4 ms·
Funny story. But I am somewhat surprised that there is actually somebody out there who is reading these free PR distributors.
by stfu 14y ago
Funny story. But I am somewhat surprised that there is actually somebody out there who is reading these free PR distributors.
- tokenadult 14y agoI am somewhat surprised that there is actually somebody out there who is reading these free PR distributors Hacker News has submissions from press-release aggregation services all the time. (I'm thinking of PhysOrg and ScienceDaily, among quite a few others.) Many of those submissions reach the front page. Knowing how to write a gee-whiz press release about yourself is a skill that appears to go a long way in the tech community. P.S. Comments about PhysOrg: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3077869 "Yes Physorg definitely has some of the worst articles on the internet." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3198249 "Straight from the European Space Agency, cutting out the physorg blogspam: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/ http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1116/ (press release), http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/ http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1116a/ (video), http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1116.pdf http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/scien... (paper). "PhysOrg: just say no." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3611888 "The physorg article summary is wrong, I think." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108857 "Phys.org is vacuous and often flat wrong." Comments about ScienceDaily: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206 "Blogspam. "Original article (to which ScienceDaily has added precisely nothing): http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dna-changes-following-population-explosion-may-hold-common-disease-clues http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dn... "Underlying paper in Science (paywalled): http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1219240 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1... "Brief writeup from Nature discussing this paper and a couple of others on similar topics: http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic-variants-1.10655 http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic-... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603 "Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening pictures, etc. " . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit that instead of ScienceDaily." Comments about both PhysOrg and ScienceDaily: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3689185 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3689185 "Why hasn't sciencedaily.com or physorg been banned from HN yet?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875529 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875529 "Original source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole-asymmetry.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole-asymmetry... "What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures. (2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own site(s). "Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867361 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867361 "Those sources don't have RSS feeds, and ScienceDaily and PhysOrg have a bad habit of not linking to such things." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4083766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4083766 "Added value in PhysOrg article: zero. "Please, everyone, stop submitting links from PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. I have never ever ever seen anything on those sites that isn't either (1) bullshit or (2) a recycled press release with zero (or often negative) added value. (Sometimes it's both at once.) It only takes ten seconds' googling to find the original source."
- aptwebapps 14y agoGoogle News was aggregating the PR site, so lot's of people would have seen the story that way. Why they were doing that is another question.