A new feature from Deja.com

July 26, 2000 1:53 PM

A new feature from Deja.com "will automatically link mentions of product names in discussion threads to a commerce area on its site." Is it really useful, as Deja claims, or does it imply endorsements for the linked products by the authors of the posts?
posted by phichens (7 comments total)

...as the once-loved deja continues its long and steady decline into suckitude.
posted by sad_otter at 1:59 PM on July 26, 2000

Well, ok, if you want to be a pedant, (and I usually do), USENET IS NOT HTML. Therefore, it shouldn't be expected that the links came from the original posters.

Alas, everyone *thinks* that HTML is acceptable in the body of a Usenet posting (fuckoff and die, Netscape :-), so yeah, people will misunderstand it, and no, they shouldn't be doing it.

Who wants to make the fuckedcompany.com posting?
posted by baylink at 2:36 PM on July 26, 2000

It's really neat tho, you've got to admit. I mean, they've taken this huuuuge database of data and tied it to relevant information. I think it's kinda neat. And the technology behind it is pretty impressive. Deja has like millions and millions of things in their DB, and they can pull apart a usenet post and put in links and not increase the load time too much. That's what I want to do! heh.
posted by benbrown at 4:25 PM on July 26, 2000

Storing and making my Usenet postings is one thing, but changing the text (which they are most definitely doing by adding a link) in this way, without my permission or even knowledge, for private gain is way out there, I think. Copyright applies to Usenet too, after all.

I mean it would be if I could be bothered to spend any time using the suckhole that Usenet has become.
posted by mikel at 7:54 AM on July 27, 2000

Oh - yeah, it IS neat, for sure - I agree with that, absolutely.
posted by mikel at 7:55 AM on July 27, 2000

Deja is, however, providing you the free service of the Usenet archive, and the ability to browse usenet wherever you are on the web. So? They add links to provide you with more information. I don't think that's wrong at all. These aren't direct links to purchase an item -- they're to provide you with more information.

Back when Boyer and I were doing TeethMag, we wanted to do something very similar to this -- If you have this huge database of text which COULD be interlinked, why aren't you linking it? Deja is, and I think it's great.
posted by benbrown at 10:47 AM on July 28, 2000

I've had the same thought rumbling around my head for a while, and am going to work on a nifty way to do so, once I finish getting PHP setup. I want everything on my site to be massively linked. From every 'the' to the rare times I use 'octegenarian' (since it seems to be the MeFi word of the day :-) I don't just want a web, I want a freakin' rat's nest.

But, at the same time, it's stuff I'll be doing to my text, at my volition.

Hrm. Maybe I'll link a spell checker into that massive database, too. :-)

Deja's free, my nntp server isn't. I like Deja, and I like this idea, a lot, but I can see where people are coming from.

There are a lot of people that are concerned about their messages being distorted into an advertisement, and that's understandable.

I think if Deja only modified text that was posted via Deja, no one would have any problem, and they'd still be able to add a lot of links.
posted by cCranium at 11:58 AM on July 28, 2000