Reality Enquirer

For those of you following the Alexa statistics that I have been posting on the left hand side - you may have noticed a rising star - I Love Reality. So how is this site moving so rapidly up in the ranks?

Well the webmaster Ryn wrote to tell us about his experimentation:

Interestingly enough I added the Alexa thing to ONE computer I use and have made it a point to surf to my site (Ilovereality) every day and surf a few pages. Suddenly my ranking shot up. I have a sneaking suspicion that ALexa weighs my browsing habits as if I was representing a lot of folks - thus my site's sudden climb. I certainly bet the difference between my site and Elites is a lot more than it shows. Being my site is run by me, myself and I, and Elites has many people keeping it going.

A later missive reveals:

Now I am at 15 for 1 week - and I can tell you my actual stats haven't changed much, if at all.

So I suspect that some of the other sites are on to the ease of "cheating" on the Alexa rankings and are doing it as well (although am I "cheating" since I told you what I was doing?? lol).

Nice to have gone from 2 viewers per million to 15 in 2 weeks though - especially since I only used one computer to do it (and one visit a day - maybe 5 or 6 pages). Imagine other sites with more than one person running it hitting their own site just once a day with the Alexa toolbar turned on.

Well I knew it could be gamed - just didn't think the results of one person hitting the site would be so dramatic. Forgot to ask if Ryn was on dialup or broadband - it could be a dialup with its new IP address could be fooling the stats.

So who else had been playing the Alexa game to up their stats? And have they seen this dramatic an increase? Enquiring minds want to know!

A little more feedback on donations and site costs.

From a site that tried advertising but uses donations:

I tried popups last year: made $300 and pissed of a bunch of users. Not a good idea. We killed all ads.

Since opening the site last year, we have made roughly $1,800 in donations.

One small problem:

We are hosted on two dedicated server: $168 a month during Big Brother.

Cost of two servers per year - $1965

I'm not including the several hundred for the board software, the cost of the site itself, etc.

You don't run a reality board to make money. If you're very lucky, you break even. Then again, what better way to feed a Big Brother addiction?

From a site that uses advertising

I make a little money from my site - not much but enough to cover hosting and domain costs, with a little left over.

Hosting costs per year run from $420 to $540 depending on bandwidth useage. In a poor month I make $20 to $30 in advertising. In a great month I can make as much as $150. Over the last year I have brought in $720 - so $300 made at the most.

I only use banner ads and pop-under ads - trying to make the ads as un-intrusive as possible. Don't use pop-ups or the In-Vue that come scrolling across the screen and won't go away until you close them - they are annoying!

Well I got some response on the question about donations and site costs!

From a webmaster who doesn't take donations:

I can only speak for my site, but here is my info.

I do not take donations, even if people WANT to give them to me. I never have, or never plan to. I don't even have advertisements/popups, etc.

I *currently* pay around $65/month for my site. If you multiply that by 4 for the Big Brother season, plus two weeks prior and after Big Brother, that totals at about $260 for the BB season. Plus I keep my site up all year, which is an additional $80/year. Plus the website name (whatever.com,) which is $10. And I have a couple of the houseguest names "dot com" which each cost some money.

As I said earlier, that is what I currently pay. You may have noticed that my site was down overnight last night due to me going over bandwidth. Therefore I had to upgrade my account (for the third time) since BB started.

Ok, now my input on sites taking donations. From what I have heard, most sites that do take donations do not make a profit, or if they do, it is not much. For example, BB4BBQ.com has started taking donations. You can see that they have raised $57 toward their site. So from what they have raised, it doesn't look like they're making any profit.

From a site that does take donations:

So far I have recieved $58 in donations. I have spent:

$8.95 - Main site
$17.90 - next year's site
4 X $8.95 - houseguest domains
$30.85 for 2 months (may/june) at my first host
$29.90 for 2 months (july/august) at my new host
$15 to cover the bandwidth used in a Denial of Service
For hosting all 5 sites until October it will be another $15.90, thanks to
the free hosting from BadJuJu.

Total: $154.30


From a site that takes donations and advertises:

My server costs me $40 a month & I have been up just over a year now. During the 3 months of Big Brother I get so much traffic that I far exceed my bandwith & MySQL so I have to pay more money. Last year I was paying an extra $200 on top of the $40 a month. I had a donation thing up on my site since it began & never got a penny.

