Just a quick update on what's going on with Mizozo's migration to WordPress ...
In short, this is a hard thing to do when you're swinging a full time job, wife and kid. Today being Halloween pretty much guarantees that I will have no time to spend on this later in the evening, but slow and steady wins the race, no?
Other than the lack of time, certain things turned out a lot easier than expected and a few things are as hard as I expected. The current plan is to build an XML export file similar to the one that WordPress generates when exporting a site. I have tested various files and am pretty sure I can mimic the exact format of the file. In fact, I am pretty much mimicking everything right now aside from images ... which is one of the difficult bits anticipated and mentioned earlier.
The images pose quite a problem for a number of reasons. For starters, there are in excess of 250,000 images currently being stored on the Mizozo servers. Each image used in the site is stored in 4 different formats (3 sizes and the original), which increases the count substantially. There are a number of problems moving these images, one of which is the removal of all unnecessary images (there's no better time to get rid of them than now). Second, importing the images into the WordPress CMS.
I have decided that I will not be uploading all the images into the CMS, only the primary image. This should make things a bit easier, but since I already need to develop the logic to move one image, not sure if moving all the images isn't just going to be easier. My thought is to create a subdomain within Mizozo which will simply house all the old images, then link directly to them by rewriting the body of the articles. We'll see how this turns out.
Looks like things are moving along quite well, but time is not working in my favor. If I had a month off from work I should be able to complete this, but since this isn't an option its hard to say how long this project will last. I will do my best to keep you all in the loop.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
The Migration to WordPress is in Full Swing
Just as a quick update on what's going on with Mizozo, I have recently begun the migration from our proprietary content management system to WordPress. There is an incredible amount of work involved. Initially I had hoped to use the funds that Mizozo earns to hire developers to do this, but being a developer myself I figured it would be much more efficient to do it on my own.
This migration is very tricky, going far beyond simply moving data. In the current phase of development, I am writing migration scripts to pull the data out of Mizozo and enter them into a WordPress database. This isn't easy, due to Mizozo's terribly written Database, and its constant evolution over time without anyone ever going back to remove unwanted bits. This is predominantly my fault, I am lazy, but this effort will hopefully vindicate me.
After the data moves, the next step will be to migrate the images. WordPress has a strange way of handling images, strange compared to how Mizozo currently handles it, so this will be quite the challenge. Likewise, upon initial examination, it is apparent that we lost a lot of data from our earlier articles. Tons of images are missing from our older articles. I don't know when this happened, but now that it is known we need to identify what to do. I need to see if the images are recoverable, and if not, I need to identify which images we are storing that are not needed. Currently, Mizozo has about 22GB of images, and if we can discard some of them it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.
As things progress, I will keep you all up to date. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for improvement, now would be the ideal time to make your voice heard.
This migration is very tricky, going far beyond simply moving data. In the current phase of development, I am writing migration scripts to pull the data out of Mizozo and enter them into a WordPress database. This isn't easy, due to Mizozo's terribly written Database, and its constant evolution over time without anyone ever going back to remove unwanted bits. This is predominantly my fault, I am lazy, but this effort will hopefully vindicate me.
After the data moves, the next step will be to migrate the images. WordPress has a strange way of handling images, strange compared to how Mizozo currently handles it, so this will be quite the challenge. Likewise, upon initial examination, it is apparent that we lost a lot of data from our earlier articles. Tons of images are missing from our older articles. I don't know when this happened, but now that it is known we need to identify what to do. I need to see if the images are recoverable, and if not, I need to identify which images we are storing that are not needed. Currently, Mizozo has about 22GB of images, and if we can discard some of them it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.
As things progress, I will keep you all up to date. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for improvement, now would be the ideal time to make your voice heard.
Labels:
developments,
Mizozo Labs,
WordPress
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Update on the latest DMCA Takedown Notice
Yesterday, a few hours after sending my response (mentioned here), I received a response by what looks like a secretary at the firm in question. The response is at the bottom of this thread, but since it makes mentions of further communication 'shortly', I figured I would hold off on posting until I had all the info. Well, I still haven't received anything, so I figured I would just update you all on where the situation stands.
