Sys-Con caught operating a massive splog

Sys-Con Media, the company behind a range of tech publications and events has been caught running a massive splog.

The site, Ulitzer launched March 27 and was pitched by the company as being designed to replace Wikipedia with “three dimensional live content offerings and dynamic topic structure.” What they don’t mention is that the “1 million original stories contributed by more than 6,000 authors” consist nearly entirely of content scraped in full from other sites without permission.

Aral Balkan exposed the scam when he saw his name appear on the site via a Google News alert. After going public about the issue, Sys-Con then defamed Balkan on the site, calling him a Turkish Fag and a homosexual son of a bitch. The Next Web has more details and screenshots here.

Besides possibly making the most absurd claims I’ve ever read about a new product (read here), there’s something else familiar about this site besides the stolen content that others haven’t picked up on yet: the design.

Compare and contrast: ZDNet vs Ulitzer