Tuesday, March 16, 2010

clp.ly Can Clip & Re-Post Web Pages

What is clp.ly (pronounced "KLIP-lee") ?

clp.ly is a tool that makes it easy for users to clip and repost original content. It brings quotes and reposts to life and does it while maintaining the visual integrity and intent of the original publisher with correct attribution and links back. In addition, clp.ly provides analytics for publishers on how their content is being used, what context it’s placed in, and how it's being consumed. The clip maintains its intended form, enhancing the reader’s visual experience and understanding of the original content. Each clip carries attribution and a link back to the originating site.
clp.ly CEO John Pettitt asked members of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) for "feedback and thoughts on how to make the product as photographer friendly as possible."

It's a web clipping and quoting service, a one-click way to make a low resolution screen grab of the top part of a web page that's easy to repost in email or on a blog. It will automatically add a backlink for proper attribution and track where the clip is reposted and how many people view it. clp.ly also has a quoting feature that does something similar with quoted text.

The overall idea is that more and more people are 'curating' the news [and] not really adding much. This gives them a tool to make their posts more compelling while at the same time encouraging the reader to visit the original sources by only providing part of the page at a low resolution. Think of it from a user's standpoint as a tool for fair use.

From a publisher's standpoint it's a way of driving more web traffic. Put a 'clip-this' story button on a page, and people can repost it in a way that carries branding and context, with correct attribution, that drives traffic back to the source and provides analytics on what is being clipped and which parts of a story are being quoted.

One of my concerns in building it is that a thumbnail of a photo is still a photo, and while the law is on the side of fair use, I'm still a photographer and so sensitive to the issue.

Here is a clipped page from the NPPA site (http://clp.ly/Lw4+)that illustrates the issue and here is a demo blog with some posts (http://heythisisinteresting.blogspot.com/)
We tried it ourselves, and here's what KobreGuide.com looks like:


Clipped from: http://clp.ly/L2k by clp.ly

LINK:
http://clp.ly/showclip/61bc5820f765184dee89ac53a06457fd-1268708270

... and here's what our KobreChannel.com blog looks like:


Clipped from: http://clp.ly/L2s by clp.ly

LINK:
http://clp.ly/showclip/8ec820ff82a705022526f28269a212ee-1268708334

"So," asks clp.ly CEO John Pettitt, "what do you think? Is there anything we can do to make it more photographer friendly?"

Thoughts?

1 comment:

Tia Marie said...

Still love this post! We've added some new features lately, have you seen them?

I'd love to hear back from you about what you think. I'm the Community Manager over at clp.ly, tia@clp.ly