Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Repeat... remix...


Trying to find either an online manual for, or an actual user review of, the Coolbphone in order to be able to use it has been an exercise in frustration. Google searches on the terms "Coolbphone" along with "user review" (or other likely combinations of search terms) bring up many, many sites. However, after looking at perhaps eighty or ninety sites they have all either been sites in China selling the Coolbphone, or gadget sites with "reviews" of the phone.

The term "reviews" here is placed, advisedly, in quotes. The content of these many, many "review" sites is remarkably similar. A few clearly credit/reference the (same) source material, but many simply re-use the same picture(s) and a paragraph or two of text (either verbatim or slightly tweaked), surrounded by ads, etc. Most clearly have not had their hands on the actual product and/or item, nor have anything original to say.

There are a few sites e.g. Akihabara that tend to be mostly original material, but the vast majority seem to be "recyclers" with no value added! As an example, consider a new Chinese gadget, the G6Touch. Above is a screen capture of the 'review' on the Akihabara site, while below are screen captures from the following randomly selected dot coms - gadgetblipsredirect, gadgetmix, gayakuman, globalgadgetnews, goodereader, lejournaldegeek, mp4nation, newsdeliver, nextgadgets, and techfresh... Clearly a case of recycle... remix...


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