One of the favorite bitchmeme’s on Techmeme, the popular blog and news headline site that keeps track of the most talked-about tech stories on the Web, is that it is dominated by A-list blogs and news sites with full-time writing staffs. Because of this professionalization of the blogosphere, the argument goes, lone bloggers are being pushed out of the conversation. TechCrunch is sometimes carted out as Exhibit A in this argument, which is why I was glad to see the chart above from the StatBot. It shows the distribution of headlines on Techmeme by rank on the Techmeme Leaderboard.
While about a 30 percent of the headlines are hogged by the top ten sources on the Techmeme Leaderboard (see table at left), another full third come from blogs and sites that don’t even rank in the top 100. That means that if you have something interesting to say, it doesn’t matter who you are, other blogs will find you and link to you. Right now that would include the post on Statbot, which is written by a self described “17-year-old wannabe geek from India” named Yuvi. Welcome to the conversation, Yuvi. A sure-fire way to get on Techmeme is to . . . write about Techmeme. But there are plenty of other ways to get there as well.
Personally, I think the distribution shown in the graph is what makes Techmeme so compelling. It always includes a pretty steady list of trusted sources, but mixed in with those are plenty of wild cards who can, in turn, become dominant voices in their own right. That’s how I like my news: a third from relatively well-known sources, a third from sources that are a complete surprise, and the rest to be from somewhere in between.
See the top individual bloggers by the TechMeme Leaderboard as well.
Just goes to show that there is still room for everyone. The blogosphere is so large, that niches and microniches are still readily available and up for grabs. As this chart shows, even tech subjects still have room for the one-person blog. In essence, if you have something useful and relevant to say, you can still be heard.
First rule of Techmeme. Always post about Techmeme.
Nice to see that the web remains wide open, the truth is in the numbers, and everyone seems to have an audience for their voice, no matter how small.
“That means that if you have something interesting to say, it doesn’t matter who you are, other blogs will find you and link to you.”
Sorry, Erick, there is no guarantee interesting people or posts will ever be linked to or discovered. I don’t know how many times over the past three years I’ve entered a new blog in my Bloglines account, only to find that I am the first subscriber, or noticed that the blogger has little or no comments, even though he or she has been at it for years. They don’t have the right amount of link love, self-promotion skills, or SEO savvy, and they’re relegated to the margins as a result.
Google is one of the main problems: Plain ol’ search emphasizes inbound links (spammy or otherwise), paid results, SEO tricks, and Google News results, and Google Blog Search is filled with spam.
Techmeme’s A-List and MSM dominance is also a problem — if the NYT says anything about the Internet, it’s featured. Other problems: The narrow tech focus, the presence of PR-driven “discussions,” and the number of useless links — i.e., someone blockquoting a news article and saying “check this out!”
Techmeme is a useful service, and Gabe is a nice guy, but there’s a lot of room for improvement, IMHO.
I’d argue this actually proves the point. Just as much info is posted from the top 10 as the rest of the Top 100. This is worse than an 80/20 rule. Then there’s some mix of non-listed content. Which *doesn’t* mean it’s an equal playing field and that anyone with good content can get in.
I mean, if lowly blog #100 only gets in a few times a month, what are the odds of the unwashed masses getting in?
On the one hand I’m not complaining because our blogs are on there daily. On the other I’m taking the opportunity to complain because we’ve had instances where dozens of top blogs have linked to us and gotten no coverage – and then TechCrunch has a post with no links and it gets halfway up the page.
Either way, doesn’t matter, TechMeme doesn’t really push much traffic (to itself or linked sites) anyways.
Just saying, that to play as if this is some democratized system (it’s not) that’s as fair to the top folk as to folk nobody’s ever heard of is disingenious, and I’m pretty sure you know it Erick.
Yuvi’s analysis actually proves that the mythology of the Net being a democracy where everyone has a chance to be hears is practically untrue. It turns on the word “chance”.
If 72% of the Techmeme headlines are coming from just 100 entities — out of the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who write about tech matters — it means the chance of anyone outside of the 100 being noticed is vanishingly small.
This is an embarrassment of a title and an article. The fact that you refer to yourself as an A-lister is disheartening. Obviously, TC is successful – there is no need to bring ego to the party.
We all know that Digg and Techmeme are dominated by the big blogs. Is there any need to point out the obvious? The level of quality on all these blogs has degraded and this post confirms that. Completely useless post.
Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com
I have to agree with the sentiment that anyone not on the “A-List” (or “internet famous” for another term) stands a nigh on impossible task of getting their views heard.
I’ve tried spamming myself out to such sites with pretty much no luck – regardless of how many times I have been told that my content is pretty good.
I was an early adopter of mixx.com but was flooded out by the digg evacuees and their supporters.
The long tail just never gets a look in, yet as soon as someone who either works for one of the top blogs or is already a big net personality mentions the same thing then it’s all over the place.
