the latest technology to ensure your trading will be safe and free from problems. Our antifraud technology makes trading on BidMate safer. User verification, feedback monitoring and dispute services assist our users to have a secure and pleasurable experience."

    • glitchx on 13/01/2012 - 09:54
      +1

      I would love a pleasurable experience ;)

  • scotty on 13/01/2012 - 10:05
    +6

    Yes we have known the existence of Shopo.com.au for quite a while. Also have been too busy to do anything about it…

    • It has nothing to do with OzBargain. It's merely a scrapper site and it appears the they have gone an extra mile to also scrap the comments.
    • According to WHOIS, "THE GULLY SETTLEMENT" runs it, i.e. this member here on OzBargain who runs sites such as bidmate.com.au and dealo.com.au. And this guy on Whirlpool.
    • They do not have the right to copy/scrap the content from OzBargain. By default (if there's no clear licensing statement like Creative Common), all content from the Internet are copyrighted by their owners, although certain degree of fair-use is allowed. I don't think scrapping the entire page with no acknowledgement is "fair use", especially when they also slap on their own copyright at the bottom of the page.

    I've just sent an email to Ron asking him to stop it. If you too don't feel they have the right to scrap the content on OzBargain, feel free to let him know using Shopo's contact form.

  • [Deactivated] on 13/01/2012 - 11:10
    +3

    That guy on whirlpool?! But he was bagging OzBargain not so long ago:

    Yep, I noticed that Ozbargain is a frightening place to post.

    Who want to place a coupon or bargain there if your gunna go up in flames – maybe sites without comments
    will have the best and most coupons/bargains.

    and now he's scraping these "flames" and comments for his own site?!

    He was also praising shopo.com

    I see now that shopo is aggregating daily deals and coupons – is anyone else doing this? I recon all the
    daily deals in one place has to be a boomer, IMO!
    Edit – I would also move shopo to number 1 or number 2 as they seem to be listing hundreds of daily
    bargains/coupons per day now.

    No mention that he has a stake in the site. No REP flag there.

    • neil on 14/01/2012 - 02:02

      I've reported a whole bunch of other users spamming their sites in that thread. If you can find Googlable evidence that humanworth is the owner of shopo, that a Whirlpool mod can verify, then they will penalty box him and remove those obviously spammy posts.

      EDIT: Nevermind. Found some Googleable stuff.
      EDIT2: WP mods have cleaned things up.

  • LKB on 13/01/2012 - 14:50

    I think he got the picture… I can't view any of the shopo links that were posted here - all seem to be removed. I guess the only thing that went up in flames here was HIS site !!

  • k on 13/01/2012 - 19:13
    +1

    I've noticed the same with topbargains.com.au. The users on there, especially BEATIT, spam deals (most of them are rubbish) to try and win the prize money at the end of the week.

    WTF. Shopo is replicating every decent deal on this site. zzzz…

    • YadaYadaYada on 13/01/2012 - 23:29

      BEATIT has really been profiteering from his posts:- he's won every week for a month at least:

      http://www.topbargains.com.au/blog/category/competition-winn…

      • kupkes on 13/01/2012 - 23:46

        Not justifying what BEATIT is doing, but from Top Bargains point of view, $100/week for someone who is contributing so much to their site (and possibly attracting extra traffic) is probably a bargain for them!

        Probably goes to show it is good Ozbargain stopped with the weekly prizes though. The community spirit (and bargain quality) should be a lot better if people are sharing because they rand to, rather than just cause!

        • scotty on 14/01/2012 - 00:14

          I've stopped the weekly competition mainly due to administrative issue, especially all the overheads dealing with the sponsors — some are good, and some are just PITA to chase things up. Much prefer spending the time developing new feature for the community.

        • kupkes on 14/01/2012 - 00:51
          +1

          I think I read something at the time that the competitions stopped for administrative type reasons, but by then it seems like the community had evolved so that the competitions weren't needed to keep the good deals coming (you made a good call).

          It works well for me though… I always enjoy logging into ozbargain and seeing a new feature pop up around the place, keeps the place interesting (along with all the bargains of course). Keep up the great work!

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