Burningbird

Forgive me for feeding another beast, but apropos the above, I think you'll enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUg4xqGxo1Y

Too true, Seth. I added it to the post. Well, until I can't stand the performance hit, in which case I'll remove.

Hmm.

the first generation of search engines were an answer to the question "How do I find the right stuff?". The basic answer was "be specific", so we had all sorts of boolean operators and the like, and answers were ordered according to some variant of keyword frequency.

Eventually, the web grew to the point that both the selection mechanism and the ordering mechanism broke down (the former due to false positives and negatives, and the latter due to gaming by site authors and publishers), so the answer changed to "here is the 'best' stuff out of the pile that matches your request." (ie. Google pagerank). This answer was good enough that even expert searchers usually don't bother with boolean operators anymore. Pagerank is, on a primitive level, a translation of monkey status games along the same lines as scientific paper citations are, but extended further to a papers that cite papers etc. model. Because we are still monkeys, and do play status games, this actually works rather well.

Syndication meanwhile was an answer to a different question, "tell me the new stuff from the sources I want".

Google alerts and other services are answers to "show me the right and new stuff" based on a stored query.

Still, the web continues to grow, to the point that not only can we not keep up with new stuff, but we can't even keep up with the list of new sources of stuff.

So now, we have a slew of new problems and questions:

"who (or what) are the 'best' sources?"

"what sources might I be interested in subscribing to?"

"what is the best new stuff?"

Stored queries of various sorts have a place here, but so do the 'monkey status' tools that try to figure out 'best' through various proxy measures of who is pointing to who (blogrolls, post citations, subscription stats, etc.).

The flaws in this approach that you note are obvious, and it is definitely being wielded like a hammer making everything look like a nail. But even aside from the way it is being wielded somewhat indiscriminately instead of more mindfully does not change the fact that it is a useful tool, and we aren't done figuring out how to refine the 5-lb sledge to a jewelers hammer. But nothing will change the fact that this is still a proxy monkey-status measure, and that it will reward many people according to older monkey status measures (ie. attractiveness, chest beating, and forming exclusive groups).

In this case that you've pointed out, the basic problem is that even someone who has set themselves up as a filter which others can use *can't keep up with the onslaught themselves* without resorting to mechanical proxies, and of course the simple and obvious solution they've decided to try has a positive feedback loop that leads to reinforcing the monkey status heirarchy, even if that wasn't the intent.

What I would like to see is any approach for getting the 'best' stuff to float to the top of ever-growing sea of results that is completely different than the monkey-status proxy measures we are currently using. I haven't seen one yet, but I'm keeping my eye out. If one shows up, it will be as big a deal as pagerank was.

What's not going to happen is getting people (developers or users) to throw out the monkey status tools entirely without something better to replace it. The best we can do is pointing out various slippery slopes and degenerate cases (as you're doing), and try to figure out the best and safest ways to use these tools.

Ah, I get it…but which gorilla is Seth and which is Shelley?

:P

Slumming, Gabe?

> So recently I extended my system to take referrals
> into account. Now if your blog or news article sends
> a moderate level of traffic to one of my sites, it will
> be evaluated for inclusion.

Sounds kinda evil. The search engine Gigablast has something quite similar called "gigaboost". Quote from their explanation (gigablast.com/gigaboost.html):

"# When your web page contains a link to gigablast.com it will receive a Gigaboost in the search results.
# A Gigaboost will give your page an advantage in the search results rankings."

I posted on this in 2003 but the problem remains to this day. Then again, it didn't appear to give Gigablast the push they expected…

I bet techmeme is playing gimmick. They just want to get you link to them and you will get nothing back. Think about this way, who else should be replaced in the top n news:( They are all big guns.

"You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" is an economy of its own.

The Outsider has a role in the play, too.

[…] Michael Bernstein offers a long, interesting comment about "how to find the good stuff." It's worth a read, as the article by Shelly Powers about the new Techmeme "flow" gambit. Go, Read. […]

Phillip, a link to Gigablast doesn't change whether a page is truly relevant to Gigablast. But links to Techmeme correlate significantly with relevance to what's on Techmeme. I've watched what happened back when my system was oblivious to links, and now it seems like a bug. Try not using Technorati (or equivalent) for a week and maybe you'll understand.

Shelley, we're all slumming, then we die.

