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The Techmeme Myth

Duncan Riley — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:02:50 +0000

Is Techmeme influential, a driver of traffic and a unbiased source of the best tech news online? The tech meme aggregator founded by Gabe Rivera in 2005 has long been held up as one of the best sites in the tech blogosphere. As a business, Rivera has done extremely well from it, charging a rumored $3000-$4000 per ad on the site, while remaining a one man setup.

But is it really that great based on evidence? BusinessWeek named Rivera in its list of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web in September with the headline The Traffic Driver: Gabe Rivera. As best we can on available information, we would suggest that the influence, traffic and impartial nature of Techmeme is a myth.

Foreword

The moment I so much as mention Techmeme in a post I will be accused of having an agenda, so lets start with the key points. I was a long term reader of Techmeme, and my first blog was indexed by the site. Over the years I spent a lot of time on Techmeme, and even had the pleasure of meeting Gabe in person last year for first time. Then something strange happened; I stopped getting headlines on Techmeme. More details can be found in Life after Techmeme, but what I missed in that post was noting (along with my falling out with Michael Arrington) that at the same time I stopped getting headlines on Techmeme, I wrote a post (which actually made Techmeme) titled Techmeme and the Noise Problem. I don’t believe in coincidences.

We’ve had a few stray headlines since that time, but at no where near the rate before. Rivera claimed publicly that nothing had changed, and that The Inquisitr had stopped writing posts that were worthy of inclusion, a claim backed by others (one Canadian writer with a long term agenda against me came in hard). As it turned out, our last full month with Techmeme headlines was our worst month on record. The Inquisitr has actually averaged 300-400% more traffic then we did that month (sometimes higher) and has had more links than it ever has. If anything, we are better off without the Techmeme links.

Rivera has continued to accuse me of being “a liar” both publicly and privately ever since, but has never once provided proof that the weight given to Inquisitr headlines wasn’t changed. Around 1-2 weeks ago (I can’t be sure of the timing as it was pointed out to me by more than one person) The Inquisitr was completely excluded from Techmeme, not even appearing as a link-in source on stories. Gabe may argue that this is untrue, and I only have my own observations from this week to go on; he may also reinclude The Inquisitr to prove this to be untrue, so it comes with that proviso.

My simple agenda is that I dislike Rivera’s statements that Techmeme is unbiased and is highly influential, when neither is true. My personal issues aside, this post will consider facts, with some commentary where required. I cannot stop some people saying that this is some sort of personal vendetta (I’d note that if it was, it was started by Rivera), but I can present facts and lets others draw conclusions from them.

Myth: Techmeme is Influential

The idea of Techmeme being influential comes from its use by some high end blogs and VCs. That some people of influence read Techmeme cannot be disputed, but extending that out to influential isn’t supported by numbers.

Here’s Techmeme’s traffic stats from a range of site tracking tools:

Quantcast: 7,188 visits per month/ site rank of 91,617
Compete: 291,621 people
comScore: no record of traffic (to small to measure)
Alexa: rank 119,812 with 1.2 pages per visitor

Compete is the odd one out (high use of the Compete toolbar or plugin perhaps), but even if we take a middle line, the influence is small. Techmeme doesn’t do a lot of page views. Consider that 1.2 pages a visitor on Alexa would also indicate search engine traffic as opposed to regular engagement; if it were influential more people would be refreshing Techmeme regularly because they are on the site checking for the latest headlines.

Publicly available statistics aren’t always brilliant, but a site that is said to be so highly influential should on these measures be ranked far higher than it is, by most objective measures of a websites worth. The numbers don’t support the myth.

Myth: Techmeme drives traffic (and how YHacker News beats it)

BusinessWeek called Rivera “the traffic driver” based on the myth of influence, but the numbers don’t stack up. I’m yet to talk to a person who can claim to have gained huge amounts of traffic from Techmeme, but that’s anecdotal of course and not based on facts. So lets look at some facts from this site.

