I’ve seen a bit of coverage on other sites recently about this premium browser (Firefox, Chrome) extension that’ll *gasp* show you what’s really going on under the hood of someone’s WordPress website.
It’s called SpyBar by Rob Cornish, an acclaimed “internet entrepreneur” who’s bringing you such a sweet deal. What the extension does is simply scans the site and pulls up the sites’ plugins and themes that it uses, thus giving you an “inside” look at what is going on and the things the site owner is using.
I suppose that’s why it’s called the “SpyBar”… here’s a very long and tedious overview if you wanted any more details:
It’s got some other features that you can discover on your own if you like but I have to admit that I’m simply not a fan. It’s not so much the spying bit but rather the “sliminess” of the marketing campaigns that have been created around it, the obvious attempts to capitalize on the burgeoning WordPress ecosystem, and the affiliate marketing tactics used.
Now, I’m not against affiliate marketing, but there’s a line that’s sometimes crossed, isn’t there?
But most importantly I think this “shortcut” isn’t all that worth it and can damage as well as be beneficial. I think creating a great site or blog is more than just the sum of it’s plugins and theme(s) – I think it takes good and decent strategy and then simply consistent writing to create a great site. I think something like this will let on that if you just copy someone else’s implementation then you’ll have similar success, which we know is never guaranteed.
I suppose this is somewhat of my rant-post for the week but I’m just tired of seeing shitty extensions via bad affiliate marketers get thrown into the WordPress marketplace. It may work for some but it won’t for me.
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