So now I was advised to put these popup things on my site where I get a penny a click or something like that. Since it went up on the first day of Big Brother, I have made $96. But remember, now I have to pay taxes on that as well. It is Day 6 of my new billing month & I am already at $81 in extra charges. I will be lucky to break even. Also don't forget I will be reimbursing 4 people for their feeds at the end of the season too.

I didn't start my site to make money. I have it cuz I enjoy the shows & need an oulet for my addiction. I refused to put ads on my site for a long time cuz I hate those things. But I was convinced that I should at least try to make what I put out.

-------------

So it seems this Big Brother thing isn't too profitable for some. Is anyone making any money off of it? I bet someone is!

I notice more and more sites are beginning the annual request for donations. I am starting to wonder how much it really costs to run one of these sites, and how much these people are really making off donations. From what I understand the popular sites are getting tens of thousands of people showing up each day - if they could get money from even 1% of those people they would have thousands of dollars. So are donations really good, and do they just cover costs or is it a profit bonanza for these sites?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Got this from a concerned citizen:

Reality Reel.com has sent you this e-mail because the below site is linking to you or you are linking to them.

The site to which we speak of is:

http://charlamagne.bravepages.com/_sgt/m1m3_1.htm

In the recent weeks the above site has been ripping off several sites including taking articles directly from other sites without permission or credit. Right now several articles are posted, some from TVRules.net and one from RealityReel.com (our site). They have also copied it in direct form including the image to which Big Brother article on both sites are posted with.

No matter which site you are with you realize that you and or your writers spend a lot of time creating the site, writing article, and making it a great place to visit. With any site you do not want your material copied in any form unless you give someone permission, it is for this fact that we ask you to help shut this "Rip-off" site down.

RealityReel.com and its writers, who discovered this site, tracked it down and found out it is hosted by Bravenet.

We ask you please:

1.) File a complaint with Bravenet notifing them of this issue.
2.) Remove any and all links on your site to this site.

Looks like Media Fiends is starting to feel the "Live Feeds" pressure. In an article entitled Begging For Live Feed Reporters the site pleads with readers to help out with the live feeds - stating that they went two nights in a row without updates.

I am somewhat suprised at this - Media Fiends is a popular site, and their offer of paying 4 of the best live feeders at the end of the season is pretty generous (is anyone else doing this?). Maybe it isn't really a matter of not enough people at the site, maybe it is a matter of not enough interesting things happening on the live feeds to keep anyone glued to their computers. Unless you like watching the front of the house.

Hang in there MF - I am sure help is on the way.

I keep looking at Reality TV Extra to figure out its purpose. I am still lost on the concept of why a bunch of websites would build a portal together that isn't very exciting and not visually appealing.

The site is built around 5 members - BB4BBQ, BB4-Online, WeLoveBigBrother, BigBrotherChat, and the Reality411/RealityTrash duo (why is Reality Trash included here - it isn't a real reality tv site?). The site also sponsors a set of Big Brother 4 fan sites.

The concept seems like a great idea - the execution is not. Few links, few articles, and of course all the member sites are rated 5 stars. And almost everything revolves around the member sites. If you follow our Alexa ratings, you can see not too many people are impressed either.

Of the five websites, only BB4BBQ is a stellar performer, and WeLoveBigBrother is doing well in the middle of the pack. I think all of these sites should dump this dead horse and focus more on their own websites and other cooperation between themselves.

The good news is that BB4 BBQ had found someone to host their site (BadJuju) with a whopping 100 megs of bandwidth. The bad news is the reason BB4 BBQ went down and had to find a white knight is that they suffered a Denial of Service attack!

Some bozo was FTPing from her site every few seconds and used up 13 Gigabytes of bandwidth in a week. Finally she convinced her host to look into it and found this person eating up bandwidth and was able to ban him - at least from that IP address.

But not soon enough to rack up a big bill and having to switch hosts.

So webmasters be aware - check those activity logs and make sure someone isn't draining your bandwidth - and pocketbook!

Yes I stole the term from BB4 BBQ. But I don't really agree that competition in itself is bad for reality websites.

