The political news site Talking Points Memo (TPM) is no longer available at “Flipboard, Google Currents and a number of other similar aggregator sites.”
In a letter to readers, TPM founder Josh Marshall explained his logic and asked: “Are Operations Like Flipboard Scams Against Publishers?” Check it out:
But say you find TPM on Flipboard, decide it’s great and add it to your viewing routine on Flipboard. Probably you just keep reading us on Flipboard. Clearly you like Flipboard or you wouldn’t be using it. So why would you start visiting TPM? You likely won’t. That may be great for you. It’s definitely great for Flipboard. But is it great for us? Not really. It boosts my ego, I guess. And more people may know about us. But where and how does that turn into our ability to convert that ‘audience’ into a revenue stream that allows us to create our product? I don’t think it does. Or it does in so in such a trivial and unquantifiable way as to be meaningless.
The writer argued that benefits like “reach” or “brand awareness” are not a good enough reason to include your site in these aggregating tools.
However, Marshall’s essay did defend the site’s use of Twitter and Facebook as promotional tools.