The Needle In A Haystack Effect
The Needle In A Haystack Effect.
The web is a big place. So how do you find stories and sites that interest you? One of the best ideas to find gold in a sea of mediocrity is Digg. I love the idea of digg, and its RSS feed sits in my browser, but almost all of the content i see via rss i don’t bother clicking on. I mean how many times can you read about how cool the Wii is and how bad the PS3 is before you get bored. but once or twice a day i spot something brilliant.
For the same reason I love Diggnation far more than digg. Because Kevin and Alex use editorial control to avoid the crap that usually appears on their site, to highlight the interesting stories instead.
A mate of mine hates digg, but loves the editorially controlled Boing Boing, yet we both see most of the same stuff because anything on Boing Boing is usually dugg, and its usually something i’m interested in. Still, i get to show him all the stuff that boing boing didnt cover when i meet up with him.
But thats what digg is. it would be like saying all television is shit because of all the reality tv shows, bad dramas, awful sitcoms etc. But that would be ignoring the Sopranos, Six Feet Under’s and Dexters.
I think its a problem of web 2.0 in general. All the supposed Web 2.0 sites rely on user generated material and user generated rankings, but honestly, when was the last time you went to youtube and saw something worth watching? Ok, compare that number to the amount of times someone you know pointed you in the direction of a cool youtube clip. Sometimes, its better to be guided by editors.
There is a lot to be said for editorial control. How many forums have you seen that are filled with twelve year olds telling you to “get bent, n00b”, i could name a few. But I’d rather celebrate the one public forum I’ve been a member of for 2 years now, Mactalk. The key group at Mactalk have shaped the forum into a welcoming place. The moderators, although never directly editing anyone, have made the forum great by making clear what is and is not acceptable. If our forums can be as half as good as theirs, i’ll be a very happy boy.
So, what are my favourite sites? Apart from the ones listed above, there is Egotastic!, for all your trashy celebrity needs. For Australians reading this, think of it as all the stuff NW would like to print but their lawyers wont let them. Fleshbot, the thinking mans nudie site (NSFW). Ken Stone’s Final Cut Pro, the best guide to Final Cut on the web, all in one ugly website. Exetel, the hosts of this site, and for mine the best bang for buck ISP in Australia. The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs a hilarious fake blog. More to come…
Cheers,
Pete.
