O, Shit. UPDATE!

Not very smart at all.

Looks like questionable start-up RapGenius.com just went tits up.

Seems they tried to make that whole "First Page of Google" fantasy come true by simply bribing people to link to them. The only problem is: that is verboten in the Google Universe.


For a company that depends on almost all of its revenue from traffic derived from Google, this is probably not a good day to stop by the offices. Specifically for whoever penned and then promoted their "affiliates" program.

It seems RapGenius is pretty much anything but with a staff that includes a:

"(... a) co-founder (who) got away with telling Mark Zuckerberg to suck his dick, before blaming being a complete unhinged asshole on a brain tumor."

Lovely. Back to the whole revenue nuclear implosion:

"We’re working on it as fast as we can, and expect to be back on Google very soon,"

Right. How's that working out?

Affiliates are, last I knew, people who sold your items in conjunction with you for profit. When the editorial conversation surrounding rap lyrics become a commodity? So much for art.

This is the latest in examples of how content can not be created or treated as a "commodity." By trying to do an end-run around that bothersome task of creating good, solid content, RapGenius now can just serve as a stark reminder that writing, content and linking actually takes more than a checking account.