NYTimes.Com – All the news that’s fit to aggregate

There was a time when I thought I had to fill this blog with insight that was actually produced in my very own brain — or, at least, in how my very own brain reacted to what I read on the web. But that was before I knew Scott Karp. Now, the rexblog is more about pointing to his great insight, like this post from Scott about the enhanced NYTimes.com’s Technology section:

Quote:

“The New York Times joins what I expect will be a rapidly expanding list of media brands that aim to create value for their readers by aggregating the best third-party content from across the web and thereby take an important step towards transforming media into a dynamic, collaborative, and fully networked endeavor.”

Sidenote (i.e., something from my very-own brain): The most unfortunate aspect of the new Technology section’s launch is the characterization of a new feature it has (a news aggregator) as a “Techmeme-killer.”

As a longtime observer of the -killer meme, I can pretty much guarantee that whenever something is described as a -killer, it rarely kills. Also, as a longtime observer of Techmeme (as in, observing it from the day it launched and from knowing Gabe even longer), I can recall when Digg was going to kill Techmeme and, well, about 100 hundred other things were going to “-killer” it since then. I have some beefs with Techmeme (it’s Valley-centricity, for example), but it’s not going to be -killered by anything that tries to -killer it by being “like” it, but different. (Maybe one day, my very-own brain will explain what that means.)

The opinion-leaders who obsess about what other opinion-leaders are saying about breaking tech stories will still be obsessed with what hits Techmeme.

Another thing: Anyone who is obsessed with Techmeme has got to know (or, at least greatly suspect) that it’s more than just “a machine.”