Feedpass con job or RSS readers' salvation ?

I'm not joking..
Every blogger / site author out there producing RSS feed , be it XML/RSS1/RSS2 or Smartfeed , now have another thing to worry about besides spamblogs and copycats lifting their work and content form their sites and spoofing new crapped up clones.

Meet Feedpass ..
Those of you, who like me have turned to Feedburner for their syndication needs, would be pretty familar to what's goin on when we look at Feedpass. But there's this added twist that makes this site somewhat...interesting, and has been generating a lot of online interest.

Here's a dummy's summary of what the whole story is about.


Average Joe makes site.
Average Joe's got lotsa updates.
Average Joe gets smart and makes an RSS feed for avid readers.
Average Joe sits back happily and continues publishing work/content.
Average Joe becomes big time web guy for his field,
enjoying high traffic and loadsa returning visitors.

Enter: Feedpass

Dick registers for Feedpass.
Dick registers Average Joe's RSS feed as his own. (because thats the way the company works!)
Dick enjoys small income from Average Joe's feed.(1/3 the income from all google adsense income from the feed landing / starting page)

Average Joe doesn't notice shit.

*end of story, now go to bed darlings..*

I think even the least tech savvy people out there would get what is going on.
Essentially , Dick is collaborating with Feedpass in using someone else's content to create a brand spanking new RSS landing page available for public viewing.
Dick earns 1/3 of all Google Adsense ads placed on that new RSS feed page, 2/3 goes to Feedpass.
Average Joe gets zero.

That's dumb. *Paris Hilton style*

But there's a solution.
The new feed is Dick's until the owner (Average Joe) comes to 'Claim' it from Feedpass.
After which, Average Joe starts getting 2/3 of the aforesaid Google Adsense income, with 1/3 going to feedpass, and 0/3 for Dick.

How?
Average Joe has to register, search for and 'claim' his feed by changing his original site title or original feed title to a random 'letters + numbers' code generated by Feedpass temporarily to confirm it as his.

Average Joe, Dick and Feedpass then go on with their lives.

That's only one side of the coin.
You see, most people reading this right now may not know all that much about RSS besides the fact that they're all over the place, on every other site you see.
The more observant (and highly intelligent cult of the fox members) would notice the little RSS feed bookmark at the end of their URL space at the top of Mozilla's Firefox.

Screenshot:



It's everywhere these days, and serves a purpose to people like me who fancy reading stuff from all over the placewithout having to find the site, or worse..finding the URL from my Bookmarks.
(Given 1 more year, i could use my bookmarks as a search engine by itself. It's that populated..)

To the ordinary user (read: small kids) , they may not have that much of a use for RSS, nor need be concerned. It'll be just another cute orange button.

But for those who are curious about those cute lil orange buttons, Feedpass provides the perfect page for them.
It's so TOTALLY designed for people with little or no knowledge of RSS feeds and the googol of options available to them in terms of method of receiving and viewing these feeds.
The page contains links to subscribe to a feed by e-mail, RSS aggregator / reader sites, browser plug-in and social bookmark tools.
It's like the ultimate starting point for anyone who knows as much about RSS as they do about life.




So, the important question.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT ME / MY BLOG / SITE / RSS FEED ?

Easy.
Go to Feedpass and check who's got your feed (if you syndicate one that is)
If your feed is there and someone's holding it,
you can either choose to:

a. claim it as yours, because , duh., it's your content being repackaged like some lousy black market Petaling Street goods.
(even if you know your blog doesn't generate sufficiently significant traffic to generate any Google Adsense income.)

b. ignore because you can't be bothered.
(Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery for you and that shit site you set up in a day is barely updated so you couldn't give a rat's @$S. Whatever..)


If you DON'T have a feed for your site/blog for whatever reason, you can choose either Feedpass or Feedburner (for Blogger sites, you should select 'Publish Site Feed' in your Settings>Site Feed.)
Those not using Blogger can look for auto RSS Feed making sites as another low tech way of doin things.

--UPDATE--

In response to a question by a friend,
no, Feedpass doesn't apparently make feeds for your site / blog.
You need to find any site out there that makes feeds for your site.


If you're some problogger (in which case you probably know more than me) and have your own special domain like ,say, www.lingghezhi.com (man, someday..someday..) ,
You need to find any site out there that makes feeds for your site.
Or you could try lookin for this software i saw that was similar to Typepad..
But then again, you probably know that already.




Links:

Feedpass
Feedburner
My Feedpass feed (http://www.feedpass.com/lingghezhiblogspot)
My Feedburner Smartfeed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/lingghezhi)
Techcrunch (Michael Arrington-Feedpass does absolutely nothing)
Mashable
Mark Evans (Feedpass:Vultures!)
Libraryclips (Feedpass : RSS landing page)
Interview with Rick Klau of Feedburner
thesocialsoftwareweblog (feedpass makes RSS easy)
What is RSS ? (Wikipedia)