1. Mar 13th, 2006

    SpaJAX? This has got to be the most Web 2.0 spam I’ve seen

    This dropped in my inbox today:

    Hey,

    I’m writing to let you know that I’ve built a series of beginner’s Ajax examples/tutorials (dubbed ‘Ajax Toybox’) and made them available for download on my site at http://www.———-.com/.

    I posted on my blog (http://www.———–.com/) about them today.

    At this point the examples include:

    • The mandatory “hello, world” proof-of-concept demonstration.
    • An Ajax powered clock.
    • Ajax powered RSS news feed ticker.
    • An Ajax powered calculator.
    • A dynamic city, state lookup based on zip code.

    A developer reaching out to another developer. I like to help people, so I figured I’ll check out the site, and if the examples are half cool, maybe blog about it. I didn’t expect much, but still.

    What I found out is a developer’s site, with mandatory geek/tech posts, catchy tagline, green pastel colors, Flickr photos and even a NetFlix queue. As Web 2.0 as it gets. But that’s just the wrapper. The candy is even more delicious. It’s a site about search engine optimization (SEO). In other words, turning crap into high page-rank crap.

    I’ve seen SEO sites masquarading as “original content”, serious news, aggregate blogs, and just plain SEO sites. First time I’m seeing someone pull off the AJAX starter kit angel.

    I won’t be placing a link because the no-follow tag is broken, but if you want to take a peak: http://www.funwithjustin.com/

    Update: Ajaxian fell for it. In an interesting twist of irony, if you look at their examples category, the top post is the spammer. The second post down the line? “Sneaky Submissions Supported by Ajax?”. Apparently, yes.

    Printable PDF | Posted by Assaf Filed in general 5 Comments »

    1. Mar 13th, 2006

      Justin Schultz

      Whoa…

      Are you claiming that because my site has information about SEO and marketing that my Ajax examples should be regarded as spam?

      Your post doesn’t even mention the ‘Ajax Toybox’ section of my site, which was afterall, the subject of my email. (And I noticed that you removed the trailing /ajax-toybox/ from the URL as well…)

      The examples are commented and documented JavaScript and PHP code examples and practical demonstrations of Ajax.

      Furthermore, Ajaxian didn’t “fall for it”. I’ve posted several articles that have been listed on Ajaxian. One of them was posted five days ago. The post about “sneaky submissions” is about sneaky form submissions via Ajax code.

      Perhaps you should take the time to read the information before blatantly flaming somebody for “spam”.

      Regards,

      Justin Schultz

    2. Mar 13th, 2006

      Introducing SpaJax: Ajax Examples and Lessons at fun with justin

      [...] This guy had some pretty uninformed things to say about my ‘Ajax Toybox‘ on his blog today: “I’ve seen SEO sites masquarading as “original content”, serious news, aggregate blogs, and just plain SEO sites. First time I’m seeing someone pull off the AJAX starter kit angel. [...]

    3. Mar 13th, 2006

      Sterling Camden

      Uh, Assaf, it looks legit to me. I downloaded the “toybox” and looked at some of the code. Nothing astonishing, but it does work.

    4. Mar 13th, 2006

      Assaf

      Take it as a compliment. It’s an ingenious marketing idea. You’re one smart guy.

    5. Apr 3rd, 2006

      Ben Borges

      Geez!! I wonder what YOU are if Justin is a spammer???
      next time you better read out first :)

    Your comment, here ⇓