Avoiding Content Aggregator Bias
Posted on July 28, 2006
Filed Under What's New |
Laurence Timms is developer on Chuquet one of a number of new blog aggregators and one that I’m enjoying using. Chuquet uses inbound links as a way of scoring the popularity of blog posts.
A familiar strategy so Laurence and I got to exchanging views on the inbuilt bias of today’s content aggregators.
Here’s my grievance. Google, Chuquet and most other content visibility tools bias the content towards an existing voice which works counter to the spirit of the web. We need to hear emerging voices.
Laurence was good enough to concede that point but we also got onto another issue that needs addressing. Content aggregation and visibility tools on the web have a habit of focusing attention on technology issues.
The web has moved far beyond its techie origins and a point I make on this blog from time to time is that the wider content community needs a voice.
YouTube and the rest dominate a scene where there is much diverse entrerpreneurial activity that will alter our perception of culture. That’s something I blogged about yesterday.
Chuquet’s developers want to move beyond the tech-focused base and take in new content areas like food, entertainment, parenting etc.
The day can’t come too soon. We need a light shining on some great entrepreneurs and compelling new uses of the web. The tech community is too obsessed with the entrepreneurial consequences of technological functions instead of raising its head and looking at the wider consequences of creative innovation.
Problem at the moment is raising the visibility of voices that are saying that.
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I have to admit that we focussed on tech news for chuquet at the outset simply because there are so many visible tech blogs. But over the last 12 months the explosion of blogs clustered around other subjects - such as food, parenting etc - has shown us that there are plenty of other fresh markets to be tapped.
The only things that are really slowing our progress in this direction are the old culprits: time and money.