(Won't dignify, Matthew)

I don't use Technorati for weeks at a time Gabe. And I don't use Techmeme for the same reasons. They are skewed artificialities fabricating importance out of the ether. They trul do not add value to my life, but then I only spend 90-100 hours a week on the web.

I used to think the spectre of the A-List (which was as much a joke as the ol' Cabal, which is to say: mostly) was pernicious, mostly because so many the early adopters — folks who seemed to know one another personally, for the most part, and lived in the right couple of places and worked for the cool start-ups — seemed to spend a lot of their time talking to and about each other, even as many of them were developing tools and ideas to help everyone else do it too. How wrong I was, at least in comparison the the 800 pound gorillas of today.

Those days weren't nuthin' compared to the cashed-up, sold-out, conference-flogging, techno*-ranked, machine-processed, mammontrepreneurial, algorithmic egopump-and-dump post-blogpocalyptic thunderdome that is weblogging these days.

So much self-congratulatory circle-jerk noise from the Big Boys (and few gals), and such a dull and distant thunder from the long end of the hockeystick, out there in the digital ghettos, eating cake.

The new world on the wires has turned into the same world that the advent of weblogs was meant to break us out of — the same old self-promoters chasing the same old dollars, gladhanding, logrolling and backslapping each other until their voices are the ones we can't seem to avoid, and their lessons are the ones that get learned.

Bah. Maybe I'm just cranky and jaded today. Damn flu.

Shelly, I don't get the hate for Techmeme. Having been following a story about your displeasure at Techmeme, your link under Gabe's headline was the first one I clicked on. Win-win?

I love Techmeme because I think it's a great snapshot of the web. Are there blogs I wish were aggregated? Of course. I want to see a lot more blogs in the "conversation" but Techmeme helps foster that conversation and I think that's valuable. It's become a central part of my information gathering.

Shelley - great post, at heart I'm totally agreeing with your sentiment!

Gabe, but isn't Techmeme missing the boat on a lot of things or coming in a bit late because a lot of the stories I'm seeing hitting Techmeme are already being covered by "NOT A-LISTERS" a few days before the A-Listers are getting them - Edelman's Walmart mess with the flogs is a big example. That was burning up the blogosphere long before Shel Holz posting something about it and then it made Techmeme.

There are a bunch of great "scrappy" start up blogs that are consistent with their content - that's legitimate who aren't even being picked up in your discussion area of the articles (who likely broke the articles first), who do turn around and add a link to the Techmeme post after it appears in their blog.

Again - great post Shelley, I even referenced yours in mine about this.

Nah stavros, you're onto something. Everyone looks for filters on what they should be paying attention to. Shelley is one of mine.

We can argue about the utility or fairness of filters all day long. Newspapers are filters after all. We're just creating the editorial board of the web. All of us.

I've liked Memeorandum because it seemed a more 'open' (the term is very, very loosely defined ain't it?) alternative to sites like Techcrunch, which are more obviously circle-jerks. I think looking at referrals as a way to for Memeorandum to discover other voices makes sense - almost all of us do it independently anyway.

But the following can't be thought of as anything but a circle-jerk:

"links to Techmeme correlate significantly with relevance to what's on Techmeme."

Wow. Really Gabe? Do you mean that? Phillip's analogy was pretty spot on if you ask me.

Those days weren't nuthin' compared to the cashed-up, sold-out, conference-flogging, techno*-ranked, machine-processed, mammontrepreneurial, algorithmic egopump-and-dump post-blogpocalyptic thunderdome that is weblogging these days.

All of a sudden I'm flashing on Neil Young's My My Hey Hey:

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.

'Course, Neil ain't got shit on the 'Chicken.

Rock on, brother and sister birds.

I was thinking, 'This Note's For You', but that will do nicely Dave.

[…] He adds "Linking certainly doesn't guarantee you'll appear, since all posts are run though the usual tests for newsworthiness." Shelley Powers comments: In other words, if you puff up Gabe Riviera's empire, giving it lots of Google rank, as well as do all the marketing for him (…) you might be able to 'buy' your way into being listed. That is, if you're 'newsworthy' enough. […]

[…] He adds "Linking certainly doesn't guarantee you'll appear, since all posts are run though the usual tests for newsworthiness." Shelley Powers comments: In other words, if you puff up Gabe Riviera's empire, giving it lots of Google rank, as well as do all the marketing for him (…) you might be able to 'buy' your way into being listed. That is, if you're 'newsworthy' enough. […]