Competition is what makes things better. It is what makes people create websites and try to fill them with content that will be of interest. It is what makes people go out and try to get the spoiler, by going to extreme means if necessary. Competition is what makes message board posters spend so much time giving us Big Brother live feed updates and ongoing commentary. Competition is what keeps some sites going.

Now if we define competivitis as the disease of taking competition to a point that people become unethical in what they do, well I will agree. When people take material from other websites and don't give credit just to beat the competition, that is bad. When people violate copyright laws, that is bad. When people badmouth other sites on their own, or on others, that is bad. When people try to steal other sites' members, that is bad. When people start doing anything to enhance their site by using other, that is bad.

But what can you do? The internet is still pretty wide open, there is no governing body of reality sites that keeps anyone under control. Sites can pretty much plagiarize each other with impunity without much consequence - who is going to take the time or expense to actually try to use legal means?

What we really need is a good vaccination against competivitis.

From Keith X

------------July 11

Saw your note about traffic apparently being down this year over last. That's not my experience. Last year the traffic didn't get really heavy until the infamous 'flower bikini' show, which was a couple of weeks into the show. So far there haven't been any incidents like that to really pull the casual fans into the loop. On my site, BBChatter.com, we're seeing about the same number of daily visitors as last year at this time.

A particular aspect you mentioned was the scroll rate, how many pages are filled by a day's posts. This year we're on a much more powerful server, and the page length is set for 240 posts. Last year the page length on my updates site was only half that. On the other hand, these houseguests haven't done much, there's not a lot to write about so far lol.

I'm feeling very comfortable about the traffic levels at this point in the show. I expect traffic and interest to peak in late August, when six or seven people are fighting for the last slots.

BB4 BBQ is back up and running for now. But as it states on the front page, they are not sure for how long they can continue without help from their readers.

So get over there now and click on that PayPal button and save this site!


BBQ! BBQ! BBQ!

Just received this note from BB4 BBQ - say it isn't so!

------------------

video wasn't hosted on my site, i linked to it... bandwidth was just an overload of hits, apparently, that i wasn't paying attention to

could be permanent, like you saw we had the donate link up for a reason, can't afford it... so it's quite likely I'll be disappearing from the BB scene for good

------------------

Isn't it time we started a Save BB4 BBQ campaign?

Though I haven't heard anything official, I suspect the bandwidth problem at BB4 BBQ is due to their posting of a short little video of the David and Amanda tryst. My guess is that this little piece of Big Brother history was being downloaded at an enormous pace and caused the bandwidth overload.

Still not back up though - hope it isn't permanent.

Stopped by BB4 BBQ to see what was new and got this:


Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/1.3.27 Server at www.bb4bbq.com Port 80


Popularity has its price! I had noticed they had set up a PayPal account to take contributions to cover costs - looks like it was a little late.

I am sure they will make arrangements with their host to get it back up and running soon - the site is way too popular for a little thing like bandwidth to shut them down.

This from BB4 BBQ

-----------------------

Last year I got 7000-8000 hits a day, this year I am getting 11000+.

Chat had 80 people on Tuesday, and is sitting at 30-40 daily.

I do agree that it appears less people are around this year, but I think it's because the x factor blew a lot of people away before the show even started. I know 25% of my friends who watched the show refuse to because of the twist, or because they think the people in the house are too "pretty" and don't properly represent the population of America.

In the end, it's quality or quantity. Just as there aren't as many posters and emailers and updaters, there aren't as many trolls and flamers. Can't complain there.

Take a look at Fans Of Reality TV or FORT as it known to many. This has been up for a while, and I am really wondering what is going on.

FORT is one of the top reality sites out there, and they can't get a decent front page up and running? Come on guys - this is real life not some dinky television show!

(Still love the forums though)

We were tipped off to take a look at Reality 411 and compare their live feed posts to Reality News Live. Seems that some of the posts on Reality 411 have been purloined from RNL almost word for word. Here is the evidence, decide for yourself.

First up take take a look at these three Reality News Live posts.

