Gawker
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twitterati
The Twitterati Get a Free Lunch from the MSM
Twitter is the ideal medium to express your own idiocy. Dan Abrams denounces the mainstream media which gave birth to his career, a Google-enriched entrepreneur eats its free lunch, and Alan Meckler discovers Twitter: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by kolacek: The only thing gayer than Twitter is an article about Twitter. [...and STFU, twaggots. I live in San Francisco and my... 2 Responses | Other threads
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the chart
Debunking the AP's Aggregation Aggravation
Online aggregators are financial vampires sucking the lifeblood out of the news business! You know — evil digital upstarts like the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and the New York Times. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by UmaGaleo: But the chart supports the newspapers' central complaint: Papers' sites would still get traffic without search engines. But those search... 2 Responses | Other threads
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twitterati
The Twitterati Are Left Crying in Istanbul
Anyone have a handkerchief? What? Oh, nothing in particular — just the tearjerking phenomenon of seemingly intelligent people like Jake Tapper, Rachel Sklar, and Paul Carr spending so much time sharing so little on Twitter: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by mimigoliath: I can sympathize with Drew - I mourned the loss of Zack from "Bones" last year from May until about... more » | Other threads
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twitterati
Don't Tweet on My Shoes, I'm Headed for Atlantis
Today's sweetest tweets: CNET's Caroline McCarthy got ready to don a Snuggie. Valleywag alumna Megan McCarthy (no relation) dreamed of Atlantis. David Gregory of Meet the Press succumbed to Twitter peer pressure. And more! More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Arland Penchant: ummm...Pompeii actually exists? You can go and read the ancient graffitti in the brothel and everything. more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
The Valley's Wall Street disconnect
Wall Street is melting down. But from sampling the thoughts of tech bloggers on Techmeme, an automated news aggregator, you'd think that the biggest story today was a redesign of WSJ.com. One couldn't ask for a clearer sign of the Valley's superficial obsession with user interfaces and online advertising. With Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, Bank of America negotiating to buy Merrill, and AIG desperately selling off assets, who, exactly, will be having their employer pay so they can read the headlines on WSJ.com, let alone advertising there? Yet the problem goes far deeper than one website's newly glossy surface. More » -
great moments in journalism
Never mind the thousands dead, will China quake delay iPhone shipments?
A News.com reporter covered the death toll in 28 words before spending the next 613 trying to figure out if the recent earthquake in China near the manufacturing hub of Chengdu would hurt multinational technology companies. Which is only slightly less tasteless than the conversation which broke out on tech news tracker Techmeme — where the conversation revolved around Robert Scoble shouting "first!" You stay classy, technosphere.
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By Jackson WestComment by giania: facepalm.jpg I guess on one hand there's really not any harm in talking about what you know as it relates to... more » | Other threads
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reality check
Server logs show no one cares about SXSW
Good news for Web 2.0 embedded reporter Sarah Lacy: Compared to Gene Simmons's sad, sad sex video and rumors of Jimmy Wales's misbehavior, most of the planet couldn't care less about your Mark Zuckerberg interview trainwreck in Austin over the weekend. In fact, hardly anyone wants to read about the South by Southwest conference at all. Zuckerberg's keynote limped in at 1/700th the traffic of my last Steve Jobs event for Engadget. Maybe next year SXSW can do a panel on the risks of getting your worldview from Techmeme.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Ray Wert: I'd like to point out we also had some "tech issues" yesterday due to the new "skin" on all of... more » | Other threads
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great moments in pr
Warren Buffett owns newspapers, undermines them
Who needs journalists, really? That's what Business Wire argues. Warren Buffett, the billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, picked up Business Wire in 2006. He claims not to be tech-savvy, but this investment suggests otherwise. Press releases distributed by Business Wire are picked up directly by services like Google News and Techmeme. As a source, Business Wire ranks 32nd on Techmeme's list — not a bad performance. Buffett also owns a large stake in the Washington Post Co. But if that goes bust thanks to the advent of online media, it seems like Buffett picked himself a nice hedge.
