Good in theory…

I’m not saying that it is BAD to link out to other blogs, but the way this plugin does it serves absolutely no benefit to you, but it serves all the benefit to Zemanta who will want to profit off websites who are willing to pay to be “Sponsored” or “Promoted” links.

Again, I’m not saying that linking out to other bloggers are bad… Don’t get my message twisted. It’s just that the design of this plugin, and the way it has to be used will make your website look tacky/cheesy, and it will drive traffic away from your website much quicker than you would have expected. It looks just like a Related Posts design, and Related Posts should have posts coming from your website, not 3rd parties. So if you plan to input this feature at the end of your blog post, you can but it’ll only negatively impact your website. You want to input this feature anywhere in the middle of a post’s content? Sure, but again, that’s why hyperlinks exist, if people are really interested in finding out more about a certain topic. You shouldn’t give them an even bigger and intrusive incentive such as this plugin to achieve this goal. And if you REALLY want to promote other blogger’s websites, mind as well get paid for it right? There are tons of services who will PAY YOU to have “promoted” links show up on your website in this exact same format.

What Zemanta does is simply take you out of the equation, and keep all the equity and cash for themselves, while seeming like they are “helping” the blogger (which is you) to better connect with other bloggers. Yeah, it helps “bloggers” in general, but not YOU.