The biggest amount of traffic ever delivered to The Inquisitr from Techmeme before we were excluded was 1,112 page views on a single post. In that time we had a reasonable list of headlines, some of them top of the page, some of them further down. The total amount of traffic from Techmeme during that time into the leading 10 posts (by traffic from Techmeme) is 5122 page views, or 512 page views per post. The distribution of numbers varies. There was one post (mentioned) with more than 1000 page views, three posts between 736-766 page views, and the remaining posts ranged from 158-400 pages views.

Sound like a big traffic driver? Digg and Reddit have peaked in 5 figures for this site, although Reddit does smaller numbers on average (but regularly low to mid 4 figures), but that’s probably not a fair comparison. What is a better comparison is the very niche YHacker News site.

On every publicly available measurement, YHacker News is smaller in traffic than Techmeme, and yet you wouldn’t be able to tell from the numbers they deliver

Our top ten posts by traffic delivered from YHacker News totalled 7073 page views. The top post came in at 2639 page views, more than double the highest figure from Techmeme. The second and third posts fell just short of 1000 page views (998 and 995) and the remaining posts ranged from 242 to 469.

So is Techmeme really a traffic driver compared to YHacker News? On the evidence we would suggest no. YHacker News may have a smaller readership, but their influence is extended through the engagement its readers have with content on the site, something Techmeme doesn’t match.

Other sites may have different numbers from Techmeme, some higher, some lower, but even taking that into account, a niche site with significantly less traffic statistically delivers more traffic than the “traffic driver” that is Techmeme. On the evidence at hand, the numbers don’t support the myth.

Myth: Techmeme is not biased

Rivera has long claimed that Techmeme is an unbiased tracker of leading tech news. I’ve already mentioned our improved traffic and link spread post Techmeme earlier in this post, so I won’t revisit our situation, but we can look at other sites for evidence of bias.

The concept around Crunchmeme, or that TechCrunch gets unfavorable treatment in Techmeme isn’t new, and the number of headlines TechCrunch gets on Techmeme (backed by the Techmeme Leaderboard) anecdotally supports the idea. The real question is that do numbers support the notion that there a bias towards TechCrunch; and likewise is it harder for other sites to get a headline on Techmeme.

The obvious comparison is Mashable, TechCrunch’s largest competitor, and a site (and team) hated by the crew at TechCrunch, people Rivera has always been very close to (the two times I’ve met Rivera were in Michael Arrington’s house). As of today, Mashable does not feature in the Top 100 blogs on the Techmeme Leaderboard, but this wasn’t always the case. Historically, at least according to TechCrunch’s Blogger Board, Mashable ranks at 33. So what happened to Mashable?

According to public measures of traffic, Mashable is competitive with TechCrunch on traffic. Quantcast places Mashable ahead on traffic, but Alexa, Compete and comScore has TechCrunch in the lead, but only by a small margin.

Mashable has had 9 headlines on Techmeme over September and October (at the time of writing) vs TechCrunch’s 245 headlines.

In terms of incoming links, Mashable ranks 14th on Technorati to TechCrunch’s 3rd. Technorati’s authority score which counts incoming links over the last 6 months ranks TechCrunch at just over double of Mashable’s score. From this we can establish that TechCrunch gets more links, but at a ratio of around 2.3:1 vs Mashable. The headline split for Techmeme is 27.2:1.

But does TechCrunch have an easier path to Techmeme than Mashable, even allowing for the link profiles?

We checked 20 random TechCrunch headlines from September and October (random as we could be, but I didn’t close my eyes and click). Of 20 tested headlines, 2 had no visible incoming links shown on Techmeme, 15 had 1 incoming link, and 3 had more than one link showing.

Here’s an example of a story on Techmeme today with no visible links. Rivera likes to claim that other links are considered but not shown, and that makes some sense, given according to Technorati, the only site linking to this post that isn’t a spam blog (as the time of writing) is The Inquisitr through our best of the web section on the front page

But how many links do Mashable stories need to hit the front page when they do? Of the 9 posts Mashable had on Techmeme in September and October, the average number of links shown was 3. No posts had no shown links, 2 has 1 link (including one post where The Inquisitr was the only site linking in visible), 1 headline had 2, 2 headlines had 3, 3 headlines had 4, and one had 5.

