TradingMarkets.com offers to drive traffic to my blog – Smart or Just plain Sneaky?

Yesterday, I awoke to this email from Brice at TheMoneyBlogs.com:

—–Original Message—–From: “Brice” Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:46:29To:Subject: from Brice at themoneyblogs

Hello Howard-

I’d like to invite you to be a part of www.themoneyblogs.com/: . It’s growing—we expect it to be one of thelargest money blog sites on the Web. The entire site was built around maximizingpage views. Best of all, it’s free and it would not require any additional work atall from you—we can use your RSS feed to post. You could drive additional trafficto your blog and get even wider exposure. I have a media campaign starting shortly,and it would be nice to have you in there to receive the benefits from this.

What do you think?

Brice

Brice Wightman

www.tradingmarkets.com

818.449.7461 direct

BRICE – HERE IS WHAT I THINK – I THINK IT IS CRAP!

I called Brice, who picked up his own phone and asked him some questions. I immediately smelled a rat. Trading Markets will take my content and brand it in moneyblog design and keep all the advertising dollars from the aggregated data.

I love blogging and don’t mind doing it for free, but this is just plain sneaky.

Worse yet – look at all the stock bloggers that have signed up below. I don’t think 10 percent of these bloggers know that not only are they receiving no advertising revenue, but there ARE NO LINKS BACK TO THE ORIGINAL BLOG SITE.

7 Stocks You Need To KnowA Global PerspectiveAlpha TrendsCanajun FinancesClearFish ResearchCrowder Investment ResearchDayveJohnson on the MarketsDiscovering Undervalued GrowthFinance ProfessorFinancial SkepticFinancial Wisdom w/Gabriel WisdomGualberto DiazIn The MoneyInvest2SuccessInvesting IntelligentlyJalotiLet’s Talk VolatilityMaster Limited PartnershipsMish’s Global Economic Trend AnalysisRally MonkeySetups I’m StalkingSirChartsAlotStockblog.comTaylorTreeThe Average Joe InvestorThe Confused CapitalistThe Corner Office BlogThe Mess That Greenspan MadeThe Prudent InvestorThe Swing of ThingsTheFlyOnTheWall.comTicker SenseTrade It or Fade ItUncle Jack’sValue DisciplineWishing Wealth2d TradingAlmost Trading For A LivingBlue Collar TradingCommodity Option SellingCommodity TraderEmini Technical AlertsForex ProjectFresh Fish DailyFx Technical ResearchGlobal GoldInvestment IdeasLive Options TraderMarket GnomeNetto’s NumbersO & F news and views for futures and forexRandom Roger’s Big PictureResearch Lab TradingRoberto’s Nasdaq TraderSwing Trading the ForexTechnically SpeakingTechnicator.NETTechno-FundamentalistThe Amish ConnectionThe Bull TraderThe EssentialsThe Professional DaytraderThe Weekly WoofTrader XTraderBlog.comTrading QuotesUnderground TradingWhat does it take to be a successful trader?

The more I think about it, the more it smells!

One thing is obvious – EVERYONE WANTS TO BE FAMOUS