FuddyTV.com Blog | Movies, Videos by the Makers of Car Dance Party!

When you take a quick look at the people who have shaped our internet you kind of get a dirty, filmy taste in your mouth. From Facebook and Digg to MySpace and Ebaumsworld you realize that these people are just as messed up as all of us. Except they’ve got money, power and popularity…

1. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.com

Though he claims to have graduated from Harvard, he is in fact a dropout. In 2003 Zuckerberg worked on a project called ConnectU. To quote Dickipedia: “In 2003, a group of students from a separate entrepreneurial endeavor called ConnectU approached Zuckerberg to finish some coding. Several months later, Zuckerberg dropped their project for a new one of his creation, called Facebook. Zuckerberg’s new site was completely different from ConnectU, except for its premise, target audience, uses, business model, and source code. The ConnectU creators filed suit against Zuckerberg.” So essentially the site that Zuckerberg created, Facebook, is just a rip off. Though as Dickipedia mentions, this could be a good thing…would you want to be addicted to a site created by these guys?

2. Kevin Rose, Digg.com

Kevin Rose created Digg.com, the popular social-bookmarking site where users “Digg” a story, video or blog post and share it with other users. The formula is flawed however, Digg is more of a popularity contest rather than a deposit of truly good content. Evidence of this popped up when stories were mysteriously disappearing that looked poorly on Digg and Kevin Rose. Alternatively, two “popular” Digg links were made popular by the exact same list of users…the last user to “Digg” it…Kevin Rose. There are also accusations that companies will buy Diggs which propels them to the “Popular” area and garauntee you traffic. Furthermore, a screenshot from TechCrunch’s “Digg Army” where they will falsely digg stories just to get them popular.

3. Tom Anderson, MySpace.com

Remarkably Tom is the least “faily” of any of the people listed in this list. But the website he created is tops on the list of awful and ridiculous. Myspace.com is still the most popular social networking site on the web, but I think we can all agree it is the worst content wise. After graduating with a master’s degree in film he and some assciates created Myspace which was bought out by News Corp., yes the same company that created the “Fair and Balanced” Fox News Channel. Tom will always be your friend, as he’s the first friend anyone has on Myspace, but it appears this may not be Tom (shock!). Yes the corporate hacks have taken over Myspace.

4. Eric Bauman, ebaumsworld.com

Hey! Why not make money off other people’s work right!? That’s what eBaum’s World does. It wouldn’t be so bad if they simply embedded the original video from YouTube or Brightcove, but they download the video and brand it “eBaum’s World” as if it was their own without any attribution to the original creator. This ain’t good and while it happened to us here at FuddyTV, it also happened to many, many other people around world. Someone even created an ebaumsworldsucks.com website (NSFW language). This, from Wickipedia: “eBaum’s World has been the subject of significant controversy in many Internet communities due to numerous incidents of content being taken from other sites, such as YTMND, Something Awful, Albino Blacksheep, Olde English, Fark, Newgrounds and Cracked, without attribution. For example, Olde English always finishes their videos with a screen that states that “This video is protected under a Creative Commons License”; in more than one video copied from Olde English to eBaum’s World, the final screen is cut out of the video, whereas YouTube and other video sites have it in to credit the creators. Companies such as Viacom, 20th Century Fox, and Sega have all claimed that eBaum’s World has infringed on their copyrights as well. Eric Bauman denies critics’ claims that the site’s content is stolen, citing research done by site editors and the consent form that must accompany uploads of material. He claims to honor all requests to remove unauthorized material , but this is contested by some content creators. In particular, web artist and animator Jonti Picking, was only able to have his animations removed at the beginning of 2006. Bauman has claimed that he formerly worked with Picking, though Picking has stated that this is false.”

Discuss.

Cheers,
Ryan for FuddyTV