Reality News Live Example 1

Posted by Romie on Sun - Jul 13 - 11:48am:

E: it just sucks b/c we have one less
Dana: it's ok, i'm looking for someone like michelle, she will vote with us
David: i'm not sure what the ex's think
Dana: i think that they think we are cool
Jack: i don't think they'll say anything
Dana: i get nervous that people are listening outside this door
Jack: we can usually hear people coming up to the door
(they didn't hear dana though)

Dana: did you wake up ok today
David: yeah
Dana; i'm starting to have dirty dreams


Reality News Live Example 2

by Romie on Sun - Jul 13 - 11:55am:

E: how can anything be obvious? I barely speak to Nathan or Dana
J: dana is one of those people that you really can't tell anything b/c she
will act like she already knows it whether she does or not
E: yeah

they are talking about the lack of food and sleeping the day away so that
it will go faster. we can stay up to 3 AM and sleep until noon.

J: saying that the camera sounds like R2D2 I think i'll make some coffee i
guess..you want some
E: sure
David: ooo we baby yeah.. (stretching)

Reality News Live Example 3

Posted by Romie on Sun - Jul 13 - 12:03am:

Erica mentions last years gnome game and how they had to eliminate Justin
in a competition like that. Justin is their first Ex target

E: we have to get rid of Justin
David: justin and robert


david's order of eviction, Justin, Robert, Jee, Jun

Now compare to this post on Reality 411:

Reality 411

slwann
Reality Eight

Posts: 586
(7/13/03 2:28 pm)
Reply postings for today
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2:50pm
E: it just sucks b/c we have one less
Dana: it's ok, i'm looking for someone like michelle, she will vote with us
David: i'm not sure what the ex's think
Dana: i think that they think we are cool
Jack: i don't think they'll say anything
Dana: i get nervous that people are listening outside this door
Jack: we can usually hear people coming up to the door
(they didn't hear dana though)
Dana: did you wake up ok today
David: yeah
Dana; i'm starting to have dirty dreams
jack, erica, and dave talking about Scott
Jack- i will miss his humor it is up to you now
dave- he made me laugh i will have to amuse myself now.
Dave- dana is scared
e- can you feel it, it is damage control
Jack- you cant tell dana anything she will act like she knows it anyway

2:55pm:
E: how can anything be obvious? I barely speak to Nathan or Dana
J: dana is one of those people that you really can't tell anything b/c she
will act like she already knows it whether she does or not
E: yeah they are talking about the lack of food and sleeping the day away
so that it will go faster. we can stay up to 3 AM and sleep until noon.
J: saying that the camera sounds like R2D2 I think i'll make some coffee i
guess..you want some
E: sure
David: ooo we baby yeah.. (stretching)

3:03pm:
Erica mentions last years gnome game and how they had to eliminate Justin
in a competition like that. Justin is their first Ex target
E: we have to get rid of Justin
David: justin and robert
david's order of eviction, Justin, Robert, Jee, Jun

3:05pm
David is currently alone in the room and playing with the camera. He is
standing right up near the camera and swaying back and forth so that the
camera follows him and he's talking to the camera, not really talking like
making scary noises to it

Here is another example at RNL:

Reality News Live Example 4


Posted by BananaMan on Sat - Jul 12 - 9:23pm:

We have jun, ali, erika, Jack Justin and nathan hanging out in the
bathroom area.

Talk is of course about the scott incident.

Jack and Erika branch out...breaking news though....erika does not have
her sunglasses on. hey she has eyes!

Everyone seems to be talking about it...what else would they talk about?
You can hear someone saying, "I was sitting right here.."
If this is like a fishing story, we will be hearing someone retell the
story saying he broke a window yadda yadda yadda. ;o)

Back to the Bathroom, still nate, justin and ali...watching Justin shave.

amanda walks out of the can.
N - do you wanna hang out? need someone to talk to?
A - no ( i think) Amanda exits stage right.

Not much happening on this feed I guess. Time to go surfing cameras...

And the Reality 411 version

Reality 411


slwann
Reality Eight
Posts: 583
(7/13/03 9:24 am)
12:23am

We have jun, ali, erika, Jack, Justin, and nathan hanging out in the
bathroom area. Talk is of course about the scott incident.
Jack and Erika branch out...Everyone seems to be talking about it...what
else would they talk about?
You can hear someone saying, "I was sitting right here.."
Back to the Bathroom, still nate, justin and ali...watching Justin shave.
amanda walks out of the can.
N - do you wanna hang out? need someone to talk to?
A - no and Amanda walks off
Not much happening

Another example.

