We have met the enemy: He is us

Thanks Mathew – again I agree with you here. While I understand what Steve is getting at, I think he is not looking a strength that I see (and it seems like you do) in going to Techmeme and finding a discussion via familiar authors on a topic. If only one person talked about something, it wouldn't get a lot of play, but look at the times where some of us have seemingly brought about responses simply by writing on something – the Google Reader Social fiasco comes to mind.

No one wants to read a post that is simply a copy-and-paste quote of someone else's with a link (which some people do – even on Techmeme), but if you have something to add or an opinion, I see no problem in weighing in on an already-covered topic – I think some forget that people on Techmeme have readers OUTSIDE of Techmeme as well – should those people not learn about certain things just because they don't go to Techmeme?

That being said I too like original ideas and many of my biggest stories are those. But do I think other news and important events should simply be overlooked in favor of those? No.

That's a good point, MG — that some people wind up being aggregated
on Techmeme whether they were deliberately trying to get there or not,
simply by writing about a particular topic.

Mathew – found you via (mistyped) twitter lead from Steve Rubel… there's a joke in there somewhere.

Interesting points all around – and finding the signal in the noise is a major issue. Which is why search (and find – the end product) is still nowhere near a done deal. We've got content creation tools aplenty, and tagging/sharing tools out the wazoo, yet much content gets buried (whether maliciously – as is rumored in the DIGG world, or just due to volume).

Plenty of work to be done!

Cheers,
Dan

PS – The pogo strip can't be THAT ancient, if I know about it. Wait, how'd I age that quick? ;)

And here I was thinking that blogging was about the conversation (which sites like Techmeme and my own TechWatching facilitate), instead of ivory tower, deep thinking proclamations. Certainly one needs to strike a balance between writing your own mind and providing commentary on the daily gestalt, but I don't see any problem inherent in both coexisting.

I agree, Dan. Anyway, glad you found me regardless — and glad I'm
not the only one that remembers the Pogo comic :-)

My thoughts exactly, Rod.

The whole Scoble/Facebook thing was a bit nauseating to be honest. However, I wonder what Techmeme/Digg/et al. would look like if it deleted all references to the top 50 blogs. Would anything change? Is there a dialog going on that is being drowned out by these blogs?

I kind of doubt it, but I would be curious to see it.

Steve's point is well taken to me. If you really, really look around, you'll see that the blogs out there that have all the sponsorships and thousands and thousands of readers… They all have the same thing.

Well thought-out, original content and ideas.

I struggle with producing that type of content myself. Why? Because it's hard. It's “easier' for me to piggyback off a techmeme story and add my contribution.

If I would just stop doing that, and instead work on more, better high-quality content I would be in better shape in terms of my monetization and readership. No question on that.

I take your point, Jim — and Steve's too. And I'm all in favour of
working on deeper content — I try to do that too. I just thought
Steve was a little too negative, that's all.

This is a very helpful post, to spotlight the flipside of Rubel's thoughts on Techmeme and link blogging. I agree with much of what Rubel says. Maybe it's frustration, as I join in on the conversation, spend a lot of time crafting an opinion post, and see it linked on Techmeme when it's too late, as the story slides off the homepage. Plenty of blogs write a five minute summation, agree or disagree, link it, and get up right away.

But I do love Techmeme, and it does allow for discovery of different voices. And ultimately, great content prevails. Sure, someone can gin up a quick post and get some traffic from getting linked on Techmeme. But will those readers stay? Will they add the blog to their RSS feeds? Ultimately, content is king. And we need sites like Techmeme to help find great content and conversation.

The thing that drives me nuts the MOST is that the original site will end up on techmeme and then as the pile-on gets sorted out, sometimes the tertiary site will be the headliner, second and first ones get buried. Today's example of such is the Computer Science Education/Future post.

Oh and heh, stop complaining dude, you aren't part of the lazysphere, you bring substance, even though I do find I disagree with you more often than not. One of the daily must-reads. /end honest kiss-ass heh

That bothers me too, Eric — when the post I know started the whole
pile-on gets buried. And I have a feeling it kind of bothers Gabe
too. And thanks for the smooches :-)

I agree with Steve. Techmeme is biased to the US – see the top 100 list. Gabe says its an independent algo that determines who gets on Techmeme. If that was true then there would be a wider global distribution or are you saying the rest of the world doesn't blog as much as the USA.

I don't think there's any question that Techmeme focuses primarily on
North American bloggers. There are other aggregators that focus on
other parts of the world.

I agree with Steve. Techmeme is biased to the US – see the top 100 list. Gabe says its an independent algo that determines who gets on Techmeme. If that was true then there would be a wider global distribution or are you saying the rest of the world doesn't blog as much as the USA.

I don't think there's any question that Techmeme focuses primarily on
North American bloggers. There are other aggregators that focus on
other parts of the world.