Note: I am avoiding using the firm primarily so as not to act as an advertising service for them. Of course, if you are overly curious, just check out the PDF of the forms I received.
Dear Mr. Golub,Thank you for responding to us. Someone from our office will get back to you shortly.Sincerely,xxxxx
Labels:
Copyright,
DMCA,
Takedown Notice
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
More articles being removed from Mizozo due to Copyright Takedown Notice
I am still baffled by how these Copyright lawyers work. They seem to think that by scaring people into believing that they will be sued people will just pay up. This particular letter is quite clever, they don't offer a settlement right away, instead they provide a phone number hoping to get you on the line with someone else to scare you. Very clever.
Also, rather than going through the DMCA channels provided by the US federal government, they decided to mail the forms directly. This, too, gives people a greater sense of foreboding. I would guess that many give emails less weight than regular mail. I assume that the lawyers in question are hoping that more people will just pay up quickly, rather than risk being taken to court.
Most frightening are the amounts. Immediately you are presented with a range of $750 to $30,000 per copyrighted image, and then they claim a $150,000 for each intentionally copyrighted image ... wow, I wonder where these numbers come from? They claim lost revenue, which makes sense to a point, these images are virtually everywhere. I bet that occasionally photographers intentionally spread them around just so that they can work on these types of extortion schemes.
Two articles were removed from Mizozo due to the letter. The first was involving Kendal Jenner, and the second involving Joanna Krupa. Both were candid articles, so obviously paparazzi were involved. This seems to be a recurring theme in these takedown notices. What is most interesting is that each article contained a series of about 15 images, but only a few of them mentioned and the rest were ignored. I wonder if the photographer spread his images around the web, then sold the rights to someone, after which the buyer decided to sue. Maybe this is the business model being employed?
Here is a link to a PDF of the letter I received. Hopefully it will give you all some idea of the strategies employed by lawyers these days when threatening site owners. Also, below is the response I sent with the PDF attached to the email in the letter:
Also, rather than going through the DMCA channels provided by the US federal government, they decided to mail the forms directly. This, too, gives people a greater sense of foreboding. I would guess that many give emails less weight than regular mail. I assume that the lawyers in question are hoping that more people will just pay up quickly, rather than risk being taken to court.
Most frightening are the amounts. Immediately you are presented with a range of $750 to $30,000 per copyrighted image, and then they claim a $150,000 for each intentionally copyrighted image ... wow, I wonder where these numbers come from? They claim lost revenue, which makes sense to a point, these images are virtually everywhere. I bet that occasionally photographers intentionally spread them around just so that they can work on these types of extortion schemes.
Two articles were removed from Mizozo due to the letter. The first was involving Kendal Jenner, and the second involving Joanna Krupa. Both were candid articles, so obviously paparazzi were involved. This seems to be a recurring theme in these takedown notices. What is most interesting is that each article contained a series of about 15 images, but only a few of them mentioned and the rest were ignored. I wonder if the photographer spread his images around the web, then sold the rights to someone, after which the buyer decided to sue. Maybe this is the business model being employed?
Here is a link to a PDF of the letter I received. Hopefully it will give you all some idea of the strategies employed by lawyers these days when threatening site owners. Also, below is the response I sent with the PDF attached to the email in the letter:
Hello.Thanks
The copyrighted content referenced in the attached PDF has been removed from Mizozo.
Dan
Labels:
Copyright,
DMCA,
Takedown Notice
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Mizozo's September Numbers
With the contests over, there has been a significant drop in visitors. It looks like those contests did, in fact, have a decent affect on how people posted and socialized their articles. Hopefully we will be able to bring back the contests, but unfortunately not until the next phase of development is complete.
That being said, here are the quick numbers for September:
I will no longer be doing the Top 5 articles, primarily because it takes too long to compile, but for those looking for the Google Analytics numbers for the site, here's the link.
That being said, here are the quick numbers for September:
Visitors: 90,638
Page Views: 163,433
Pages Per Visit: 1.8
Earnings: $274.63
I will no longer be doing the Top 5 articles, primarily because it takes too long to compile, but for those looking for the Google Analytics numbers for the site, here's the link.
Labels:
Google,
Monthly Report,
Transparent Company
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