Reality News Live Example 5

Posted by Romie on Sat - Jul 12 - 9:33pm:

So we have this huge breakdown of Scott and everyone is on edge and
wondering what's going to happen.

Robert is in the bathroom with alison and justin and decides it's time to
remind them that when Jee, such a nice guy Jee was cleaning the bathroom,
Erica said something to him about there being a Hair in her toiletries
basket

Robert is constantly hacking Erica

Reality 411

1233am
So we have this huge breakdown of Scott and everyone is on edge and
wondering what's going to happen.
Robert is in the bathroom with alison and justin and decides it's time to
remind them that when Jee, such a nice guy Jee was cleaning the bathroom,
Erica said something to him about there being a Hair in her toiletries
basket Robert is constantly hacking Erica

And finally a sixth example.

Reality News Live Example 6

Posted by BananaMan on Sat - Jul 12 - 9:46pm:

Jee is giving amanda advice.

Telling her not to let it bother her etc.

Amanda has actually handled this situation very well, although she does
looked stress.

Jee: I dont want to see you smoke anothe cig tonite.

amanada laughs.

jee is talking into his crossed arms on the table...so it is hard to hear
him.

amanda - thank you jee. you have been amazing.

Jee - dont let it get to you anymore.

He goes off to check his clothes drying i think...

camera shows amanda sitting there playing with her lightere by
herself...probably just taking everything in. Then she rubs her temples
and stares off into the distance (even if that distance is only a few
yards thanks to the big walls!)


Reality 411

12:46am
Jee is giving amanda advice. Telling her not to let it bother her etc.
Amanda has actually handled this situation very well, although she does
looked stress.
Jee: I dont want to see you smoke another cig tonite.
amanada laughs.
jee is talking into his crossed arms on the table...so it is hard to hear
him.
amanda - thank you jee. you have been amazing.
Jee - dont let it get to you anymore.
He goes off to check his clothes drying i think...
camera shows amanda sitting there playing with her lighter by
herself...probably just taking everything in. Then she rubs her temples
and stares off into the distance

Well so far I have counted Jokers going down 3 times since BB4 has started. This is one of the reasons I quit reading Jokers last year - you could never tell if the server was going to be up, if they were changing servers, or if they had shut down.

I know last year it seemed like they changed servers 3 or 4 times. Each one seemed to have problems with their traffic.

So what's the story? Another server coming soon? How about a mirrored site? Enquiring minds want to know.

Received this from Ryn - webmaster of I Love Reality and moderator at TV Clubhouse.

-----------------------July 10

This week we (tvch) are averaging about the same # of applications a
day as last year.

Not sure how the # of posts in the live feeds compares but you could compare
it by checking our current live feeds vs the TVCH archives I have posted for
BB I, II, and III

But just the # of posts won't compare the size of each - I have a feeling
posts may have gotten longer - with more content over the 4 years. And with
BBI of course we don't have the 1st few weeks of posts since we were on a
different site and they didn't archive, they just dropped off into never
never land.

Here is what is happening at TVClubhouse:

1st 2 days of BB3

Day 1 - 79 live feed posts
Day 2 - 176 live feed posts


1st 2 days of BB4

Day 1 - 76 live feed posts
Day 2 - 165 live feed posts

Here are the alexa.com stats for the week ending July 12. Numbers are average hits per million users per day for the week. If you want to be included in these stats (which I am going to try to do weekly) drop me a line.

televisionwithoutpity.com	115
fansofrealitytv.com	39
realitynewsonline.com	31.5
jokersupdates.com	27.5
bb4bbq.com	26.5
mediafiends.com	23.5
welovebigbrother.com	21
realitynewslive.com	16.5
bb4-online.com	14
elitestv.com	7
bbchatter.com	5.5
ilovereality.com	2.5

I have been getting some response on my comments about the Big Brother board activity not being as much as previous years. Thought I would share some of them with you over the next couple of days or so.

