ReadWriteWeb

This week, leading tech news aggregator Techmeme turned 5 years old. The service launched in September 2005, under the name tech.memeorandum, and ReadWriteWeb was one of the first media publications to review it.

In 2005, tech.memeorandum mostly tracked blogs. In 2010, Techmeme tracks all types of media web sites. Everything from news wires, newspapers, professional blogs, corporate blogs and personal blogs. That's been a natural evolution, as blogs have become more like newspapers and magazines - and vice versa. What's been more surprising is Techmeme's shift from full automation to a mix of algorithms and human curation. In this interview with Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera, we talk about these and other changes over the past 5 years.

Ohpan, the scrolling news ticker web site we covered a few months prior, recently released an iPhone application which uses their same recommendation engine technology to deliver you the best content. As with their main web site, the iPhone app lets you rate the content you see to allow Ohpan to learn your preferences. However, the app also takes advantage of the iPhone platform to offer localized content as well as some other unique features.

Love it or hate it, but there's no arguing that the go-to aggregator for finding the top tech news of the day all on one page is none other than the news portal Techmeme. It's the site that catches you up when you get behind, lets you know what happened while you slept, and tracks the buzz (and yes, the echoes, too) of the tech blogosphere. Other competitors exist, but no one - not even Google - seems to be able to compete.

So why even bother covering yet another Techmeme wannabe? Because competition is important. Techmeme may do a great job, but innovation can still be found elsewhere.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a journalist. My heroes were people like Woodward and Bernstein and the people reporting from war zones. The profession seemed to be both glamorous and worthwhile. Faced with a real decision as a young adult, I went into the IT industry. Then, later in my career, I started blogging, and then writing for ReadWriteWeb, and now I am COO of this news media business. So that got me thinking about the past, present, and future of journalism. Disclosure: I do not come at this from a long career as a journalist. This is a personal, blog-style view of the journalism profession by somebody who cares about the outcome.

It's no secret that the Associated Press and Google News aren't exactly getting along right now. According to the AP, Google News and other content aggregators often come too close to violating the principles of fair use. Most people, however, would argue that these aggregators actually bring more traffic to newspaper websites, and according to the latest data from Hitwise, this is exactly the case.