Why Not Aggregate Yourself?
from the can't-think-of-any-reason-not-to-do-so dept
With various news publications complaining about online aggregators somehow being unfair, back in August, we wondered why those big mainstream publications didn't just aggregate or, as they prefer, "parasite" themselves. For example, they complain about other sites writing up short "bloggy" summaries of their long and in-depth news reports -- but why can't those publications create their own shorter versions as well?As if proving that point, the website Gawker (who has been accused of such "parasiting" before) apparently tried this approach itself recently. It had a 2,000 word story that it purchased from a guy who had worked with Richard Heene (the father behind the "balloon boy" stunt). But rather than just leave the 2,000 word story, it also created its own shorter bullet-point version, which is likely what it would have written up if the original story had been published elsewhere. And, while the original story still got a ton of traffic, the summary post still scored a lot of pageviews -- more than the average Gawker post.
If anything, this supports the idea that publications really have nothing to complain about with these sites that summarize their longer stories. There's absolutely nothing stopping them from doing it themselves as well -- and, who knows, it might augment their traffic as well.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: aggregation, journalism, news
Companies: gawker
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Abstract
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Abstract
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Aggregate?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Aggregate?
If the newspapers wanted to aggregate, they would just suck the first paragraph and headline out like any other existing aggregator does...no need to create summaries or abstracts or whatnot.
Put the damn feed right on the newspaper landing page...hell, they could even aggregate from other publications...if, indeed, the money is in aggregation and not the actual hosting of the full content (which is their assertion), then they'd be making money AND "stealing" revenue from their competition...win win!!
Better yet, why not just buy the aggregators out?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]