For Mashable at least, getting a headline, if and when they are able to, involved more sites running the story as shown on Techmeme.

It should be noted that not all shown links link to the headline stories, Techmeme groups stories based on context as well, and doesn’t necessarily give the headline to the first person who posts, or the site with the most incoming links. So Techmeme has to pick who gets the headline when multiple sites are writing about the same story, but not necessarily linking to each other.

Here’s the split again: TechCrunch 245 posts vs 9 from Mashable. That doesn’t allow for topics that both would have covered, but there is sufficient overlap on big stories to suggest that the overlap would be around 50%, so lets try that again:

Where there is an estimated 50% overlap of coverage, the split goes TechCrunch 123 vs Mashable 5 (both rounded up).

Now lets take TechCrunch’s treatment on Techmeme out of the consideration, and compare Mashable with another site featured on Techmeme regularly: Silicon Alley Insider (SAI). I’m not suggesting that SAI doesn’t deserve to be there, Henry Blogdet and his team are doing some great work and should be up there. But we can use the site in comparison to Mashable because it’s currently in third spot on the Techmeme Leaderboard (CNet news is 2nd, but it’s not strictly a blog, so it’s not as well compared).

At the time of writing, SAI has had 118 headlines on Techmeme for September/ October 2008 compared to Mashable’s 9. On links, SAI has a Technorati authority score of 4556 (it’s ranked 41st overall) and in traffic, the various services place SAI at one third to one half of Mashable’s traffic; Quantcast has the split SAI 650,000 to Mashable 1.4 million, and both are direct measures from each site (although Quantcast does under-report numbers a little bit in my experience.)

Even if we exclude the idea that Techmeme is biased towards TechCrunch, the stats prove that Techmeme is biased against Mashable, even if we allow for a wide ranging margin of error in the stats shown here.

Rivera’s line that Techmeme is not biased doesn’t stack up. He weighs the importance of sites, punishing sites and people he doesn’t like, while favoring those sites and people he does like.

Conclusion

It saddens me that Techmeme has come to this point. I’ve spent more hours than I care to mention on the site over the last 4 years, and it will always hold a small amount of affection in my memories. But enough is enough. This idea that Techmeme is the great influencer, the bringer of traffic, and an unbiased source of leading tech news isn’t supported by facts. The great Techmeme myth is a fairytale of spin; you don’t have to take my word for it, look at the numbers.

Lipstick and Love over vodka shots

Fake Steve Gillmor — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:03:09 +0000

Our occasional contributor Fake Steve Gillmor returns…

For the last few weeks, The Inquisitr’s tech coverage has become so viscerally partisan that you could sense that the coverage was coming close to threatening the fundamental tenets of particle physics. Namely, that keeping your nose clean with Crunchmeme requires brown envelopes.

With the advent of 24 hour blogging and Google hit squads, the business of invading South America has a wag the dog feel about it. As Jason Calacanis became more and more drunk in his analysis of young blonde groupies, the best god could do was deny him his next bottle on an open mic. With ratings down this year, the cash flow may be harder to come by in 2009.

The celebrity circus obscured the fact that in the history of tech conferences, BlahBlahGirls will now become default slang for crappy site, hot older wife. They say that Stolly is filtered, clean and pure as the Google filters that delivered an airline hit. Filters through which we learn the “facts” on the ground, like how Russia started the war, even when we all know it was Georgia’s fault. These thin-skinned primadonnas run startups, fame whores at desks in their boxer shorts and waiting for the moment of inspiration from the next missive from god.

Not that I innately believe every message coming from the Google chiefs; often the nuance of their answers carries money dressed in Adsense units. If Silverlight can play comfortably in Chrome, with a nod toward warewolfs and the loch ness monster to fill in the Linux blank, then Chrome becomes mesh toast, lightly buttered with cream cheese and freshly caught shrimp paste, cooked by a Kindle chef. If I have flash on the brain, it’s not from the streaming porn I’m researching, but from the paparazzi taking pictures of me this week.

