Using smart content aggregation and smart people networks to beat back the over coverage plague
Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0, one of the crazy-smartest people writing about the interwebs and what-it-all-means today, continues his exploration of the over coverage of breaking news stories with a piece called The Declining Value Of Redundant News Content On The Web. In this case, Karp uses the Microsoft-Yahoo non-merger aftermath as a means to display how “it’s a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING,” showing a numbing sampling of Google News results as a visual example of how many publishers offer nearly the same thing about the same story.
I agree that this over coverage creates a glut of stories that are nearly identical to one another, that it presents a disservice to readers who are trying to make sense of it all. But I think it’s important to explore why publishers jump on the bandwagon in the first place. Karp likens mass coverage of breaking news stories to 100 newspapers and 50 TV stations covering a factory shutdown in one single Midwest city. It’s an interesting analogy, but I’m not sure that it quite works.
The global nature of the web coupled with a 24/7 publishing environment creates a never ending chase for page views and ad revenues. In other words: publishers aren’t all covering the same story to provide a public service; they’re doing it because there’s a marketplace for huge stories – massive interest for a brief window of time – and everyone is desperately trying to cut themselves in on a piece of the action. That doesn’t mean that everyone will get rich doing this, but obviously there’s some payoff in hopping on the bandwagon.
The conclusion that Karp comes to is that everyone should “BE ORIGINAL.” Of course, this is harder said than done, and everyone will have a different definition of “original.” Scott likes to use Google News when showing examples of over coverage. And Google News is a great news search engine.
But I would argue that “the answer” – if there’s indeed an answer to this problem – is smart content aggregators and smart people networks to help individuals filter out what is the most important, the most original, the most valuable stories in a fluid environment.
The best example I can think of in terms of a smart content aggregator is Techmeme, as well as Memeorandum when it comes to general news and politics. Mixing in individual trusted websites and blogs along with a smart content aggregator or two is a great way to stay on top of breaking stories without getting lost in a sea of sameness.
And what I mean by smart people networks: this can come in many forms, but I’m particularly thinking about Twitter and Friendfeed when it comes to breaking tech and online stories. Building trusted friend/contact networks allows links to get distributed from trusted people to individuals in real time. Social networking sites like Facebook and instant messaging applications like AIM or GTalk can also provide a basis for a smart people network.
So in conclusion I don’t see the deluge of over coverage ending anytime soon. The potential to get in on the action is simply too tempting for publishers. Or, alternatively, many publishers will feel like they’re not legitimate if they don’t write something about a story that everyone else is talking about.
However, over coverage can be combated through a combination of smart content aggregators and smart people networks.
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