Yahoo and Webdunia - The inside story!

It is a little amusing, amazing and agonizing to see how the corporate world looks at the blogs and bloggers as silly little creatures which they can play with, manipulate and crush at their will.


As we know, on the issue of plagiarizing contents from Malayalam blog world to startup the so-called revolution of the language portals, Yahoo somehow still takes the 'That's not my kid' attitude. It has been a point-the-finger-at-him game all the way, where the bloggers were taken for a ride. We feel that it was an attempt to see if they can disorient the sense of direction among the blogging community. Despite Yahoo's stand on the issue being obscure, it was interesting to see the company called WebDunia, who claimed at that point of being the "content provider's " for the corporate giant(s), without being named anywhere, getting their back burned for this.


WebDunia scrambled and tried their ways, showing their faces from the happy to the sad to the bad, lest they could fail. Days flew by, the words flew by and the issue remained unscathed and colorful. A few of the blogger friends became scapegoats in the crossfire. It was a sad site to watch, where brothers and sisters standing against one another, fighting with the mighty words, whose wounds are hard to heal. On a glance, it may seem ironic that the corporate friends still made money as they used to do and the friends couldn't talk to each other anymore. Dabble they did in the chorus we sung, but the hand wasn't strong enough to slay the wave.

Bloggers appealed to the community for a protest on March 5th, and then from nowhere appears an email from WebDunia to some of our blogger friends 'inviting' them to take part in a 'discussion' on march second on a blog and not in the so called portal they run.

Is this a coincidence? The history makes us to believe the other way. Despise have we taken ever since, to believe in the good sense and it has taught us to look at their act in distrust. The more we ponder, the more the questions un-answered.

The question that needs an answer is,

"Why public, whilst the issue in question has not been settled among the parties?" The only reason we think off is to let the hands to try break the wave. We believe that WebDuniya and Yahoo are well aware of the power of blogger unity and the long term impacts it can make to their corporate future. They are desperate to get this movement to fail with the reputation at stake.

They may want to divert the attention of the bloggers by the age old British ploy – "Divide and rule". That's what they did when they tried the drama by employing the friends of the blog world to speak for them. That's what they did when they played the forcing game on people involved.

Why would it not be taken as another ploy of the same order this time? Why would we assume good faith, when the faith was stabbed to death by their deeds? Why invite a handful of bloggers, while it was appropriate put up an article in their own site and invite readers? There are a lot more whys and whats that seek eternity and reasonable answers.

It is an appeal to our friends who were hurt in the cross fire to stand together on one side of the line and lets set things right Once and for all! We were together, we should be together and we need to stand together arms-in-arms to move forward. I believe we have enough trouble in real life and wouldn't want to fight over.

Please Join us on March 5th to protest against Yahoo's plagiarism.