In reading this post about using Twitter’s lists instead of a feed (blog) reader it occurred to me that there are two measures one can make about content. Firstly, how well does it pass the time or entertain you. For example I get quite into reading stuff that surfaces on TechMeme – it all seems pretty interesting right? Secondly, how accurate, informed, useful is the content and reading experience in aggregate. I have no reason to believe that what I read on TechMeme is the be all and end all of what I should be reading and what is out there.
Like many, my reading habits and channels change over time. However, having read some of the literature and science behind how things propagate through social networks, the differences between how informative something is and how popular it is, and the distinction between influence and authority, a world in which I’m as informed those other guys is not compelling.
Perhaps we would do well to remember that an anonymous one way tie (e.g. following someone on Twitter) is not the same as a weak tie.
Will we continue to move towards socialized content because it is good enough without trying to find the best picture of the world?
Perhaps I'm being pedantic but following someone on twitter is not an anonymous one way tie. You can see who is following you and choose to block them if you think they are undesirable. Reading someone's tweets via the web or feed reader would be anonymous to the tweeter but is not quite the same as following. Presuably twitter could do some basic webstats kind of monitoring if they wanted to track what people were reading.
I totally agree about the popularity issue though, my most popular post was quite lame but had a silly video attached so lots of people looked at that.
Posted by: Andy the unbeliever | October 30, 2009 at 07:53 AM