Then again, massive circle jerks are nothing new and it is foolish to believe that it wouldn’t happen on the net. Too many people hero worship instead of bother straying from the mainstream of any media.
Calling blogs outside the Techmeme Leaderboard’s top 100 part of the long tail is like calling mere multimillionaires part of the great unwashed.
While I wholeheartedly agree that the democratic structure of the internet and blogs allows us to get ours news from sources that are a “complete surprise,” this analysis of just doesn’t prove that Techmeme helps us toward that goal. Why? Because you would think that a blog would have to pretty seriously more obscure than just not being in the top 100 to be a complete surprise.
Right now not even very famous bloggers like Jeff Jarvis are on the Techmeme Leaderboard.
I know we all love the story about the bright stats kid who can magically make sense of numbers with colorful charts, but this strikes me at least as pretty shoddy reporting. If the Techmeme doesn’t have good data about the long tail–e.g., by letting us look at blogs that are outside the top 1000, 5000, or 10,000 blogs–that’s okay. The data may well lend themselves to grounding other interesting claims, just not ones about the long tail.
Pardon the correction: Right now not even very famous bloggers like Jeff Jarvis are *not* on the Techmeme Leaderboard.
@Ian (4), perhaps I should have qualified that statement to say:
“it doesn’t matter who you are, there is a chance, often good, that other blogs will find you and link to you.”
After all, nothing is guaranteed.
@Aidan (7), glad you found the post useful enough to plug a link to your blog.
@Josh (9), better metrics are always welcome, but that last third of headlines coming from outside the top 100 could be coming from the top 1000, 5000, or 10,000. How far out does the distribution go? We don’t know. Maybe Gabe does.
Josh 9
probably because Jeff Jarvis ISNT a tech blogger. Try memeorandum.com
Does Gabe still live with Micheal? It is clearly one of the reasons why TC is always the number 1 on techmeme. Techmeme should really be called US-meme or worst still US-A[list]-meme or most appropriately tech[crunch]meme.
Gabe’s so called algo is nothing but HIS A-list favorites list which he recently published.
@Erick. If you don’t know how far out the distribution goes, then you don’t know whether it rightly includes any blogs one could reasonably count as part of the long tail. If we don’t know, we probably ought not report conclusions as if we do.
@Duncan. Please. Jarvis may be writing more and more about Hillary’s lost cause, ahem, but the guy who’s writing a book about Google has historically been a regular on Techmeme and its Leaderboard (just consider this: http://www.tech.../p28#a080310p28). In any case, it’s bloggers like him who likely constitute a large part of what this post calls the long tail.
“Where the A-Listers Party With the Long Tail”
Sounds kinky.
@josh
as long as I’ve been blogging since 2002, Jeff Jarvis has first are foremost been a media focused blogger with a stronger bent into politics than tech (although he covers the full spectrum), hence he isn’t featured on Techmeme that much because his focus isn’t primarily a tech blogger or runs a tech only site. I’ve got no probs with your long tail point, but the commenter earlier suggested that Techmeme was flawed because Jarvis wasn’t prominent; again: he’s not primarily a tech blogger where as Techmeme covers tech.
This blog-evangelism is a well-refuted FAQ by now. It’s cruel and often bullying from A-lister’s. Quick links:
Jon Garfunkel: “The New Gatekeepers”
http://civiliti...eNewGatekeepers
Nick Carr: “The Great Unread”
http://www.roug...great_unrea.php
I agree with #9, it’s not like there are 500 tech blogs outside the top 100, there are tens of thousands. I’m cool with Gabe’s algorithm on diversifying the headlines as he does, but I don’t think the #1 source should say “Hey, look, the wealth IS being shared after all!” when it is still just a millionaires club.
Those underdogs may have gotten there because their blog posts were submitted, accepted and linked to by some of the top blogs that highlight interesting stories from other blogs
Consequently, they may get Digged or Reddited and get the necessary viral marketing that gets tmore notice
If a top member Diggs them – it really has influence
Juvi seems like a really cool and obviously smart kid..
…but isn’t his rise within TechMeme the least bit connected to Louis Gray both promoting him AND actively supporting the new StatBot project to the point of Louis being mentioned in the about page?
Just saying that maybe Juvi isn’t the best example for the long tail, since he in a way already had worked himself into connecting with the A-list circle before that post on techmeme (obviously did so on the merits of his bright statistical analysis though, which was a pretty good feat and also something very long tailish at the time).
sorry, that’s Yuvi, not Juvi.
Hey Yuvi, how about pointing your good StatBot at Techmeme and Memeorandum to determine Jeff Jarvis’s relative positions in each aggregator? Or how about generalizing the inquiry? For instance, who casts the biggest shadow–however you measure it–over more than one of Gabe’s properties?