Who are the people behind Memeorandum? Are they, in fact, “people” at all?
Couple days ago, Stacy McCain wrote:
While we’re on the topic of media analysis, here is a phenomenon that puzzles me. Three years ago, I sort of reverse-engineered the Memeorandum algorithm, which was the basis of Rule 3, a bit of knowledge I hope has helped other bloggers. It was via Memeorandum that I found this Kurtz item, but it’s also listed at the affiliated MediaGazer site:
Here’s what puzzles me: My posts are routinely linked at Memeorandum, but when I do media criticism, I’m never linked at MediaGazer. Look at some of the sites they include in the MediaGazer aggregation: Media Matters, HuffPo, Gawker, Mediaite, Washington Monthly, etc. How is it that I rank on Memeorandum with those sites when it comes to political commentary, but I don’t rank with them on MediaGazer?
Occam’s Razor would suggest a blogosphere-wide conspiracy. But I wouldn’t know anything about that.
Here’s what puzzles me: who’s behind Memeorandum?
Who are these guys? Memeorandum’s an important clearing house of news and bloggery that many of us use daily. We work to earn linkage there.
But we don’t know a damn thing about them. Who are they? What’s their business model (are there ads? I don’t see any ads)? How do they fund this?
Most importantly: how does their algorithm work?
Hey, I’m not saying there’s anything nefarious going on. I’m not biting the hand that writes the code that automatically generates a link back to TrogloPundit as soon as certain switches are flipped. On the contrary: I find Memeorandum to be both useful and fun. Easy. Neutral, so far as I can tell. They’re doing a great job.
Hear me, Memeorandum? You guys are awesome!
Unless, of course, it turns out you’re an advance group of E.T.s sent here to gather intel on humankind in preparation for your future invasion, which you very well could be given the lack of available information about you.
But even then, hey, thanks for the links.
I’m just curious. Curious about Memeorandum, and more: I’m curious as to whether or not anybody else – like all you cynical bloggers – is curious, too.
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It’s no secret that Gabe Rivera (@GabeRivera) runs memeorandum along with Techmeme, MediaGazer, etc. From my observations each aggregator has its own list of weblogs it scans to see what the hot stories are. It looks like there’s a list for tech weblogs, media criticism weblogs, gossip sites, etc. In some cases a weblog like TechCrunch is in both the Techmeme and memeorandum lists. In Stacy’s case his weblog is probably only in the the memeorandum list.
From what Rivera has publicly stated the only human element that daily governs his sites is an editor managing Techmeme–the most-trafficked of his aggregator empire. As far as I know, a computer only continues organizing memeorandum content.
Yes it is TOO a secret. It’s very, very mysterious. Otherwise why would I be so curious?
So how did you know that, Sean? Where should I have looked? And I’m still curious about their business plan. Just curious, mind you. NOT suggesting anything nefarious. Not suggesting NOTHING nefarious, either. I’m totally neutral on the level of nefariousness involved.
I’ve pretty much given up on Memeorandum. No amount of my linkage to them seems to result in their linkage to me. Once in a blue moon I’ve seen my blog pop up on an obscure story that’s in the “earlier items” column but for the most part I’m ignored completely by its algorithm.
From what I can see there is definitely a bias over there towards lefty sites, especially gay-rights blogs. Hey, it’s @GabeRivera’s sandbox, he gets to make the rules. But let’s not pretend he’s impartial, because he’s not.
Lance, I met Gabe a few years ago at a weblogging conference in Nashville. Lot’s of people were talking about this thing called “memeorandum.” I believe Techmeme (as tech.memeorandum.com) launched a little later. Techmeme has Gabe listed on the About link. I’m guessing that since that’s his money-maker (sponsored placements) he pays more attention to it than memeorandum. I can see one not know Gabe was behind memeorandum if you didn’t know the connection to Techmeme.
Like Google News and Google’s search engine there is a lot of “secret sauce” to his aggregators. Here’s what he was trying to accomplish in 2005:
http://news.techmeme.com/050912/why-does-memeorandum-exist
And Chris, I’ve never detected a bias in Gabe’s writing (mostly tweets) or when I met him, but I haven’t closely analyzed his public statements.
Ah, so he’s trying to hide the link between Memeorandum and Techmeme, huh? I see what you’re saying. But you’re SURE there’s no alien invasion? Not even a little bit?
Sean – the left-wing, pro-gay-rights bias is apparent in the stories and blogs Memeorandum chooses to feature. Assuming Gabe wrote the algorithm, which I inferred from your first comment, led me to posit the overall lack of impartiality. He may very believe he’s impartial. Of course, the editors of the New York Times believe they’re impartial too.
But if Gabe’s algorithms “work” for guys like Lance and Stacy McCain, more power to them. Me? I’m finding plenty of traction with TrendingRight.com.
Yeah, I don’t get that. Our traffic and everything is similar. He’s got it in for you or something. Personal vendetta, probably. Maybe something from a past life?
I don’t treat memeorandum as a direct traffic driver. I just want to get on it occasionally because weblogs with traffic go there for story ideas. But with Facebook and Twitter becoming more popular, memeorandum as a source for inspiration has been reduced.