The Netflix strategy makes renting porn a less onerous process, with no late fees and a large catalog to choose from, and yet will people pay when they can download it for free? Or will my partner in crime have already cut the net off through excessive usage?

I want to conclude though by thanking god for giving me such a great personal blog where I get paid to write the occasional article, and nothing much else happens in between. Who had the cutest dog at the event you ask? car racing wins, the Ford puppy was fat.

TC50 v DEMO: The startups are the losers

Duncan Riley — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:47:44 +0000

As DEMOFall08 comes to a close today and TechCrunch 50 drags on for another day (it’s a 3 day event), over 100 startups will have appeared on stage in front of audiences in San Francisco and San Diego, hopefully opening new doors and delivering much needed exposure.

With the two events running side by side, you’d think the volume would generate more buzz and a ton of coverage. And yet, the opposite has occurred. For TechCrunch50 in particular, the startup coverage is way down on last year, to the point that not even Gabe Rivera can manually correct Techmeme to compensate for it. Where at various points during last years event nearly every story on Techmeme was TechCrunch50 related, the conference has struggled to even get a top headline, being relegated instead down the page most of the time, and with a lot less mentions.

DEMO hasn’t fared well either, at least on Techmeme (which is really no surprise), but the coverage across tech blogs is more thorough, and more leading sites would appear to be covering DEMO companies than TechCrunch50 sites. Of course there is another reason for that: the media partners for DEMO include the cream of the Web 2.0 blogs minus TechCrunch, so you’d expect that level of coverage. Couple that to pre-conference briefings, that allowed people like me to cover the event from Australia even when the presentations were in the middle of my night. I’ve received exactly one email from a startup at TC50, and that was after the presentation.

So what happened? Why didn’t both conferences get more coverage, giving more airtime to the hard working startups at both events?

The basics: intentionally running TechCrunch50 at the same time of DEMO caused people to pick sides, and as a consequence some of the bigger sites covering TechCrunch50 last year are not doing so this year (although there is some cross over). TechCrunch50 as a stand alone event not up against DEMO was THE only game in town last year when it ran, and as a consequence it was THE news for two days. In trying to kill the competition, Arrington and Calacanis have actually damaged their own event by dividing attention.

The marketing BS didn’t help. As I’ve said previously, and as I’m hearing from people on the ground this week, TechCrunch50 is a great event, well organized (aside from WiFi), and has a great mix of people. Last year it had goodwill because although the DEMO must die meme was mentioned, it wasn’t the main focus, and people felt comfortable supporting both events. This year, a lot of the goodwill was lost due to a vitriolic, often hate filled marketing pitch. It’s hard to say you’re all about putting startups first when you’re trying to kill the other conference they can present at, and are bad mouthing Chris Shipley, someone I’ve never met, but who I’ve always heard positive things about, and is generally well liked in the space.

And then there was karma, delivered in a bucket load by Steve Jobs. Throw in a Zune or two for good measure as well. It has to be poetic justice that in going after DEMO on the same days, TechCrunch50 then had to deal with a Steve Jobs iPod launch in the middle of the event. Startups presenting at TechCrunch50? really? because the only news story in town today is the iPods, and NBC coming back to iTunes.

If TechCrunch50 hadn’t been about killing DEMO, and was held later in September like it was last year, does anyone seriously think that the level of coverage would be as low as it is now?

TechCrunch50 will still make a lot of money for Arrington and Calacanis, and will undoubtedly be called a success. But there are losers. The startups are the losers. Instead of being given the best opportunity to gain widespread coverage, and maybe even a chunk of new users, startups at both events have had to compete in a sea of noise and although some may have received some good coverage, most may have only received a passing link and a standardized paragraph on what they do. Many will return home, count their costs, and realize that although it might have been cool to present after Ashton Kutcher, or before god himself (Walt Mossberg), the benefits were low to non-existent.

