Michel.Evanchik.Net

There are two basic extremes of websites in the world: originators and aggregators. All websites veer somewhere in the spectrum separating these two polar opposites.

Originators come up with their own ideas and words. They put up original work. A perfect example of an originator is the New York Times. Almost everything from the New York Times website is conceived, researched, written and executed in-house. The other extreme is the aggregator. A perfect example of the aggregator is the Drudge Report. Drudge does very little original reporting, but relies on linking to the news stories of other web sites (like the New York Times).

Both originator and aggregators are valuable. The act of picking and choosing the right mix of stories is rarely done well, and so Drudge can give wider coverage to a story, and to the news in general than the New York Times. But the originators are essential. Without them there is nothing worthwhile to link to.  Writing and researching something original is a lot harder and more expensive than just posting a link.  That is why the Web is such a gigantic echo chamber.  One finds that the same stories get recycled over and over again, maybe with a little different commentary here and there, but that the essential facts and reporting are unchanged.

I have used as examples two general news sites, but the phenomena exists elsewhere.  Obviously it exists in more specialized news sites, like those concerning computers or sports.  And certainly the surfeit of opinion has become a babbling din on subjects like politics.  The  most frustrating part is how little useful information there is on matters of actual importance.  A case in point is a friend’s web site.  My friend is a philosophical fellow, though his blog runs the gamut, from serious ideological discussions, to fluffy discussions of pop culture.  So imagine his embarrassment when this article of his, detailing another friend’s stupid TV game-show, showed up as the sixth highest ranked search result for the terms: Nietzsche utilitarianism libertarian.  It’s hard to get some good solid philosophy on the World Wide Web.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 19:07 and is filed under Information.