Saturday, March 18, 2006

A question

I just got a mail from the owner of recipes365.net, asking me if I want to be a contributor of recipes and now I wonder what this is all about. Anyone who knows anything? After reading some of the posts here lately I'm very wary about everything I am offered to participate in but I wouldn't like to turn down something that could turn into something interesting. I did check out the site and it looks ok but I couldn't find any info there.


This Post was written by Ilva from Lucullian Delights

17 comments:

Marianne said...

I received the same email, and he linked to one of my recipes (which I don't mind). He seems to be pushing hard for me to sign up as a contributor, but I have enough going on keeping my own blog straight, so I don't know. It seems to be a very new blog, but is filled with ads and I guessing was started purely for revenue.

MizD said...

Hmmm... seeing as that site's still got up the standard Wordpress "fill in your info here" text for their about page, barely any completely original content, and yet they've filled their side bar with ads and other money-making endeavours (hah- their Amazon wishist starts with three spendy office items and then moves on to Fortune, Smart Money and a bunch of How To Get Rich Books!)...

and... well, this is most telling: Go to this person's other site: internetfamous.net (it's linked in the text about 5 posts down). Sure there's a mention of accumulated cookbooks in a previous post, but y'know... color me skeptical.

Alanna Kellogg said...

That makes three of us ... whaddayawanna bet it's a hundred?

Cate said...

I got an email early last week and signed up, though haven't done anything yet. I'm juggling too many balls right now and have a few deadlines to get past, but plan to do a few posts by early next week. Didn't seem to be too much involved and I asked a few questions and got reasonable answers. Plan is to distribute revenue among writers.

Kalyn Denny said...

I got the same e-mail, but when I looked at the blog, frankly I wondered why I would want to spend my time contributing recipes when there didn't seem to be anything in it for me. I wrote back saying I barely have time to keep up with my own site and don't really have time to contribute recipes for someone elses (which is certainly true!)

Ilva said...

Thanks for your prompt answers! I think I'll wait and see a bit what happens!

Cate said...

Just a PS ... the site looks different now then when I first saw it. The sidebar is dropped (wasn't before) and I sent him an e-mail asking when I thought it would be done. I don't mind contributing, but want to make he spends as much time maintaining that site as I do mine, as opposed to trying to generating profit, you know?

cookiecrumb said...

I told him not to even attempt to use any content from my site: words or pictures. I don't think he's necessarily evil; I just think he's trying to make easy money. The blog's only just been put up (yes, Mrs. D.) and it's all covered with ads.
If you want to get your stuff on other sites, check out Gather.com. (Thanks, Kevin.)

Cate said...

After doing a little more digging, I think majority might be right on this one.

Stephanie said...

I sent him an email asking a few questions like where he is based and if the site and he were associated with any commercial entity etc. He responded fairly quickly to say he was not based in Singapore (where I am) but did not tell me anything else about his provenance. (I have to ask this because of a contract I have re some of my recipes, just in case you think this was a strange line of questioning.)

He said he was not attached to any commercial entity and there is no commercial purpose to his site. He didn't mention anything about sharing revenue with contributors to me.

His answers are fairly reasonable but I don't know. I find the lack of disclosure on his site slightly discomforting - especially when he is asking the rest of us to be so open with our recipes and site content. And yes, the vast amount of advertisements on his site makes me a little wary.

The only thing that comforted me was seeing Ruth and Mrs C's contributions. But the sceptic in me thinks he is relying on our pull and comfort level with each other to obtain our buy in. You know, like when we were kids and would go to the individual parent to say that the other approved us going on a wild concert weekend?

So, I am still thinking this through.

Catherine said...

Thanks for posting about this. I got the same email and figured it was part of a big sweep. I checked out the site and had the same reaction as most - that it was brand new, not complete, and had lots of ads. My impression was that this person wanted to make money off the work of others with minimal effort on his part.

That said, I do like the idea of contributing and collaborating with other food bloggers. I really value the community "here".

Marianne said...

Hmmm, I did NOT give permission to use my images, I'm not very happy about this. I told him he could link to the recipe. I don't like the idea of him grabbing my images whenever he wants, I'm sending an email.

I agree, though, that the concept is a nice one. I'm just not sure I trust this guy.

Marianne said...

Okay, he responded and said he would take my photo down and back off. I guess we shall see...

Wai Mun said...

I never know that there was so much talking over Recipes365 over this. I will do my best to clarify some of the points raised here.

'seeing as that site's still got up the standard Wordpress "fill in your info here" text for their about page, barely any completely original content, and yet they've filled their side bar with ads and other money-making endeavours'
- Just added one of my contributors details, with more to come.... I'm a IT and Biz geek, what else do you think I will be reading... If you digg further, you might even find that I'm into Design too. =)

Next pls... Yes, I do send out quite a fair bit of emails to cooking blogs for them to contribute, primarily it's because they are doing a better job than me at writing recipes... You have to see the state of my kitchen right now. =p I'm better working on the technical side for my weblog.

Is it about money? Of course!!! But more than that it's about sharing any earnings if any with all my contributors. Truth to be told that this is never really going to be make me rich. Haha...

But all this talk makes me really wonder, if I'm being showcased at BoingBoing, or even better, if I'm BoingBoing seeking for contributors, selling ads space and sharing profits with contributors will there be so much negative feelings. =p

I did be a Brad Pitt or Angeline Jolie. Things would have been so much different. Hehe..

Erin Eats said...

Being new to this whole blogging world, I signed up having only asked a few questions. I really wish I would have been told that this was meant to be a for-profit site, rather than just a good site for recipes. I'm a bit disappointed, to say the least.

FooDcrazEE said...

Nothing was said about making $$ and i signed up and contribute as I love to share recipe..Thats not fair aint it..

Wai Mun, it was supposed to be a site to share recipe...now that you said its kinda $$ making blogs....dont think thats a good idea. Might as well just post the recipe in my blog and share them for FREE...

*disappointed*

Wai Mun said...

O dear, I never really meant to disappoint anyone.

Nevertheless, I will continue to develop Recipes365 to be a recipes-center, community driven weblog.

Feel free to drop once awhile. =)