TechMeme woes
Ever since I discovered Techmeme, I have become a huge fan. I visit Techmeme several times on a daily basis to find out what is hot in the blogosphere. On the whole, Techememe does a great job at giving a clustered view of what the blogosphere is talking about.
However, there have been a couple of instances when I’ve been disappointed. Like today.
Jason Calacanis blogged a rant on how Wired reporters preferred to do interviews over the phone instead of email. And in no time, there were all the overly eager, supposedly A-list bloggers discussing about what is a better medium for an interview - email or phone.
What the fuck ?
To begin with, I agree with Mike - I still fail to see the reason why Calcanis had to blog about this incident. Ok, probably his mastery at linkbaiting is to blame. But then, whats wrong with these A-listers ? Are they unaware of how big a linkbaiter Calacanis is ? From a stupid rant, the incident unfolds into a major topic of discussion - email over phone.
And therein lies Techmeme’s drawback. You see, based on the number of cross-linking between all these blog posts, Techmeme assumes it has to be of great importance - and voila ! This discussion hogs the limelight on Techmeme. Much ado about nothing. Value to the reader - absolutely zero.
This is not the first such incident. The day that iPhone was released, the entire TechMeme page had nothing else - but blogosphere raving about the iPhone. And that leaves no room for discovering other interesting blogosphere content out there. Such incidents overshadow other interesting, meaningful posts.
So, here’s an open suggestion to Gabe to improve Techmeme. Limit the number of cross linking posts - articles to a certain threshold - say 10. Once the threshold has been reached, no more blog posts - articles would be added to the cluster. This would give equal footage to some other stories - which otherwise would go unnoticed.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Hi and thanks for the post. Though I happen to disagree with almost all the specific things you cite, the most general conclusion, that big “clusters” should be reduced is something I agree with, and am planning to do. Not on the front burner, but it’s on the list.
April 25th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Gabe,
I wasnt expecting this suggestion would reach you - but thanks for stopping by and providing your input..
Which are the specific things you refer to above that you disagree with ?
Keep the great work going,
-p