Archive for: techmeme
By: Luis Sandoval
RSS, seems like that is the new mainstream on how everyone gets their information. You can have RSS feeds go to your email, your blog, you mobile devices, and even use an aggregater to capture all your feeds. With sites like Reddit and Digg , one would have to question if there is more you can do with feeds…the answer is yes.
Now honestly at first glance RSSMeme does not stand out, as a matter of fact it looks boring and not as easy to understand. But the question becomes, did you come for information or did you come to see something pretty? We all know that answer. Like Reddit and Digg, RSSMeme offers a ton of news bits lined up in the order they were voted upon and posted. You get everything you need without all the extra frills, and you get functionality that I found to be very useful.
For starters you get the article, who it was posted by, from what site it was posted on, and the time it was posted. All standard fare, but below it is where you get the extra metrics you don’t get from other sites. You get a list of everyone who is sharing it, what other communities have tagged along with how many times. Definitely worthwhile if you want to know whether a post is worth reading or not, and just how popular it is on the internet.
The selections above for “now” posts, “daily” posts, “this week” posts, and “all time” posts is a very nice addition to break up the articles into sizable chunks that are digestible for the reader. Your ability to customize and personalize the feeds is the best feature for this site. I can pick and choose which feeds make it through to the site, kinda like filtering your email, making sure only the most important and interesting rise to the top. The ability to have your feeds and your community’s feeds added to your Friendfeed is another awesome addition.
RSSMeme seems much more versatile then either Reddit and Digg. Though they may have “prettier” interfaces, and their communities are larger, I say give RSSMeme a try and play around with the customization, it seems like it has a lot to offer for those that stick around and explore!
For a long time now there has been a search engine that has been totally forgotten about, that search engine is Dogpile. Dogpile is a meta-search engine that is currently owned by Infospace. I was browsing the site this afternoon and suddenly noticed that there werent any search ads in the results. Im so used to seeing search ads on Yahoo, Google, etc, but nothing on Dogpile. Why is this? Why would they have a search engine that is obviously not getting huge amounts of traffic, but is still getting something, so why not at the very least create a partnership with Google and get some money for those search ads?
This is probably not a good example, but im really sick of seeing Silicon Valley companies who get funding or whatever, but havent actually developed a real business model. Prime example lately was Sonific. Sonific was a great idea, but they never really had an affective business model that could go with their high class product. That is the main reason why I like seeing startups like Techmeme do so well, because they are bootstrapped with no money at all, but they have a real aim and a business model that can pull it all together.
Update: There was a misprint which stated that Dogpile was owned by IAC, which its not. Dogpile is owned by Infospace.
Techmeme is normally the first stop for tech geeks to see what is happening around the blogosphere. The site was long time in development and is the brain child of Gabe Rivera. I know all the basic principles behind the site and have seen this all explain too many time by Robert Scoble. Im really writing this post to see where the site can go from here. Can the site get any better or really improve on what Gabe is doing at the moment?
After looking at the site, I have never really liked the design. This is the main area in which the site can instantly improve. Due to the current design it is very hard to keep track of all the news stories on the site, this is due to the frequency of articles added to the service and the only way to use Techmeme efficiently is to add it to you RSS reader.
The other area in which Techmeme lacks inspiration is in terms of finding new content through the service and acknowledging the correct author who broke the story. Over the last year on Techmeme I have noticed it is a lot harder to find new websites that I have never heard of. This is mainly due to Gabe only being humanly able to track so many feeds. If this is not rectified i can see Techmeme moving closer and closer to services such as Google News, etc.
Finally, I always see people asking how can they get on Techmeme? Answer, No one knows. At this stage it is nearly impossible to get on Techmeme at all. The options are to get linked to by Techcrunch or just dont ever expect to get on Techmeme. I totally understand Gabe is only human, but there really needs to be a list of who can be shown on Techmeme and some way to actually get acknowledged to gain access to Techmeme. For example when Techmeme was developed they were tracking the top bloggers, but a few of them have disappeared off the radar, but never been replaced.
So what would you change over at Techmeme? And is there any other service that will be a Techmeme killer?
I have been reading Techcrunch today and Duncan Riley talks about Scoble and some comments he made about the new Techmeme Leaderboard. Scoble said that the leaderboard would the death of blogging. Duncan has tried to comment by arguing the point that most of the leaderboard are actual blogs, well 64% in his words. All this is pretty much irrelevant on what percentage are actual blogs or not, because is it still classified as a blog if there are more than one author?
Overall I just think the list is pointless and it just boosts the ego of the few that are on it! It has the same relevance as most of the lists you see around the place about the “top 50 bloggers” or “top blog awards”. Pointless!
Im sorry I havent been posting a lot in the last few days, but been very busy on a few projects that will be launching soon. However this said, I have just been reading a few RSS feeds from a variety of sites and I see that Techmeme has launched a new “leaderboard“. The Techmeme leaderboard shows that frequency of blogs providing main topics on the Techmeme site. I must agree with Jason on this one! Who really cares!
I was an avid reader of Techmeme but in the last few months I have very much lost interest in the site and the service it is providing. As Jason mentions the majority of the links on the site is just from sites that re-post the news and dont actually give their overall perceptions on the news. It is no longer about peoples opinions, just about reproduction and increase reader numbers!
I am trying to move Crenk away from just basic news and stories of the day, and actually providing my views on why sites will or wont work and also help web developers, owners and investors where every possible. I have written articles not to get on Techmeme and get more exposure, but i have never understood why i can get links from sites on Techmeme and never actually show my news on or link to my site from there.
