Comments on: I Love Techmeme, But …

By: Deep Jive Interests » I Love Techmeme But … (Part II)

Deep Jive Interests » I Love Techmeme But … (Part II) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:25:03 +0000

[...] news aggregator bloggers love to love (or hate with equal measure). Two months ago I bemoaned how it wasn’t picking up what I perceived to be the most important news item (but eventually [...]

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:54:13 +0000

Actually in terms of impact on people who use stuff and CARE, the niche storage thing is of VASTLY higher impact today than The HD-DVD wars. That’s completely meaningless over the long term (physical media will COMPLETELY go away). Niche storage has a lot more long-term impact.

So I suppose it depends on your point of view, short-term or long-term. “News” tends to be short-term, so it’s a fair point, but perhaps Techmeme takes the long view!

By: MG Siegler

MG Siegler — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:33:33 +0000

@Tony – Sorry, didn’t mean to sound like a d-bag in my last comment which I may have a bit :) I actually think you make a great point in your comment – people sometimes ask why I write about things that have already been talked about on places like Techmeme and the like and part of the answer is that I do in fact have readers who have no idea what Techmeme is – should they be deprived of news because of that? No, and as you state it should probably work the opposite way too.

By: Devin Anderson

Devin Anderson — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:37:14 +0000

I was going to mention in my first post the same point about it (format war) being old news that’s been going on for awhile and the S3 news was something new, causing it to get more attention among the bloggers, but I wasn’t sure if that would affect it getting pushed to the top. But I guess if it is like was said above and Techmeme pays more attention to what industry insiders are talking about then it makes more sense.

By: Tony Hung

Tony Hung — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:26:12 +0000

Oooooh — Mr. Seigler, that stings! :)

… while I understand your (and Gabe’s) point about it not being new news, I think both of your opinions say a lot about exactly how Techmeme (and its ilk) are geared.

That is to say, since the engine is powered by the opinion of industry watchers, then it will only deem important what industry watchers deem to be important.

Because you / we have been following the story for ages, its a non-issue.

But clearly, it would be important to the lay person, and I would argue, is still objectively more important than the majority of news on Techmeme *still*.

On the flip-side, the same reasoning / rationale is the reason why we see tech-blog-centric/heavy news being pushed up, when most ordinary people wouldn’t care — e.g. the ongoing identity search for Fake Steve Jobs.

But being an industry watcher, you knew that already. :)

t @ dji

By: MG Siegler

MG Siegler — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:13:59 +0000

While I’m not sure the S3 thing should still be the top story, I agree with Gabe’s point completely about HD-DVD’s death hardly being new news.

I feel like just personally I’ve written 10-15 stories about the death of HD-DVD since January and while yes, this seems to be the formal end, even this Toshiba pulling out story is a couple days old.

Anyone who didn’t see this coming since January is either not paying too close of attention – or was a stubborn HD-DVD early adopter :)

By: Gabe

Gabe — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:40:59 +0000

Here’s my view: while it does often pain me when Techmeme ignores a significant story, in this case, it’s the #2, which isn’t so bad, and second, the mortal wounds HD DVD has sustained of late have been in the news almost continuously. So perhaps to most bloggers, the writing has been on the wall so long, filing additional obituaries would be overkill?