Hopefully next year some of the smart people around Arrington, such as Heather Harde, and even Scoble, will convince him that being a community player first is the right direction to head in, and that the ultra-competitiveness damages Arrington himself, TechCrunch50 and the TechCrunch brand. Being a community player helps startups, and wasn’t the the original point of creating TechCrunch50 in the first place?

(original image source: Loic LeMeur)

Google Chrome Day One: Enough Already!

Duncan Riley — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:02:17 +0000

And so it was fortold, that in its 11th year Google would step forward and deliver Chrome, and the world of browsers would never be the same. If you’ve been monitoring the Crunchmemeosphere today, that’s what you would have heard, a browser that will kill Windows, kills the operating system, and kills rogue CIA agents.

I’m possibly the only person left in the tech community who hasn’t tried Chrome. It wouldn’t install under Crossover Office and my legal Vista install under VMWare Fusion has decided that it can’t be used because the copy is illegal…the very reason I switched to being a Mac user in the first place. I could do a fresh install, but I’m not feeling compelled to do so, so I’ll just wait until the Mac version is eventually released.

There is however a pile of news out there already on Chrome. Our coverage: Google Chrome, Google Chrome anti-competitive? and Google Chrome and Firefox.

The good

The good news, delivered by Matt Cutts, is that Google Chrome isn’t as anti-competitive as we’d first thought. You can swap out search engines, or even start searches with live.com or yahoo.com to search elsewhere, but lets be honest: very few people will be swapping this out and ultimately it’s pushing Google build-in. Still, at least there’s an out of sorts so the anti-competitive cry can’t be too loud.

General reviews tend to be positive. Quick, handles javascript well, nice layout etc..

The bad.

Stupid and/ or fanboy coverage. Two strong streams: this is an Internet Explorer killer, and this is the end of the Operating System.

It’s not an Internet Explorer killer. Think about it logically: Internet Explorer users already have better choices, and yet people are still using IE6. If they were going to abandon the Microsoft product for something else, most would have done so already. IE7 isn’t as bad as some make out, but it’s not brilliant either. Internet Explorer users fall into four fields. Corporate lock-in, where the corporation standardizes around Internet Explorer. Stupidity, where they either don’t realize that there are alternatives, are unable to download an alternative; Old age: my mother prefers Internet Explorer because it’s a safe choice for her and it’s what she knows; or Grumpiness, which is basically Steve Hodson. These people aren’t about to download and switch to Google Chrome. As I wrote previously, the biggest switch will be from Firefox users, who are smart enough and think about their browsing experience to the point that they are both aware of competitors and willing to try them out.

On the OS side Mark Rizzn Hopkins says it best on Mashable: Chrome is Not a Windows-Killer. The occasionally reasonable Drama 2.0 also argues along the same lines, noting that you can’t have Google Chrome without an OS.

Conclusion

Yay! It’s exciting! Google has a browser! Yay!

Sorry, carried away in the spirit of the occasion for a second. Competition is always good as it promotes innovation, a point previously demonstrated when Internet Explorer ruled the waves and browser development went to sleep for several years, only to wake when Firefox hit a double figure market share. Google couldn’t impress Walt Mossberg, so if they can’t impress god, there is still work to be done. I’m willing to give it a shot when it comes to the Mac, but in the mean time, enough already. It’s a browser built on Apple’s open source WebKit that helps the search market’s near monopolist lock in more people. When it starts whistling dixie, and delivering me multi-million dollar Adsense checks, then I might get excited.

Are we having fun yet?

Duncan Riley — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:09:10 +0000

As blogging continues to mature, the days of blogging as a fun side job has been replaced by new hierarchies of power, and with it more and more parts of the blogosphere reflect the mainstream media structure of work first. There’s nothing wrong with a new wave of bloggers turning the internet into a source of income, full time jobs that offer a freedom often missing in a traditional corporate structure. And yet, with serious money has come serious stress, the need to be first, to publish the next post to keep your readers coming back, sometimes a monotony of noise that isn’t always fun.

