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Celebrating Aggregation
- thesethings 18y agoLike other abused buzzwords, the term "Attention Economy" got a little played out. But I think the economics of attention is exactly why aggregation services do provide value. When there's an abundance of information, attention become a scarce resource. Like Fred (author of post above), I have heard people accuse aggregation sites of being parasites. Sure there are bad ones, but there are extremely clever ones, too. It takes work make a rule that presents a story cluster, or karma, and just because they aren't creating content, doesn't mean they are creative, or creating value. They are creating filters, they are creating a picture of popularity (Hypem), they are creating a picture of relationships (techmeme). If there's anything I'm hungry for, it's not more content sites, it's even more and better aggregator sites. Obviously we are, too. Every few weeks there's a new post that asks a variation of "What other sites like Hacker News do you visit?"
- knightinblue 18y agoTotally agree. Would add just one thing though - properly established and enforced guidelines on what exactly constitutes 'aggregation'. So people don't go crazy with ripping off entire articles, images, ideas etc.