Is memeorandum a good thing?
Tonight I had around a hundred posts to read from 80+ blogs. I got:
• 12 posts pointing to Tim O’Reilly wonderful article on Web 2.0
• 10 posts analyzing Scoble’s latest attempt to get Bill Gates’ checkbook.
• 8 posts talking about the rumored yahoo blog search engine launch next week.
Overall, 30 posts for 3 real pieces of information. I am sure tomorrow it will get worse with the release of Whiteboard. People will link to this thing like there is no tomorrow, and I will be reading the same copy/paste from the site again and again.
Question : are we all linking to the same things these days? Did it become worse since we have all these “what-people-are-currently-blogging-about” tools like Memeorandum that seem to push people to blog popular stories more than before?
In my humble opinion THAT is a big problem we have in the blogosphere, and we are all responsible for it. We all want to add ourselves to the conversation, but only on our own site. Check the posts linking to Tim’s article: how many should be on his blog’s comments? A lot. But as blogs are first and foremost about egos we all do the same: we “re-link”, adding to the overall confusion in the process.
Because all this has a price. Blogs are supposed to be a global conversation, but more and more they are turning into a fragmented conversations. More noise, less sense. And Memeorandum was supposed to be a solution, not an aggravating factor.
October 3rd, 2005 at 4:31 am
Blog authors should stop trying to be generic cut and paste news sites.
You’re guilty of this too; how many blog entries did I read about the sub $100 notebook?
I think we all have to redouble our efforts to dig up interesting topics that aren’t rooted in today’s news. There are a billion possible topics of discussion, and all we can think of is what happened in the last 72 hours?
October 3rd, 2005 at 4:31 am
Blog authors should stop trying to be generic cut and paste news sites.
You’re guilty of this too; how many blog entries did I read about the sub $100 notebook?
I think we all have to redouble our efforts to dig up interesting topics that aren’t rooted in today’s news. There are a billion possible topics of discussion, and all we can think of is what happened in the last 72 hours?
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:30 am
I know I am guilty, that’s what I am saying. At least I feel bad about it ;-)
I think there are solutions, but we need a better protocol + a global cooperation.
If we were all using the same platform, the following would be possible:
– a subject becomes a major meme, everybody links to it
– the platform identifies that with a simple logic (say: if more than 30 people link to something it’s a meme) – the platform knows who the source is (= the first to link to the thing if it is not a blog, the blog post if it is), and transforms all the redundant posts into comments for the original entry. It physically moves the writings into the comments section of the source.
The system would automatically manage the transformation of blog posts into a coherent conversation.
I see you are a developper Jeff, what do you think?
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:30 am
I know I am guilty, that’s what I am saying. At least I feel bad about it ;-)
I think there are solutions, but we need a better protocol + a global cooperation.
If we were all using the same platform, the following would be possible:
– a subject becomes a major meme, everybody links to it
– the platform identifies that with a simple logic (say: if more than 30 people link to something it’s a meme) – the platform knows who the source is (= the first to link to the thing if it is not a blog, the blog post if it is), and transforms all the redundant posts into comments for the original entry. It physically moves the writings into the comments section of the source.
The system would automatically manage the transformation of blog posts into a coherent conversation.
I see you are a developper Jeff, what do you think?
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:49 am
Hey Laurent,
It seems to me you’re making two big points: A. We’re talking excessively about the same things. B. When we talk about the same things, the conversation is fragmented, not threaded or conversational.
Memeorandum could conceivable contribute to A., but I’ve been watching it before and after launch, and haven’t been able to discern such an effect emerging. It could happen, especially if memeorandum grows, but I think your assumption may be premature.
About B.: memeorandum actually can mitigate this effect to some extent. Why? Because people RESPOND to things they see on memeorandum, leading to real conversation (which becomes apparent on memeorandum). This doesn’t happen all the time, but I’ve seen several cases already.
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:49 am
Hey Laurent,
It seems to me you’re making two big points: A. We’re talking excessively about the same things. B. When we talk about the same things, the conversation is fragmented, not threaded or conversational.
Memeorandum could conceivable contribute to A., but I’ve been watching it before and after launch, and haven’t been able to discern such an effect emerging. It could happen, especially if memeorandum grows, but I think your assumption may be premature.
About B.: memeorandum actually can mitigate this effect to some extent. Why? Because people RESPOND to things they see on memeorandum, leading to real conversation (which becomes apparent on memeorandum). This doesn’t happen all the time, but I’ve seen several cases already.
October 3rd, 2005 at 10:20 am
Oops, didn’t realize I got scobeleized and Robert is already poking fun on me ;-)
Gabe, nice to have you here. On A) I am definitely assuming prematurely, it is just a gut feeling I have. It would be interesting to have Cameron Marlow’s experience from Blogdex.
On B): the problem I have is that I wish the conversation could MOVE to memeorandum and OUT of my feeds so I don’t have to read all this stuff in a fragmented way.
We need some real-time RSS feeds massaging from Memeorandum. Think that’s possible Gabe?
October 3rd, 2005 at 10:20 am
Oops, didn’t realize I got scobeleized and Robert is already poking fun on me ;-)
Gabe, nice to have you here. On A) I am definitely assuming prematurely, it is just a gut feeling I have. It would be interesting to have Cameron Marlow’s experience from Blogdex.
On B): the problem I have is that I wish the conversation could MOVE to memeorandum and OUT of my feeds so I don’t have to read all this stuff in a fragmented way.
We need some real-time RSS feeds massaging from Memeorandum. Think that’s possible Gabe?
