It was in March of 2007 that myself and several partners founded MuseCrafters.com, an open source Pligg based poetry aggregator and social bookmarking site. It would only take weeks before I would find myself completely disillusioned with the Pligg and all its applications. Tonight I discovered Litmarks-- social bookmarking site for poetry and literature links.

Neither site compared to Bud Parr's MetaxuCafe’ Litblog Network or the Poets101.com poetry aggregator built by Roch Smith Jr of We101.com fame and managed by your's truly.

Pligg based sites are nothing more than spam bait. They require almost constant attention and as soon as the spammers learn of its existence they'll swamp the site in spam completely unrelated to poetry and literature. The open nature of a Pligg based site makes it an easy target and the fact that it's open source makes it even easier to high jack by spammers who sign up to become members.

I wish the owners of Litmarks the best of luck but think they'd have done better with a spam proof application like Blogsboro Poetry Club. Maybe, if we're lucky, Roch will breath new life into Poets101.com using the same application he uses for We101.com.

Aggregation works good to a point but sites based on Pligg are almost always a failure. Even Digg.com and other popular social bookmarking sites are currently loosing market share as corporations pay members to boost their articles to the top while burying any indie posts that show potential. And the social aspect... Well there's nothing social about it.

Good luck, Je' Maverick, you're going to need it. I'll add you to my list of aggregators.