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By Owen ThomasComment by slakboy: Buffett pretty much wrote the obit for the newspaper as we know it in Berkshire Hathaway's 2006 annual report. "Fundamentals are... more » | Other threads
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nerdfight
Slide's funding brings out reporters' knives
Scoops are important to journalists. But do readers care? Some writers persist in thinking so. I can't remember ever seeing such backbiting over a humdrum funding announcement: Kara Swisher of AllThingsD scooped everyone last Friday with a rumor that Slide, Max Levchin's Web widget maker, was raising a big funding round. Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek had more details of the $50 million round in an already-written column published to the Web after Swisher's post. Brad Stone of the New York Times weighed in that afternoon. And that's when the knives came out. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by eze: i wouldn't count slide out so soon. nobody knows how much slide's widget/application empire is worth, because nothing like this... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Self-important white folks demand you blog about Kenya
Yes, there's some truly bad man's-inhumanity-to-man stuff going down in Kenya. No, Robert Scoble and his echo chamber are not morally obliged to figure out some tech angle and post about it. The fallacy made by political correctards is that if Robert Scoble doesn't blog about something, he either doesn't know or doesn't care about it and neither do his readers. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by georgiap: If bloggers restricted themselves to reporting on topics of their expertise the blogosphere would be a small place indeed. There... more » | Other threads
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will blog for food
Getting to the top of Techmeme, the four-word version
Attention tech PR people: Here's the conclusion of reluctant Valleywag content provider Robert Scoble's two-part, 37-minute whiteboard orgy on how to get your next press release to the top of Techmeme, the most important site on the Internet. Ready? Here it is: Take Scoble to dinner. Boom, top of Techmeme. It's that simple. You know why this is funny? Because I'll bet it works.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Rock tha Hizzee: There are three obstacles that keep TechMeme from being great: 1. Too superficial of a discussion 2. Too much emphasis on the... more » | Other threads
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celebrities
Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera's new WeSmirch Leaderboard repurposes the software that runs his technology A-list to track the top 100 celebrity gossip sites. WeSmirch replaces boring TechCrunch and The New York Times with the far more salacious TMZ and New York Post. Skimming for Britney videos turns out to be a lot like surfing geek blogs. You remember she used to get you all excited; now you only stick around for the next trainwreck. -
stats
The truth about tech blog traffic
We like numbers! A-list tech blogger Robert Scoble drops some informal traffic stats for clickthroughs to his site from popular Web hubs. Dave Winer also posts a few. Compared to Valleywagger Jordan Golson's 5 million hits from Matt Drudge, the numbers disappoint. They'll send bloggers backpedaling to boasts that they "influence the influencers," that everyone knows the big newspapers, radio and TV shows now rely on blogs for their stories and are surrounded by a blog "ecosystem" — see this chart. Sorry, I still prefer direct eyeballs, best found away from the tech-blog network. Case study: The Wall Street Journal. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by macbeach: Maybe WSJ can get away with charging $79 (I'm a subscriber) *because* they lock so many people out of the... more » | Other threads
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stats
Techmeme traffic doesn't add up
How overrated is blog-post-ranking site Techmeme, so much in this week's news? Scoring the top slot on the site's front door is good for bragging rights if you're a tech blogger. But if you value pageviews more than props, here's the hard truth: Techmeme's prize position will only send around 1,000 direct clickthroughs to your post, according to bloggers I pinged. As for the "influencing the influencers" theory so popular with second-tier PR firms, topping Techmeme means at most 5,000 extra pageviews total from around the Web, say sources who've been there several times. More » -