But wasn’t blogging suppose to be fun? How is it that for significant numbers of bloggers, the fun has been replaced by the very things we attempted to escape as worker bees in the past?

Balancing act

Having worked at the blogging grind in the past, I know how easy it is for blogging to cease becoming fun. The irreverence that helped define blogging is for many blogs a thing of the past, instead our growing status as outlets of news has delivered a serious blogosphere, that struggles to laugh at times. It’s one of the reasons I started The Inquisitr: there’s a place for serious tech news and thought, but I was tired of frying my brain looking for a next Crunchmeme headline when I knew others were having fun. It’s why you see celebrity stories next to Jesus sitings along with the serious stuff here at The Inquisitr. To me, this is fun, because I can be writing about a Microsoft acquisition one minute, and big foot the next. The key for me is the mix.

But not everyone can deliver balance in their blogging lives. The economics of blogging dictates that we should remain focused on what drives the next page view and ad sale.

Are two blogs better than one?

We can’t all start a site like The Inquisitr, and I’m fortunate to have been able to start it, but you can offer balance by starting another blog. That could be your personal blog, or a new site, where you can be yourself, post on what ever tickles your fancy, and bring some fun back to the mix. My personal blog for me has long been completely unfocused and all over the place in terms of what I write. It doesn’t win any records for page views (although occasionally it actually goes well), but it’s exactly the way I want it. A site where I don’t care about traffic, a site that allows me to speak my mind on what ever subject, no matter how boring it may be to some. It was my fall back during my darkest hours, the one place where I was usually me, and it even served to notify me when I was near breaking point. It was a barometer of me, and it can be for you. We may love writing, but freestyling it without care can deliver a balance that many of us lack.

Anonymity is a Blogspot blog away

Naturally not everyone can afford to be as open as they’d like, and often we are restrained on what we can write about away from our main blogs, legally or because of the damage our thoughts may sometimes cause. Aaron Brazell once told me that the best therapy you can have is posting anonymously on a Blogger blog. No one may read you, but there’s nothing better than letting go. Anonymous blogs can deliver the fun quotient you are missing, they may service as a platform for experimentation, or simply they may help you remain sane.

Conclusion

Blogging is still fun, even if more and more people take it more seriously. That I can write a post in my underwear in bed on any topic I please is fun compared to the corporate restraints and structures in my past working life. It’s fun meeting new people, sharing ideas and learning, and yet for some drudgery is only a post a way. Keep mixing it up, try new things, experiment, take a day or two off and always remember that blogging should be fun and not just another job.

And more than echoes talk along the walls [Crunchmemeosphere]

Duncan Riley — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:41:03 +0000

There’s an interesting debate brewing around what Robert Scoble describes as the passionates vs the non passionates, or alternatively described as the first adopter/ Crunchmemeosphere vs the rest of the world. Loren Feldman’s contribution is as always directly to the point, and the point remains one of an event horizon of echo within a small statistical group of tech lovers vs the greater community.

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance. . . . . And, when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It’s easy to be passionate about technology and the internet and its place in the world, and I make no apologies for often joining the crowd in sharing a passion for the new and shiny. But any such immersion is always taken with a grain of salt, the seeded idea that for all that I feel necessary to buzz that often many of these products are doomed to fail, the concept of mainstream acceptance replaced by one that lacks a business plan, that aims for the next Crunchmeme headline or Arrington write up and ignores the billions outside of the space.

Have we, living inside a bubble of who is first with what is shiniest lost touch with the world outside our digital frontiers, a world where MySpace became the king of social networking, and where Photobucket is the prefered choice of photohosting over the tag friendly Flickr. A world where people don’t have 300 accounts across 25 microblogging platforms, a dozen social networking sites, and god knows how many other sites we tried then forgot 5 minutes later.

