The Blogosphere is a twitter, a buzz, maybe even aghast (I?m practicing my Scrabble words) with today?s announcement that Gabe Rivera has created a leaderboard for Techmeme that will track who has headlines appear on Techmeme the most (the top 100, to be specific).? Since Techmeme is still a black box, it?s not clear how people get their posts listed as headlines.? Discussion links, btw, don?t count toward your score so it must be the “who?s first is who wins” kind of game.? This is how the ranking is described on the Techmeme News post:
A source?s presence is the probability that a random Techmeme headline at a random time over the past month was published by that source. The Leaderboard ranks sources by presence. What is a source? Sidestepping knotty issues of ownership and affiliation, sources are simply identified by the branding a publisher chooses. So blogs are generally distinct sources from their parent site.
While some are understandably tickled pink to be on, or even lead, the list, you have to wonder?what does the list represent and who does it really serve?? Ben Metcalfe suggests that since Techmeme is, essentially, built up just from bloggers linking to each other (coupled with the who broke the story first), we?re really just taking the Technorati Top 100 navel gazing to the extreme:
I therefore wonder what value this list really is, other than ?Top 100 sources bloggers link to? – which seems somewhat navel gazing at best (and maybe not even ?what bloggers link to?). The only thing this exercise has done for TechMeme is to demonstrate how skewed (esp at the top end) it is these days towards non-blogs.
?Mathew Ingram and Jim Turner, my business partner at One By One Media, both feel that this is another nail in Technorati?s coffin.? While I might agree to some extent, I don?t think the Techmeme Leaderboard is a replacement at all for Technorati?s list.? In fact, I have become less concerned over time about where I rank on the given lists (my personal blog is no where close to the top 100 if either list, and probably never will be) but if I?m reaching my audience, they enjoy what I?m writing, and if I am contributing to the greater whole.? Of course even folks like Scoble (who is on both lists) notes that he?s following what?s going on in his Twitter stream:
Personally the list business is just lame anyway. When I consult with companies I tell them to forget about the ?A list? and go for people who are passionate about their products. Word gets around when you?re talking with your customers in a new way anyway. It?s one reason why I am watching 5,900 Twitterers. That?s MY ?A list.? Why don?t you join? I automatically follow anyone following me now.
While I do check Techmeme to see what the buzz of the day is, I?m also increasingly using my meta-feeds and personal meme-streams that I?ve created to find the buzz.? Techmeme suffers too often from what I call the “enough already, move on please” syndrome where a hot topic dominates the coverage to such an extent that other news can?t make it on easily.? And frankly when Techmeme gets to a point where a couple news items dominate it all, the criticism of blogosphere navel gazing and being news sheep becomes most telling.? Solution?? Make your own river of news.
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