My recent conversations with my friend Doug has got me thinking more about our information overloaded society and how people can best find what they want or "separate signal from noise" be it on the internet, in the real world, etc.
In particular, we were talking about finding "good quality" topical blogs. While blogging has enabled mass participation from everyone, it has also made the entire universe more cluttered, crowded, and hard to filter through. You always get the good with the bad.
Like what happens in mainstream media, it seems that a few, key influential blogs (either by an individual or group of bloggers) have a widespread effect on the content on all posts across different subsystems of the blog world:
- In tech: TechCrunch, GigaOM, Read/Write Web, Mashable, Engadget, or individuals like Don Dodge...
- In VC blogging world: Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, Guy Kawasaki, Lightspeed Venture Partners ..
- Is "long tail" content less unique because of these influential few?
- Is "long tail" content really driven by the "few" or vice versa? Or both?
- How do we truly separate signal from noise at a more micro level? Can this process be at all automated, or do we need a real person to ultimately assess "quality?" Sure, there are sophisticated techniques of determining quality of sites, but can this be translated down to a post level? Just like a great author who may write a "bad" book, a great blogger can have some "bad" posts.
There are sites out there already that helps us filter information: vertical search engines, social bookmarking (digg/reddit), etc. Even in the real world, we see the same filters: New York Times' Bestsellers, Zagat guide, etc. However, what if I don't want to read what everyone else is reading? What about finding the hidden gems inside the "long tail" (e.g. those blogs who have not yet established high authority or rank on Technorati, new authors, etc..)? Or better yet, do we need to do anything at all? In theory, a "good" blogger over time should be able to rise in the ranks (e.g. of Technorati, etc.) as more and more people "discover" his/her content. (Hah, quick financial analog: A undervalued stock who's price has finally returned to "fair" value.) The problem is that, if the blogger is not active about "getting known and out there," this process can take a really long time. And time is what we -don't- have these days. Hmm..there should be some way to speed up this process.....
technorati tags: influence, law of a few, blogosphere, long tail