Give Me Analysis, or Just Give Me a Link

4 March, 2009

Don't Waste My Time

There is an epidemic in the blogging world (and it's not bad just cliches). Every time a news item happens it gets reported by so many sources that duplication is inevitable, but it seems like many sources don't even try to differentiate from each other. We'll be taking a look at this phenomenon as it occurs in the world of Apple-Nerd blogs - but don't forget that it transcends web 2.0. This same phenomenon happens every time Obama says something - it's everywhere. But I feel like I have a better grip on Apple-Nerdom, so I will focus there.

As a disclaimer, I need to admit I'm guilty of the sin I'm about to describe from time to time (see my post about the Safari 4 beta that I wrote recently) - writing something worth reading is hard and if someone else has already said it better than I can, I link to it.

Yet, I don't rewrite articles, I don't re-summarize Gruber's last rant or analysis, I don't write an summary of an Apple press release, and I sure don't write write that crap 3 days later. Yet, less than 48 hours ago my RSS reader was filled with articles, all from different sources, telling the same story:

Apple releases new iMacs
-Macworld

Apple Releases Updates to iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro Lineups
-Daring Fireball

Apple Announces New iMacs, Mac Minis, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule
-Macrumors

Tuesday is upon us: new Apple hardware
-TUAW

Apple Updates the Mac Mini: More Modern, Even Worse Value
-The Apple Blog

Apple releases trio of long-awaited desktops
-Apple Section - Ars Technica

Apple Updates Mac Mini and iMac
-World of Apple

Most of these sources had other, additional stories about the recent Apple hardware updates as well...

And All these updates Apple had announced amounted to were speed bumps, this wasn't major Apple-Nerd news. Yet my RSS was inundated with articles that all said the same thing. And I didn't even list the official Apple feed that gave the same information as most of these. Really, Daring Fireball and The Apple Blog were the only ones to really have any worthwhile, unique content in them. So, that brings the question:

Do these sites really think they are anyones only portal into the world they report on? This isn't political news where commentary is often inappropriate and misguided - we (the people who read these blogs) know what happened, we knew what was coming for weeks - give me some analysis, or just give me a link.

The Solution

And that really is the answer to the generic blog issue - give some analysis. The reason blogs need to give analysis is simple; in the cases of the vast majority of weblogs, the author isn't a reporter in any sense of the word. They don't do interviews, they don't have sources, they don't have formal training. So they should do the one and only thing web 2.0 is really good at: expression.

The Apology

And, I also want to point out that all of the sources that i listed above DO have content that I find enlightening and entertaining to read much of the time, otherwise I wouldn't be subscribed to the feeds. So I do apologize that I had to use the example I did, but it was fresh in my mind so I went with it.

The Point of it All

But the point is, if I found your weblog so have other people, and they may write too, and they may not be able to analyze the unique value of some posts as compared to others. So when they mimic your successful blog they also mimic the content that every other Apple-Nerd blog posts, and in that transaction, they all lose value (in one way or another).

Because we all want to write and to read unique content. And if we don't work to be unique and analytical what's the point?

(Just don't into the Huffington Post - a million posts a day, whining and analyzing stuff no one cares about - spread out among a hundred sites, because no one wants that... agreed?)