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Bloggers passing news on to their audiences, who some -- I am sure -- wouldn't hear about the new product launch otherwise, doesn't bother me greatly.
While it's definitely not true of all, it does feel like the "reprint press release" blogosphere has become a lot more front and center compared to the "let's discuss and analyze what's important" part of the blogosphere.
I still tend to believe that there's real value in more analytical stuff, but who knows...
I am not sure what you are saying here. I think to your last comment - analytical stuff is important and relevant - as long as you don't care about being in techmeme. i am finding relief and creativity in getting off the news bandwagon. it makes life so much simpler.
But, what's weird is that because we're in the blogosphere, people seem to *expect* us to write about breaking news stories. I can't believe how many times I get emails from people saying "I can't believe you're not covering x -- everyone else is." As if it's a requirement.
And while I'm mostly joking about all of this, I do sort of miss the camaraderie of the tech blogosphere of a few years ago, where it was a lot more about linking and sharing ideas and discussing, rather than being first to break a story and claim credit or get the top spot on Techmeme. Somewhere over the past few years, it seems like a more shark-like mentality has taken over among some, and I find it disappointing to find what used to be friendly relationships turned into some sort of "with us or against us" scenario.
I've had too many situations where what I thought was a friendly relationship turn into something where someone was suddenly challenging me on why I would link to someone else or do something with another site. And that's the sort of stuff I could do without.
What was a discussion salon turned into high school cliques in some cases.
I'm not complaining, though. I just keep doing what I do and focus on what I have control over. I can't change what other people do, but I can note that I find the whole concept of the competitive nature of the tech blogosphere not enjoyable. So I stay out of it. But that doesn't mean it's not disappointing to see it take over Techmeme at times.
to get as many keywords as possible in the headline. It may make for
good SEO, but unfortunately it also makes for a whole lot of crap
headlines.
This merited exactly 200 characters on gigaom daily. Someday people will realize that it isn't how much, but how succinct that matters the most. Regardless, this is the problem with too much link driven news posting. the stuff that is relevant gets left behind.
Are their lazy bloggers out there practising me-too reporting? Absolutely. But you don't have to read them. (Without techmeme you don't even have to know about them.) As a reader, sometimes I want analysis and sometimes I want just to be in the know. There is nothing wrong with that -- no matter the length of the post.
Look at the above commenters alone... Om and Mike prove their is a meritocracy at work. Feeling despair at the efforts of lesser bloggers is a waste of positive energy.
I wish wish wish that the blogosphere can postpone that phase TV went through in the late 70s where all the insiders went sour on it (its zenith being Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death). I am sensing that slide everytime I see a post like this.
At the end of the day your own writing stands for itself. Imagine the novelists back in the 30s all piling on each other. Well? We only remember the good ones now. Each blog stands -- and should be judged -- on its own. The blogosphere - or journalism for that matter - is a straw man.
best.
The Techmeme Echo Chamber is worse than we thought.
It is time Gabe Rivera fixed the Techmeme algorithm and put on more analysis on the front page.
http://broadstuff.com/archives/1222-Will-the-fu...
You may wanna try this news-site instead: http://www.geekregator.com
Much less overloaded.
While not to suggest I'm completely innocent of falling the same sword from time to time, you just have to think twice about whether you're just creating more noise or offering some insight when the urge to write a post hits you.
I'm with you on that. And the problem you describe is even much worse on mobile phones with their small screen real estate. I'm guessing that a new generation of filtering technology will have to be invented (called, perhaps Needle - as in Haystack) to find wisdom amongst the noise.
Randall
From another perspective, every techblog has its own audience. Shouldn't it post some news just because other were quicker?