Reverse Engineering TechMeme

Do you have any original content at all, Gabe? It doesn’t look like it to me. I don’t see how that’s a news site.

Allen’s definition of news aggregator is better, I think.

Dawn, an aggregator is a kind of site.

But it’s not a NEWS site. A news site has its own writers. Foxnews, CBS, MSNBC, etc…those are news sites.

Here’s my POV on your decline and drop in comments count.

1. You used to cover many subjects and provide access to many software companies and people that I couldn’t talk to without you or someone like you being there.
2. You became a Facebook zealot and everything was about Facebook for months. You covered little else. You appeared to be more of an evangelist for Facebook and objectively looking at the marketplace.
3. You then dropped Facebook and moved on to twitter. Again evangelizing Twitter on a constant basis and dropping your coverage of software and technology companies.
4. Last and this is more of a feeling, but I think you were consumed by your own celebrity status. You thought that people would keep tuning in when quality and variety dropped.

I don’t know that this is accurate for anyone else. But this is what I saw and why I went from reading your blog daily to maybe once a week if I catch something interesting on Techmeme.

Thanks for the good insight and access you provided in the past.

Dawn: the front page of my local newspaper includes news from other newspapers and from Associated Press.

TechMeme +is+ a news site because it aggregates/judges/displays news better than any other site on the Internet.

Good points Robert, though I say this with a touch of sour grapes.

Considering I did a similar analysis of Techmeme, with many of the same points no less than 10 days ago but, alas, no Techmeme love for me.

I suppose it just goes to show that our theory of how Techmeme works is more valid than not.

Michael: I have +not+ dropped Facebook.

I also was into Twitter BEFORE I got into Facebook.

Facebook is arguably THE biggest story in the tech industry since Google. So, the fact that I spent so much time on it for so long should tell you something.

I always knew that people would drop me if I stopped focusing on my blog. I made an explicit decision to do just that and it’s paid off big time for me. I have a video show now which gets about a million downloads a month and has a sponsor that’s profitable for me. I also have, in that time that my blog’s quality gone down, become the #1 Google Reader user in the world (according to the Google Reader team) and that, too, is getting me a new following. I have the only real alternative to TechMeme in my link blog.

And there’s a lot more to come.

I just talked with an executive at Facebook and he said he’s noticed the same thing: he’s spending more and more time over on Twitter having conversations there.

As to celebrity status: if I ever bought that hype, I’m sorry. It’s not worth anything. What is worth it? Having a great conversation with smart people. I had one today and I’m looking forward to having another one tomorrow. All the rest of this stuff is crap and you can quote me on that.

Steve: you have PayPerPost ads on your blog. Automatic deletion from anyone, or any algorithm, who considers authority and credibility ranking. Sorry.

Also, your headline isn’t confident.

Also, you didn’t use video to explain your points.

Also, you haven’t spent four years reading thousands of feeds. Far less credibility in the system about things regarding feed reading.

Like I said in the video, it isn’t a fair system. Or maybe it is!

This is a more defensive sort of response than I was expecting. No matter, it’s likely you misunderstood what I was saying and decided it was some kind of veiled attack. Either way, to the points.

1. Adbrite is running PPP ads on my site? Interestingly enough that doesn’t bother me. Not that I use PPP, but I also am not against it. I would go in and manually delete those ads, but considering the semi-arbitrary nature of how they are placed, you might as well be balking at Adsense (which I think also runs PPP ads every now and then, darn that Google).

Also, not a really fair way to argue — is it? Setting up a Straw Man and then trying to tear down my credibility? Dirty pool.

2. It was a post written as a response to someone asking about how Techmeme might work (not as Techmeme bait). It was based almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence (much like your claims). Confidence should be reserved for something a little more solid than anecdote, non?

3. Exactly, I said similar -points-. I didn’t say the medium was similar.

4. Robert, that is an assertion based on nothing. I read a terribly large number of blogs, feeds, etc…

5. Why do I feel a touch of hostility?

if they want to sell themselves out for better “rankings” and visibility, nothing stops them

I think this is one of those common notions about bloggers that is for the most part very wrong. Blogging is only lucrative for a tiny minority of bloggers and although you are right people like to be “read” and also most are not immune to the fact that blogs have indirect commercial benefits, I think the kind of blog that appear on TechMeme pretty much adhere voluntarily to a reasonable standard of journalistic integrity. The neat thing in blogging is that policing abuse and B.S. is as close as the nearest … internet.

Okay, but if aggregating, judging and displaying the links of others is all that’s necessary to be the best news site on the Internet, it makes me wonder why anybody would continue to be a schmuck and spend their time and money to actually go to meetings and conventions, interview people, write up articles, or draw on white boards at 2am.

Seems to me that this system is fortifying Techmeme and the bigger sites that earn advertising revenue, and everybody else is being hosed. I don’t see how people newer to blogging can compete, even if they have better content, when Techmeme is weighting blogs.

I thought the blogosphere was supposed to be the great equalizer, the “level playing field.” That sure didn’t last long, did it? Now instead of your local newspaper judging what (who) is newsworthy enough for your attention, there’s Techmeme.

How is this better? How is this less elitist than the New York Times? How is this the great democratization of news?

Steve: whatever. I am seeing that I’m looking like an asshole cause I’m trying to explain how things work.

Dawn: it’s not democratic. TechMeme just is watching who gets to the top of the attention scale.

For a content producer sites like Stumble Upon, Digg, Reddit, Techmeme, Google News, YCombinator are good for us: they bring us highly focused traffic.

But notice that I still read 900+ feeds. Why is that? Maybe I agree with you that TechMeme is going to have too much power if we don’t provide alternatives? Hmmm.

After reading some of the comments, I can understand the hostility.

Pick your battles though Robert.

-I- was not -trying- to attack you. In fact, I was agreeing with you. No, seriously, I was. As hard to believe as that might be. There was no veiled attack, no patronizing, no bull…hockey. I really was agreeing with your assessment about how Techmeme works.

Since it is a rare day when I agree with anything, I suppose that I can see the confusion.

I’m not going to leave the snarky close that responses like “whatever” usually draw but come on now. Don’t get so used to attacks that you start seeing them where they don’t exist.

Robert, I watched both video in their entirety. Good stuff. I put up my thoughts on both the videos and Techmeme on my site:

http://www.andruedwards.com/blog/article/scoble-on-techmeme-gaming-im-still-unexcited-about-the-site/

I’m glad you read those feeds, Robert. I trust you to do that. And I hope you’re always on the lookout for new feeds, too.

I don’t mean to be difficult, nor disparaging to Techmeme, for that matter. This is just something that I struggle with myself. If I point to certain cartoonists as the most popular, then it becomes a self-fulfilling circle of attention that can easily become impenetrable. That’s not fair to new artists or to readers either.

The weighting thing does bother me, because there is already a built-in favoritism towards established players.

Lolcatz@6

Of course C9 is on Techmeme, it is a sponsor – check out the right hand side of techmeme.com

I expected you to describe the basic algorithm and math. Frankly, there was little content in your videos, and they suggest you don’t understand the math.

Going reverse is not bad if the fellow can come back with a few desired amendments.

Robert: I’d love to see these videos but the seesmic player loads up but will not play the video for me (at work). Your Podtech player works fine as well as Kyte. Is there a way you can put the videos there as well?

Orville

@38. Surely you are not suggesting your local newspaper is a news aggregator. If so them its editor should be fired, Of course there is newsservice content I’m local newspaper . But that’s based more on economies of scale. And at the end of the day the newspaper has accountibility. Not sure where the accountibility in techneme is