Adopting the Web

Until recently, searching for accurate, well-written pieces in the expanding blogosphere was a bitch. The struggle was particularly tiresome if you were not familiar with the first generation of authoritative sources such as TechCrunch, GigaOm, BoingBoing, etc. However, the quest for accuracy and refined writing skills was not surprising for those viewing blogs as an alternative to mainstream journalism - every amateur driven industry inevitably collects sub par content (porn anyone?). Digg and Technorati provided early solutions to the problem by aggregating content into a single platform. Unified content facilitates more accessible data, and thus the first semblance of a ranking system. These early aggregators, however, suffered (to this day) from bubbling eclectic news that does not always scream “know this information or else.”

For lack of more accurate terminology, I refer to this era of headaches and fragmented idea threads as BT (Before Techmeme). Site creator Gabe Rivera responded to the following blogosphere hindrance: “the next big story in technology may reside on a blog you’ve never heard of or a news site you don’t have time to scan.” The Techmeme solution provides timestrapped readers with access to the most prominent discussions throughout the technology blogosphere. Simply compare and contrast the discussions following several Techmeme threads to develop a list of favorite commentators. “Apple to Unveil Faster IPhone, AT&T’s Stephenson Says” is the top headline as I type and contains over twenty ancillary sources each with unique viewpoints. For example, an Apple fanboy may be driven to reports from Macworld or MacDailyNews instead of visiting a more biased source like CNET News.

My initial response to Techmeme when I stumbled across the site in the summer of 07 was one of astonishment. Amazing…I can track conversations throughout the Internet through a single portal. Also, I no longer need to discern importance since the Leaderboard informs me of popularity. Several months of Techmeme devotion, however, induced a sense of stagnancy from reading the same sources repeatedly…definitely not an activity for the inquisitive.

So what is the reasoning for my waning fling with Techmeme? I am still clinging to a conception of the blogosphere as a myriad of opinion, choice, and editorial freedom not available in mainstream media. But as much as my naivety would like to deny, the blogosphere is transforming into a commercial ecosystem driven by CPM, ROI, and linking. The Techmeme’s of today are the mass media outlets of tomorrow - still force feeding reading material, only grabbing articles from a larger pool of commentators. Fred Wilson describes a similar experience in relation to mainstream media adoption: “So what happened? I think it’s pretty simple. Everyone knows that you can write to techmeme if you want to be part of the conversation. Can’t think of what to write about? Go to techmeme, grab one of the memes, write a post that links to it, and your post will get picked up on it. Dave Winer predicted this would happen four days after the leaderboard launched.”

The contrast between AT (after Techmeme) and BT is growing rapidly through a number of other solutions aimed to organize the blogosphere. Blogrunner arose from the NY Times interactive staff earlier this month as a more diverse response to Techmeme, expanding coverage to entertainment, politics, health, Iraq, etc. Feedhaus is another application in this sector, allowing users to follow the hottest news via self-selected tags. Outside of the the customization enhancements, Feedhaus also offers relevant videos and photos.

Filed under: Infonalysis