nerdfight
"Yeah, I suppose you fooled Techmeme about your sincerity. Note that you also fooled Fred Wilson and Josh Kopelman in the process. Training your readers to doubt you can be risky. Sometimes you want your posts taken at face value, e.g. those insisting your company is succeeding." Gabe Rivera, founder of blog aggregator Techmeme, takes on blowhard blogger Jason Calacanis. [Calacanis.com] -
blogging for dollars
To the frustration of his less-savvy and overserious critics, Internet entrepreneur and professional gadfly Jason Calacanis has mastered the API for online tech-news tracker Techmeme. [Calacanis.com] -
robert scoble
Mahalo, Techmeme, and Facebook will not "kick Google's butt"
Robert Scoble, the former Microsoft evangelist and die-hard PodTech videoblogger, has ended his brief departure from the Web. Clearly he thinks he's "adding value" with his bold theory that "Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google's butt in four years." You won't be able to read his theory, of course, since he has, tiresomely, recorded it on video. But you can see the sincerity in his eyes, hear it in his voice, and watch him pull out the whiteboard and three, count 'em: three, colored markers! In truth, he's just revealing what he has always been: a confused evangelist who doesn't understand the underlying technology, doesn't have his facts straight, and can't keep his story consistent. But, boy, is he enthusiastic about it! Why? I think he's lobbying for his next job. More » -
blogfight
French blogger claims that news aggregation site Techmeme must be run by Microsoft after seeing today's top story. Founder Gabe Rivera responds, sets the record straight. "Dude, you clearly haven't figured out yet that Dick Cheney himself controls Techmeme." -
cranky geek
Robert Scoble doesn't get Techmeme
Or rather: Robert Scoble doesn't get on Techmeme. Robert Scoble, blogger and video producer, complains: "TechMeme really wants to be Google News, it seems. I see less and less blogs on TechMeme lately and more and more 'professional news.'" Not only his assessment wrong, Scoble's true intent is writ large: "I'm pissed because I'm not on Techmeme." More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by Everton Blair: I would love to know how many people actually find Scoble's blog interesting, and how many of his readers are... more » | Other threads
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techmeme
Could Gabe Rivera be Craig Newmark 2.0?
Andy Plesser of Beet.tv has a rare interview with Gabe Rivera, the creator of everyone's favorite automated tech news "digger" TechMeme. The interview reveals the secret sauce of the news aggregator and its progenitor: an uncanny facsimile of tech and pop icon Craig Newmark's winningest attributes! Craig, the founder of the eponymous Craigslist, and Gabe, the lone man behind TechMeme, are both self-deprecating and aphoristic nebbishes motivated by the altruism their audiences enjoy. More » -
techmeme
What we're arguing about today
Every day's debate day in the blogosphere! Here's what blog aggregator Techmeme says is important. More » -
digg
Remainders: It's New Year's in July
- Batting .000 on his New Year's predictions, Firefox developer Blake Ross rushes out a second batch:
Citizen journalism will finally topple Old Media, ushering in a remarkable new age of incisive journalism—"That Dude Across the Street Walks His Dog;" "Local Mail Arrives Ten Minutes Past 4." Illegal immigrants will protest the discriminatory name, forcing the blogosphere to rechristen the new model "Asscasting," short for "Broadcasting while sitting on my ass, which will never leave this chair."
- Batting .000 on his New Year's predictions, Firefox developer Blake Ross rushes out a second batch:
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techmeme
Afternoon news: Memeorandum goes Newspeak
- Yahoo gets an NYT section cover story for, um, improving its ad program. Thrilling. [NYT]
- Cry baby cry: Apple (the White Album one) loses its case against Apple (the White iPod one). [BBC]
- The New York Times starts its E3 coverage. A week of coy euphemisms for "booth babe" commences. [NYT]
- Tech Memeorandum is now Techmeme. Given that creator Gabe Rivera lives with TechCrunch creator Michael Arrington, this is all kinds of wrong. [Techmeme]
- Big-time graphics firm Silicon Graphics Inc. goes bankrupt, just a couple months after picking a new CEO who cut an eighth of the team. One assumes the government won't be subsidising SGI to protect the economy. [CNET]
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