October 3rd, 2005 at 4:35 pm
But I don’t want to read everybody’s opinion about it. I want to read the opinions of people I like to read. Because I have chosen them as my peer group for example because I know that they are good in giving additional information.
Or they have a style of writing which is challenging to my thoughts. Or whatever preference I have.
I don’t want everyone.
I do agree on that we need better RSS agregators not for the general masses (which is why I dislike most of what is available out there) but on my reading habbits and my kind of interest.
I would like to see a reader for example, where I can say “select all post where whiteboard is in”, read them as in skim them, and then mark these special posts in all of my feeds as read. Not the feeds in general, but only these posts.
So, let’s take this comment I am just making. this is a comment for you, but it should be also a posting on my blog because it covers the topic of “what Nicole wants for an rss reader and why”. The things I would / could get written here, only in part have to do with your article – and my readers won’t see this text.
Why? Because it is very likely that soem but not all of my readers read your blog, this article and comment especially.
So in order to point them to my view, I would need to make a post about “see comment 4 in this post of Laurent if you would like to see my view on this.”.
Rather complicated. So much easier to just write the article, post it on my site and trackback you.
And perhaps I should have done so, as this comment already is very ‘long’.
In your given example of the 30 posts on 3 information – they are not 3 information; they are only then 3 information if you only c&p pr text. And sometimes this is what you do for your readers too – little link dumps. Because they want you to filter information which might be helpful for them.
Tip: My post about Whiteboard does not have c&p from the website *g*
ps: you don’t have added the number of comments to your general feed so it will be marked as new entry each time somebody updates it, right? :)
pps: make that frickin comment field wider :))
October 3rd, 2005 at 4:35 pm
But I don’t want to read everybody’s opinion about it. I want to read the opinions of people I like to read. Because I have chosen them as my peer group for example because I know that they are good in giving additional information.
Or they have a style of writing which is challenging to my thoughts. Or whatever preference I have.
I don’t want everyone.
I do agree on that we need better RSS agregators not for the general masses (which is why I dislike most of what is available out there) but on my reading habbits and my kind of interest.
I would like to see a reader for example, where I can say “select all post where whiteboard is in”, read them as in skim them, and then mark these special posts in all of my feeds as read. Not the feeds in general, but only these posts.
So, let’s take this comment I am just making. this is a comment for you, but it should be also a posting on my blog because it covers the topic of “what Nicole wants for an rss reader and why”. The things I would / could get written here, only in part have to do with your article – and my readers won’t see this text.
Why? Because it is very likely that soem but not all of my readers read your blog, this article and comment especially.
So in order to point them to my view, I would need to make a post about “see comment 4 in this post of Laurent if you would like to see my view on this.”.
Rather complicated. So much easier to just write the article, post it on my site and trackback you.
And perhaps I should have done so, as this comment already is very ‘long’.
In your given example of the 30 posts on 3 information – they are not 3 information; they are only then 3 information if you only c&p pr text. And sometimes this is what you do for your readers too – little link dumps. Because they want you to filter information which might be helpful for them.
Tip: My post about Whiteboard does not have c&p from the website *g*
ps: you don’t have added the number of comments to your general feed so it will be marked as new entry each time somebody updates it, right? :)
pps: make that frickin comment field wider :))
October 4th, 2005 at 7:31 pm
So we all seem to agree on one thing: we need better RSS readers! And ideally my reader would be integrated with Memeorandum so it could interact with the feeds and group things as conversations when they become traceable.
Could bloglines buy Memeorandum please? I’m sure Gabe is not against the idea ;-)
October 4th, 2005 at 7:31 pm
So we all seem to agree on one thing: we need better RSS readers! And ideally my reader would be integrated with Memeorandum so it could interact with the feeds and group things as conversations when they become traceable.
Could bloglines buy Memeorandum please? I’m sure Gabe is not against the idea ;-)
October 5th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Nicole’s comment is succinct, but leaves open the nature of the blog in the first place : is it your specific showcase for the world or is it part of a hypertext information network? A central node in a cartwheel design or ‘just’ a node like any other in a limitless field? Put differently, who gets to decide content, and for whom is it intended?
I agree with Simone that we, in the sense of net professionals, subscribe to particular feeds as a choice of styles or attitudes, and less so for pure information. It is for the meta-discussion, the different takes on the information we all access anyway that we turn to specific blogs.
In the same vein, c&p should be approached with caution; a link to a primary source lets us judge quickly that we are operating on the same frame of reference, and that we can proceed in our exchange of views on the subject.
For this reason I believe it will be difficult to filter our way out of the overflow; we apply our filtering through our selection of feeds, and from there on we’re left to sort by hand. Maybe get a blister on your finger, maybe get a blister on your thumb..
October 5th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Nicole’s comment is succinct, but leaves open the nature of the blog in the first place : is it your specific showcase for the world or is it part of a hypertext information network? A central node in a cartwheel design or ‘just’ a node like any other in a limitless field? Put differently, who gets to decide content, and for whom is it intended?
I agree with Simone that we, in the sense of net professionals, subscribe to particular feeds as a choice of styles or attitudes, and less so for pure information. It is for the meta-discussion, the different takes on the information we all access anyway that we turn to specific blogs.
In the same vein, c&p should be approached with caution; a link to a primary source lets us judge quickly that we are operating on the same frame of reference, and that we can proceed in our exchange of views on the subject.
For this reason I believe it will be difficult to filter our way out of the overflow; we apply our filtering through our selection of feeds, and from there on we’re left to sort by hand. Maybe get a blister on your finger, maybe get a blister on your thumb..