A TechMeme for Livable Streets
I was going to suggest that we create ‘a TechMeme for the Livable Streets movement’, but it’s a good thing I didn’t, because everyone apparently just decided it doesn’t work.
The rest of this post is just more thoughts on TechMeme, and how it compares to Streetsblog.net.
TechMeme, in short, was a way to track memes of a technological nature that people were talking about on the internets. It was completely automated - a computer would just scan the internet for the hot topics of the day and build a web page that tracked those topics. The site still exists - as a web page and RSS feed - but now it will have a human component - a human editor to make sure everything makes sense. To get a better idea of what it’s all about, just go check out the site.
You’ll notice that TechMeme is like the new Streetsblog.net site - a bunch of ‘featured’ stories, etc. They’re both automated to some extent, and both have a human component (I’m guessing that’s the case for Streetsblog.net). The main functional difference might just be the level of automation - TechMeme, I suspect, uses a lot more computer automation, whereas Streetsblog.net is probably only just beginning to think about automation-type algorithms.
Google News does something similar.
I followed TechMeme on and off. I thought it did a pretty darn good job of letting me know what was going on all over the tech world at any given point in time. It offered different voices, different points of view, and it was pretty easy to track the ‘he said, she said’-type of back and forth conversations that can help one learn and make up one’s mind about a particular issue.
This type of technology can be useful for several reasons, but I’m particularly interested in making sure we get that diversity of opinion. Ideally, the best ideas should bubble up to the top. The technology can also be used as an organizing tool - to help us reach consensus about policies. There’s plenty of room to grow coverage, too - domestically and internationally.
Fun times!
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December 4th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Check out Polymeme, if you haven’t yet — http://polymeme.com/