The future of media is algorithmic aggregation, at least that is the approach Future US is taking. The U.S. subsidiary of Future PLC, and publisher of such niche magazines as Nintendo Power, Guitar World, and Maximum PC, is adopting a different approach online than simply putting its print articles on the Web. Instead, it has launched dozens of news aggregation and discovery sites called “Blips” that are a combination of Techmeme and Digg. The Blips collect topical stories from across the Web and present the headlines in discussion clusters like you’d see on Techmeme, but stories can also then be voted up the page like on Digg.
There are about 40 different Blips on various topics, including TechBlips, EarthBlips, and WrestlingBlips. All of them are accessible from Future’s online portal, DailyRadar (which also houses the magazine content under games, music, tech, entertainment, and sports tags). Future has been launching Blips quietly since last summer, and they now account for 9.3 million of DailyRadar’s 27 million monthly unique visitors (which is up from about 12 million uniques a year ago before the Blips sites were added). These are internal numbers. ComScore shows 11.4 million uniques worldwide in March, 2009 up from 6.4 million last September.
The Blip sites are based on Future’s $3 million acquisition of BallHype last year. Now Future is rolling out about half a dozen new Blips every month. The underlying technology evaluates 26,000 different news sources, blogs, video sites, and photo sites to create topical Blips. Once a source is white-listed by an editor or added by a reader, it then becomes part of the mix. Stories are clustered together, with the placement of headlines determined by a combination of links, votes, and age (newer stories rank higher).
I am not convinced the Blip strategy will make a meaningful difference for Future or offset the downward spiral in print advertising, but it is an interesting attempt at adaptation. TechBlip is not going to displace TechMeme any time soon, but most of the other Blips address under-served or highly-focused niches: AnimeBlips, CricketBlips, CraftBlips, GuitarWorldBlips, MommyBlips, etc. Niche news aggregation is one thing, but then aggregating the aggregators gives Future the scale to sell ads across all of the Blips. On the other hand, the Blips are so targeted running ads across the network might not always make sense. If you are targetting mommies, you are probably not interested in reaching anime aficionados.
To show off the technology, DailyRadar has an interactive Trendmap showing which tags and keywords are peaking on the site. You can create Trendmaps for different broad categories and grab it as a widget, which I’ve done below:
not bad… now we need an “aggregator of aggregators” though…
looks like a good idea not keen on the name.
the big question is when will techmeme be bought out by techcrunch to create the ultimate tech news powerhouse…
Seems to be a sort of a hybrid between a digg-like site (user submissions) and a true aggregator that aims to organize data. Having a mix of source-based data and user submissions might create a messy situation…
sounds like a wannabe MyLocator.
compare:
DailyRadar – 40 niche channels
MyLocator – 1300 niche channels
-both involve “vertical location cluster technology.”
-MyLocator is natural language. DailyRadar is partially. is blips in the dictionary?
-Funny they dont own the name Dailyblips.com i just tried to go there by accident.
as you can see there will be no competition but it is amusing to compare the two. both are on the right track just that locator man has been creating stuff like this for 10 years now and owns the greatest railway ever created to prove it.
ExperienceLocator.com – it matters
everythingwithlocatordotcomlocator.com — completely useless attempt to build brand recognition for a useless site that no one cares about
for some startups brand recognition comes naturally. autopilot. self propelled, natural language. my platform speaks for itself. share a link. i would love to challenge our startups promise and potential. that is if you have one. im waiting. i appreciate your ignorance.
i was talking to the guys at Wotnews in Australia who recently launched that music aggregator We Are Hunted. They can build news sites in days not weeks using their engine. Check out their new US site at wotnews.com.
Seriously, do we need anymore aggregation?
With so many aggregator’s around , how is it different ? Another one on the dead pool ?
I’m alwys dumbfoundd when I spot obvoius typo s on Techcrunch. It’s al most like you don’t prooof or use a spillcheker?
Does it really surprise you? Most of the time, there isn’t even any research done on topics. Look at the recent Facebook SMS post.
Nobody uses a sperrchecker these days
fixed, didn’t have time to proof this AM, had to just post. But thanks for the catch.
Each time I will see something Blip I will think of daily radar – ); Great Idea the only challenge is to keep all these running without watering down the main idea. We need more of these blips.
This looks terrible, stupid interface and the content was awful, there are a million sites doing this better, the death of print isn’t just the print versions its their dead ideas.
I didn’t see any innovation, was hoping to see the trends similar to Google trends.
hmmm. not sure how I feel about this one. interesting, at least.
wow – they took a pligg template and copied it dozens of times…i can do that from my livingroom…
While TechCrunch readers might turn up their noses at the lack of “innovation”, I wonder how many commenters have built a network that attracts over 10M uniques a month.
The traffic momentum that DailyRadar has built with these niche sites is undeniable. These sites look to be almost entirely automated so the margins on this have got to be amazing, despite the ad downturn.
Hats off to the Future US team for excellent execution. Sometimes it’s better to focus on building a sustainable high-margin business model than worrying about pleasing the tech elite with innovation.
This is not anything new but it is a new approach to what several companies are currently doing very well. As many people have noted above the main problem with this aggregator like all the others is content. No one has access to what everyone wants and needs. Facebook closed, Twitter API can’t be used for profit, Myspace mostly closed. These are the sources that bring value to aggregation but they are also the ones that are closed to aggregators.
agreed with john. the traffic they are driving is superb. its great to see two completely different structures being operated by the same company: expensive journalism in print magazines, and (almost) free, automated, online aggregations.
the Future guys are smart, and they are doing well at turning round a large ship.
Techmeme is already a $1 billion company. This is where the growth is-in web 2.0 companies. no recession here. http://iamned.com/blog/ no bubble keep buying stocks
There is nothing to stop Gabe adding retweets to his algorithm – he probably should as they’re just links right, which has always been the juice that drives techmeme.
There’s more to Techmeme than simply surfacing stories to the front, like its clustering which allows you to follow the conversation. I’d suggest Tweetmeme has a way to go…
Damn wrong comment on wrong post … bloody browser tabs
Who is going to write the real news.
interesting, but not quite sure what I think of it yet.