----------------------------Received June 9

Hi, i post live feeds at RNL. The alison in a bikini thread you mentioned is on the message board not the live feed page. The live feed page is a separate entity over at RNL. I don't know how many hits the page is getting you'll have to talk to the webmasters. But there are a number of live feed updates over there

this is the URL for the live feed page over there

http://www.bigbrotherlive3.com/cgi-bin/eboard30/index2.cgi?frames=no&board=Main&mode=Current

we had a lot of posts last night, today has been pretty boring and Dana and Jun seem to have whispering down to a science in just one day. Plus Real Player was giving us fits today. Sound, no picture, Picture no Sound...freezing, but also with 13 people not much is going on. That could account for it.

The owner of bb4-online.com was just as suprised as I was that claims were being made that photos were being posted on her site that were taken from another site and not credited - this was against her policy, plus she and others spend a lot of time getting their own screen captures. A bit of investigation found one of her submitters didn't know of her policy and had passed on the images from Reality News Live. The pictures have been taken down from the site, the policy stressed, and an e-mail sent to the RNL webmaster.

Since this could have been resolved with a nice note between the webmasters, I am instituting the following rules on this type of gossip:

1. If you have a beef with another website like this - send an e-mail to the webmaster first. If you don't get a response or a negative response, you can send it on to me.

2. If I receive anything like this in the future without an indication of some attempt at contact, I will contact the webmaster(s) for a response before I publish.

So try to settle these things between yourself first! Everyone will be happier!

I am suprised, but it seems bb4-online.com has become linked to the now infamous photo wars. The claim is that BB4-online has taken screen captures from Reality News Live and cropped them to take off the watermark and posted them as their own.

I wasn't too sure, but take a look at the following sets of pictures and make up your own mind.

Here are the original pics...

http://a.1asphost.com/realitynewslivepics/images/7-9-0015.jpg
http://a.1asphost.com/realitynewslivepics/images/7-9-0021.jpg
http://a.1asphost.com/realitynewslivepics/images/7-9-0025.jpg
http://a.1asphost.com/realitynewslivepics/images/7-9-0028.jpg

And here are the pics on bb4-online that have had the watermark removed...

http://www.bb4-online.com/gallery/data/18/1nsp0709031.jpg
http://www.bb4-online.com/gallery/data/18/1nsp0709032.jpg
http://www.bb4-online.com/gallery/data/18/1nsp0709033.jpg
http://www.bb4-online.com/gallery/data/18/1nsp0709034.jpg

I found this cool site called Alexa that gathers data from people who download their toolbar and gives some indication of how popular websites are. Though it probably isn't accurate, and easily gamed, I thought I would present the results for some of the websites in my Links list. I didn't include SirLinksALot or other link site, I couldn't include TVClubhouse cause they are in the Bomis domain (which seems pretty popular), and if there weren't any hits I didn't inlcude them in the list. The numbers here are the average number of "reach" per million users per day for the last 1 week.

televisionwithoutpity.com	100
fansofrealitytv.com	41
realitynewsonline.com	39
bb4bbq.com	18.5
welovebigbrother.com	18
mediafiends.com	17
jokersupdates.com	16
realitynewslive.com	11.5
bb4-online.com	8
elitestv.com	7.5
ilovereality.com	2.5
bbchatter.com	1

Got this from a reader - not sure if it is my line of work or not - any clues?

--------------------

Hi, you seem to be able to dig up stuff, I'm wondering if you have any idea
where the story about Jakob the alleged houseguest whose friend Jeremy wrote
a letter technically 'outing' him to the world originated from?

I saw it on TV Clubhouse and they attributed it to Realitytvchat but I'm
just wondering who posted such a letter w/o verifying it's authenticity.

I have been scanning the different sites and I am getting this distinct impression that the Big Brother activity is just not the same as it was in past years. There seem to be fewer live feed updates, fewer comments in the discussion areas, and fewer people in general.

For instance - go to KeithX's BBChatter BB4 Updates forums and you can see well over a days worth of updates on one page. Seems like last year at the first of the year you would be paging back to catch the last 4 hours.

Or go to Jokers Updates and look at the V column - I have sorted the updates by number of views. Only 886 views of the most popular thread as of this writing and that post was made on 7/8 at 7:53 PM. The Jokers I remember touted 5 to 10 thousand viewers a day during Big Brother - shouldn't this number be much higher?

