Techmeme and the Leaderboard work. He said that "in general, top publishers get a major share of the headline space because talent, vigilance, reputation, fame, and most importantly, access to breaking news is not evenly distributed." I don't think talent has much to do with the makeup of the Leaderboard, but his comments about vigilance and access to breaking news are accurate. TechCrunch and the New York Times have teams of writers working on new material all the time, and can leverage their names to get access to news and sources. How many individual bloggers can keep up with the pace of posting and get the same level of access? None that I know of.
What's your take on the Techmeme Leaderboard, or any other service that ranks the influence of bloggers and other publishers? Is there a need for a leaderboard that ranks individual bloggers? If so, what should the criteria be?
July 17 UPDATE: I have a follow-up post, Techmeme analysis, part II: 15% of sources account for more than 70% of headlines
More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:
- Special Feature: The Industry Standard's Top 25 B-to-Z List Blogs
- Ian Lamont: Picture This: Why Google News needs a human editor
- Ian Lamont: Is Twitter worth $75 million? $150 million? How about none of the above?
- Ian Lamont: Why podcasting is failing
Comments
In order for this to matter, it would require taking the TechMeme leaderboard, like the Technorati list before it, as some indicator of success or notoriety.
That may be giving it more credit than it deserves.
I noticed that Marketing Pilgrim used to be in the leaderboard, because of the quality of news and any links pointing to the post. The quality is still there--if not better--but unless others in the Top 100 link to the story, we have no chance of making the list. It's become very self-sustaining/insular.
First rule of Techmeme. Always write about Techmeme.
The one thing that's not here is that Gabe does weight the sources, and has admitted that on more than one occasion in comments sections. News blogs weight heavier that blogs that focus on in-depth reviews and commentary. Pro blogs weight heavier than non-pro, as he indicated to Yuvi at the Stat Bot (http://thestatbot.com/2008/05/27/techcrunch-a-w-statistics-almost-all-st...), but Louis Gray is climbing and he really meets neither of those criteria.
It would be great to see a TechBlogger alongside TechMeme that consisted only of posts from individual bloggers or amateur groups (no visible sponsorship). I used to click through a lot of links on TechMeme. These days, I scan the headlines and there is rarely more than a couple worth clicking. Partly because the page is often half-filled with debate about a single news article (e.g. will MS ever buy Yahoo). I now use Hacker News - http://news.ycombinator.com/ - as my primary source for keeping up to date with tech news. Find the content more interesting.
Another thing that I want to comment here is that. http://startupmeme.com was added to TechMeme index about a month or so back. And while we continued to get ourselves included into BlogBurst, Newstex, TOPIX, Google News and other such prominent properties, TechMeme kicked us out of its index without assigning a reason or responding to request for comment via email.
The funny thing about it is, that Startup Meme got included into TechMeme while we have around 800 visitors on average per day and has been removed from TechMeme when the average visitors per day have soared to 8000 mark.
Everyone: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Fred Wilson has a related post with an interesting discussion thread. Also, later today I will be publishing some more data relating to Techmeme -- specifically, how many headlined sources are referenced by the service in a 30-day period. I am still waiting for some additional clarification from Gabe, but hope to get this out in the afternoon.
Joining Dots: I think there is a need for such a standalone blogger-oriented service too, or a way to exclude the media companies from the results. I don't have anything against TechCrunch, the NYT, or other media companies (after all, I work for one!) but sometimes the more informed opinions and observations are taking place on the indie blogs, and it would be helpful to highlight those conversations and bloggers more often.
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
@Peter Kafka: That's the first rule of Digg, too. ;)
On the larger point -- does it really matter? A lot of individual bloggers who were (and maybe still are on the Techmeme leader board) have been hired by larger "corporate" blogs -- such as Sarah Perez, Corvida, and Frederic Lardinois to ReadWriteWeb, and MG Seigler to VentureBeat. Who cares where they're blogging?
On a side note: RWW only went "corporate" about a year ago. I was Richard's first full-time hire last July (he hired me part time in May 2007). Before that it was all Richard and a couple of some time guest contributors. I mention this because I still see RWW in the top 10... I still see TechCrunch there... and VentureBeat and GigaOm. These are the old A-Listers -- they're "tech blog networks" now, but they're still staffed by bloggers... so I'm not really sure what the gripe is...
Could it be that blogging just reached a new phase (the infamous "trough of disillusionment") in the hype cycle? Those who started with a lot of enthusiasm suddenly realize that they can't keep up the pace, that they have linked to every important news source at least once, that they have written about most topics they were interested in (including cats or babies ;-)? Interesting thing is that the same thing happens in Germany right now. Although it's always been said that the German blogosphere were a few years behind.
Josh: I address your "Does it matter?" question on the follow-up post, Techmeme analysis, part II: 15% of sources account for more than 70% of headlines.
Benedikt : Interesting thought, but I think blogging has too large of a dedicated reader and creator population. It's not just hype -- it's really got legs.
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard