There’s a “new way to get on Techmeme“. It’s called Twitter, have you heard of it?
All you need to do is send a message on the micro-sharing service that begins with “Tip @Techmeme” or “Tip @TechmemeFH”. The website, which aggregates news stories from across the web and determines which ones are worth featuring on the site and also detects links and relations between stories, will consider the article to be posted for many tech fanatics and professionals news reporters to see. And you’ll get credit with your Twitter id too!
This, of course, is a direct result of the recent hire of a human editor at Techmeme, which essentially came down to the popular website giving up on fully automated news.
According to the blog post announcing the new feature, tips will be processed through a combination of automated and manual means, although we’re not really sure what that’s supposed to mean, exactly. The Q&A part of the post only mentions that tips will be “promptly found” thanks to the Twitter Search API.
Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera added that they’ll be able to grab the target URL for the most common URL shortening services, that they’ll be able to fight off spam, and that it’s generally not a very good idea to submit your own stories (except in undefined, rare cases).
The question is: why does Techmeme need this in the first place? It’s not like it’s a news website where content is actually published, and the algorithm that makes certain stories stick out automatically has proved its usefulness in the past, so why depend on user submissions for good stuff?
The service does drop the ball now and again, but crowdsourcing headline gathering is a peculiar move for a website that once prided itself on being entirely automated.
That said: hey Techmeme, here’s a tip for you.
What is this “Twitter” that you speak of?
don’t know… sounds dirty…
so…. how will Twitter generate revenue?
That is the 250 million $ question my friend.
“new way to get on Techmeme”
the URL is wrong “http://techmeme.coml/”
Twitter is a so called ‘Microblogging’ tool allowing you to spread the word with short messages limited to 140 characters, similar to cell phone Short-Messages. One has to actively subcribe (follow) others to recieve the messages.
Revenue Generation is easy: Use it good and you will get buzz for your products. If you misuse it people will stop follow you.
Information is spreaded extremely fast, so be careful.
You don’t get it, do you?
That’s classic!
First link is broken (extra ‘l’ at the end)
thanks, fixed
You guys are such a-hole. Techmeme is a better service than Techcrunch and twitter combined.
Techmeme employee comments are easily spotted. To each their own my friend. I personally like Techcrunch a lot more, more personal feel here, Techmeme feels like a robot put the website together. That’s my opinion.
Church!
I’d bet anything that comment was not written by a Techmeme employee.
Jason happens to be correct here.
Fascinating talking points though, Dropacid. Let’s review:
Techmeme > TechCrunch + Twitter
A little complicated, but I’ll try this pitch out on people.
Twitter is the new AJAX.
Hey, you seem to assume an algorithm won’t be involved in processing these tweets.
Basically, we’re looking beyond blogs for links. Now we’re getting them Twitter, and from people specifically mindful of holes in Techmeme’s coverage.
or from people trying to promote their own posts.
Thanks Gabe. I got that, but what’s the difference with people e-mailing you and ‘involving an algorithm’ to process those?
Either way, nobody’s ever sure if it’s really automatically processed or by a human.
Nobody cares except for bloggers.
So what’s next? User-generated content?
I, on the other hand, am a very big fan of you, ‘Hans’.
This move makes perfect sense. Techmeme always had the problem of zero user engagement. Allowing users to suggest stories and even credit them for it will increase engagement, which will increase page views per (actively engaging) user.
Posted our first big story
“totally shameless plug ahead”
CitySpeek launches translate.Adds the ability to translate messages in over 30 different languages http://tinyurl.com/aeufbk
Time will tell if this improves Techmeme’s freshness or relevancy (which is already quite good). Till then, it’s an effective marketing ploy for Techmeme. Each time you submit a link, you’re promoting Techmeme to all your followers.
I dont see this experiment way off. Its goal is to add “community” variable to the ranking system.
If “twitter breaking the earthquake news faster than anybody else” argument has some merit – this will help make better “headline”.
Gabe should buy Megan McCarty a big bottle of wine for all the work her Human Editing self is doing!
Regardless of whether it improves quality, it’s a brilliant marketing move. Will just lead to TechMeme getting mentioned a lot more on twitter.
Thanks Gabe. Just to be clear, that Gabe isn’t me, Gabe Rivera. I really need to start signing my full name in blog comments.
This is indeed a good way to propose our written stories to Techmeme as well.
Thanks for sharing this.
So by “undefined, rare cases” when it’s OK to submit your own work you mean when writing for TechCrunch? Nice, so you’re saying there’s a chance.
The day people will be shot in the streets for using the word “meme” will be the day I break out my best champagne.
Suggest Stories To Techmeme Via Twitter?? How? it’s an effective marketing ploy for Techmeme. Does it support software suggest from http://www.copy-dvd.org? I am a fan of twitter but couldn’t find the place. I like facebook also so when could this function could appear in facebook?