Reality 411 only has 25 visitors in the last 15 minutes? Allison in a bikini has only gotten 966 views at Reality News Live?

Something is going on here. Any webmasters want to comment?

It looks like the photo wars are still alive and well. The latest rumor is that Big Brother Updates is copying photos from We Love Big Brother - essentially that almost every photo in BBU's Photo Gallery are pictures taken from WLBB.

For example, last night, they had the Houseguest pictures from my WLBB. How to tell? They simply chopped the top inch off of the picture from WLBB which had its name on it, then left the bottom of the picture, which happened to have the houseguest name on it in the same font and color. They figured that out too, and now have removed the bottom part so the origin couldn't be identified.

They also have a bunch of pictures from the multiple housetours. Last night, they had 28 house tour pictures. 26 of them were from WLBB (minus the logo). Compare these two pages to see for yourself (while you can): We Love Big Brother and Big Brother Updates.

When I checked last it seems they have already removed some of the house tour pictures.

Come on guys - it doesn't hurt that much to give credit where credit is due. Or at least go to the original CBS source and steal them from there!

From the amount of e-mail I received, and the contents therein, I seemed to have stumbled into something much deeper between Jokers Updates and Elites TV than just the defection of one poster from one site to another.

Putting that aside, it seems that the accuracy of the e-mail I received is also in question. So I decided to investigate the profile in question and see how accurate it is.

The Joker's profile on their front page says up front that Hakishiroom is a "long time poster at Jokers". Digging a little deeper his message board profile there says he registered on 12/27/02 and only has 296 posts. OK I am not a genius, but Jokers has been around for three years, and I would think a long time poster would have been there longer than 6 months. To me this statement is INACCURATE!

The Elites TV member said "looks like nobody cared for him there". Hakishiroom said "I headed my skinny little butt on over here to be with people I care about and who care about me". As an outside observer, I also read between the lines and gather that Hakishiroom had no friends at Elites TV.

The Elites' member also said "He says he got tired of it after a while - yeah about a year of a while." Research into Elites' member area does confirm Hakishiroom posting there during May of 2003. So he joins Jokers in December 2002 because of the people that cared about him, and left Elites TV because he tired of it - supposedly at the same time. But he stayed an active member at Elites TV for six months. This doesn't make sense to me at all.

The Elites' member says "I bet he still reads over there all the time, even though he says he doesn't read any other message board but Jokers." Hakishiroom's profile says "I frequent a board called Community Hall...it is the official message board for Miss America...I'm a big pageant buff (gay and a pageant fan...go figure!) and I just enjoy posting there. I also frequent websites (not message boards) that list information about Reality TV/Pageants/News. I also frequent Gay.com".

OK either I am really out of it, or "I also frequent websites (not message boards) that list information about Reality TV" means he goes to other sites, but doesn't look at their message boards or post there. We know he has been posting at Elites TV in May, and one of our readers also informed us he posts all over Survivor Sucks.

I have nothing against Hakishiroom - however I can now see how the profile he has allowed to be posted can be construed as negative toward Elites TV. There are also some glaring errors in the profile that need to be corrected to give a more accurate description of this young man.

Behind all this is an undercurrent of animosity between Elites TV and Jokers that I have just touched the tip of. It will be interesting to see what shows up.

Well I am back from the holiday and am facing a full mailbox. Thanks to all the people who took the pledge along with me - it must have been a pretty dull place around here this weekend. Lots of stuff to discuss as I get a chance.

Just a few quick notes. It seems my article on BB4BBQ.com's topsites ruse was not well received by that site. If you look at their links on the left side of their page, you will see we have moved from fourth place to next to last (just above jokersupdates.com - does that tell you something?). Too bad - that site is really good and seems to be getting the scoop on the Big Brother houseguests.

I also see RealityTrash.com is actually posting something besides articles about me. There for a while I thought they were going to rename the site RealityEnquirerTrash.com and gain the distinction of being the only site that reported on a site that reported on reality sites. I do think that if you want the real definition of purloined you should go to Crazy Comments and ask them what they think of the Reality411 site. And while you are at it, maybe you should look up "conflict of interest" and consider its application when a person that dishes dirt on other reality sites also has their own reality site. Can we spell "self-serving"?