Strangely, it’s why I loved Gnomedex so much. It wasn’t the typical tech conference crowd and speaker list, instead Chris challenged the audience with a rich tapestry of varied thought, from Mars, to Ignite, and the realities of the global poor through the efforts of the simply amazing Beth Kanter. Next to the Cyborg Anthropologist was a guy who made a living bringing 4chan cats to the mainstream, and a guy who spends his time dancing around the world. Certainly in depth occasionally it may have been frivolous, but it was a strong reminder that outside of the crunchmemeosphere that there are people creating, challenging, innovating, and they aren’t simply tied to the next business plan free first adopter aimed web startup.

I heard . . . . . . the great echo flap And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. Lord Alfred Tennyson

Every space needs its first adopters and passionates. The seed that spreads the word of value must always start somewhere. In a world dominated by corporate manipulation that the tech world has cast aside its reliance on the corrupted memes of mainstream media instead allowing a guy like Scoble to have a voice that spreads further than the newspapers of old is a positive. But it must be taken with not a grain of salt, but with an entire truckload, because in replacing one medium with another we are creating our own elites, an echo that bounces round the hills from bluff to bluff, with the rest of humanity often residing on the other side, oblivious to our rambles.

I will not pretend to offer an answer to the problem, particularly when I am sometimes a contributor to it. Keeping it real is a poor cliche, but the reality distortion medicine should be prescribed in twice daily doses from your family doctor. Rise up from your keyboards and cross the street, observe if you’re outside of the Valley the unwashed masses living without many of the things we use. See how the things they use are different, and note that while it is alright to like shiny things, the real opportunities lie outside of the cruchmemeosphere we live in.

headline credit: Alexander Pope

Tech blogging is only as boring as the feeds you read

Duncan Riley — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:05:00 +0000

Steve Hodson lights the fire under an interesting meme this weekend, suggesting that Tech blogging has become boring. In the post he cites examples within the echosphere that surrounds CrunchMeme.

I do agree with Steve to a point. There are many me-too blogs that report the same thing and regularly link to the same sources, creating the mainstream monster that Techmeme has become. But to be fair, there is a market in playing the me-too card, otherwise people wouldn’t be adding to the echo. However to suggest that all tech blogging is boring because a portion of it is, is a false stereotype that cannot go without response.

Tech blogging is only as boring as the feeds you read.

On Friday I posted an OPML file of 70 blogs I’d found via FriendFeed. Fresh voices that perhaps weren’t being heard much, with the exception of FriendFeed. Sure, you get some iPhone news and some mainstream stuff thrown in, but the difference in the mix for me is telling, as I now open the folder with those feeds in it in preference to other feeds in the morning.

The problem with original, interesting content is that it’s not always easy to find, and if you’re not linking to the latest Twitter/ Yahoo/ Microsoft/ Google/ Facebook story on Techmeme, you become even more invisible.

But just because interesting content is hard to find doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I’ve also written previously about my own struggle within the quality equation here at The Inquisitr. When I started this site I wanted it to be different, hence the mix of content (tech, pop and odd) it provides. But over time you’ll have seen a lot less mainstream news reported here as well. The important stuff JR covers well during the US day, then when I get on I try to pick the things I’ve found that interest me, things I’d note that have meant after climbing as high as 29 at one stage, The Inquisitr has now completely dropped off the Techmeme Leaderboard. Let me say again that it’s far easier to recycle mainstream echo from elsewhere (even with a touch of your own spin) then it is to source different, interesting, and hopefully not boring content. I wouldn’t dare suggest either that we always get it right (we don’t), but it’s a goal I’ve enjoyed working at.

I know others are heading in a similar direction. Robert Scoble is perhaps more interesting than he’s ever been, and I know he credits a part of that to FriendFeed, although I wish he wouldn’t link to FriendFeed streams that are blocked for other people (or as is more likely the case, just me). The mere fact I read Steve’s article on WinExtra is case in point: Steve is the walking, talking example of a different, interesting voice in the blogosphere, and although I may not always agree with him, I’m better off for reading his blog, and more recently, even joining him in a podcast.

If you’re stuck reading the same old stories over and over again, mix it up, find some fresh feeds, and contribute to fixing the problem.