Con indeed?

Some people dislike Sys-Con because of the hugely-obtrusive advertisements that they push over there. However, it's possible to only ever link to printer-friendly (and therefore 'clean') versions of the articles, many of which are about Novell. Other sites are no friends of Sys-Con due to a particular incident and a specific writer, but the habits of warping press release is nothing new, either. This was noted before in some Saturday postings,

Here is a newly-published press release from Microsoft's partners at Xandros. (highlighted are examples of similarities)

New Xandros Management Tool Facilitates Red Hat Server Administration

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - June 17, 2008) - Red Hat Summit -- Xandros, Inc., the leading provider of custom OEM Linux solutions, next-generation Linux desktop and server products, and advanced cross-platform Windows-Linux management tools, today announced the release of the all new Xandros Bridge Ways Management Console for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, to be showcased at the Red Hat Summit in Boston. The BridgeWays Management Console, immediately available as a free download from the Xandros web site, brings powerful graphical management of Red Hat servers to system administrators who may have Windows Server skill sets, but no prior Linux experience.

Watch how Sys-Con turned it into Xandros publicity, merely by tweaking the press release.

Xandros Management Tool Facilitates Red Hat Server Administration

Xandros announced the release of the all new Xandros BridgeWays Management Console for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The BridgeWays Management Console, available as a free download from the Xandros web site, brings powerful graphical management of Red Hat servers to system administrators who may have Windows Server skill sets, but no prior Linux experience.

It might be worthwhile to keep an eye on Sys-Con publications in the future, if only just to keep track of 'reused' press releases. This is not an isolated incident.

What was already alluded to (albeit very briefly) a week ago is the fact that Sys-Con might be messing about with Google News results, using keyword saturation. Maybe it's not deliberate, but the site did once vanish from Google News (for about a year) until just recently. An anonymous source suggested to us that it's worth informing Google. Completely unrelated articles show up where they do not bear any resemblance to the search query.

It ought to be noted that reproducing press releases is fine, but rewriting them and presenting them as though they are article (original work) is a separate and problematic subject. Apparently it's more of a problem in Japan too, based on the opinion of those more familiar with legal issues. ⬆