Finally there seems to be a new website conglomerate called Reality TV Extra that I will be looking into.

Stay tuned!

In the U.S. it is Independence Day tomorrow. I don't know about you, but I am going to be taking the three day holiday and enjoying myself.

In fact, why don't we all call a moratorium on web access, step away from our computers for three days, and enjoy real life? Boycott all reality tv sites, break out the barbeque, drink a few beers, talk to the family, listen to some patriotic music, and watch some fireworks? Then come back on Monday loaded for bear and the new Big Brother season!

Take the pledge now! Raise your right hand and repeat after me "I will not turn on my computer for the next 72 hours, so help me God."

Now doesn't that feel good? Now how many are going to break that promise?

Spread the word! See you Monday!

Just received a letter from an irate Elites TV member -

I am pretty upset by the profile of Hakishiroom on Jokers Updates. If you didn't know, the website he has "left" is Elites TV - looks like nobody cared for him there.

Funny thing is, Haki has been a member at Elites forever, and as far as I know still is. I know he was still posting at the end of May. I bet he still reads over there all the time, even though he says he doesn't read any other message board but Jokers. He says he got tired of it after a while - yeah about a year of a while.

Its a pretty rude way for him to tell us to kiss off.

BB4BBQ.com has a nice post entitled "Webmasters, BB Fans, Here Are Some Sites for YOU!" - I think it is the second time it has been posted.

It should have a big subtitle "Vote For Me By Clicking On These Links!"

Yes, in the guise of helping webmasters, the site is actually soliciting votes on the ranking site. Click one of those links and you are voting for BB4BBQ. Which isn't a bad thing, but shouldn't there be some truth in advertising?

From a reader who questions our "Truth Travels Through" article about the trustworthiness of Reality News Live's source:

I've been watching all of this unfold very closely. I saw the post that RealityNewsLive.com put up that had to be taken down. It stated that the twist would be announced on the 30th and that the HG's would be announced on the 3rd. They were correct. Here is an article from Zap2It stating that the HG's will be announced on the 3rd.
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|82028|1|,00.html

I think RNL even stated that 9 names would be released. And they were correct about that, as well. The other 4 are ex's of some of the 9.

When I emailed RNL about why the post was removed. I was told that CBS and ASP did not want the info released prior to Monday, June 30th. Sounds like they can trust their source to me. They hit the nail on the head.

Got this e-mail from Nancy at BB4-Online -

Here is the scoop for enquiring minds that want to know.

Well I must tell you I am somewhat confused myself by the playout of events yesterday lets just blame it on my meds and that I was having a very emotional day. Because of illnesses and complications from my spider bite last year I have had to dial it back this season. I thought at first I could move ahead with 2 full blown sites and all of the features and was ready to go then after speaking with my doctor yesterday he strongly advised me to lighten the load or drop the project altogether. I was upset and sent the first newsletter and put up the closed notices before I really thought it out.

When calmer and cooler heads prevailed and I was reading the other sites I thought I cannot give this up all the way. I will be online and posting why not post on my own sites. So I spoke with my doctor again and we determined that a limited role this season would be ok. I spoke with others at my office and they agreed to help out and I sent some emails and have had positive feedback from some site members who have reassured me that they will help with feed posting and that we can make a go of a limited site this season.

I sent the second newsletter and let everyone know we were back up only downsized. I have opened both sites for chat, forums and links. We will be posting live feed updates - articles and discussions of house events in addition to screen captures. Regretfully we will not be having in depth summaries or a newsletter this season. Those that signed up for membership to www.bigbrother-fix.com also need to re-register for new forum and follow the links on the site.

I have received a truckload of email from people who have been so supportive and kind and who are keeping me in their thoughts and prayers and for this I am grateful. I will be watching my health and watching the house and know that while the site is smaller we will still be there 150%. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Nancy Polley- Still Webmaster of BB4-Online.com and BigBrother-Fix.com

This is definitely not my week. First BB4-Online goes down just to come back up again (it is still back up, isn't it?). Now Stark shows back up at Jokers Updates.

Seems he couldn't let a little ol' war keep him away from Big Brother. All indications are he is back for the season and will be posting his world famous updates.

Drop us a line Stark!