Popular tech news aggregator Techmeme has launched a new mobile version of the site built for the Apple iPhone, Palm Pre, and Motorola Droid. The new version, which can be found at http://techmeme.com/m, is a lot easier to read on your phone than the regular site. It even includes individual pages for each Techmeme headline, which show all of the relevant discussion links. Separate pages for each story is something that even the full Techmeme site doesn't currently provide.
New mobile versions are also available for Gabe Rivera's other sites, Memeorandum, Ballbug, and WeSmirch. Techmeme has been ramping up its efforts lately, hiring three additional editors for the site. That brings its headcount to six employees.
I tend to check Techmeme throughout the day as I'm sure many of you do. A lot of the time, I am looking at the site from my phone. This new mobile update makes browsing Techmeme on the go a far more pleasant experience. Since this is not a native app for any platform, the new mobile site is viewable from a variety of phones, widening the potential audience. I can say with almost certainty that the release of Techmeme Mobile will increase the site's mobile readership.
Mashable is writing about a new news site called Newspond. Their "about" page boasts that the site is "the most advanced news site on the planet." That's certainly a big statement to make, given the competition that already exists. Its main function is similar to that of Techmeme, with some of the social features of Digg thrown in for good measure.
At first glance, it appears that the content that is floating to the top of Newspond is very different to what is atop Techmeme right now. It's not clear whether this is due to the sources that Newspond is drawing on, or due to differences in their algorithms. I tend to think that it is a result of the algorithm, since many of the sources for popular articles are comparable on both sites. I think that the content needs to be tweaked, although it may improve as the site matures.
As far as functionality and look goes, Newspond is at the top of the heap. Everything on the site moves so smoothly, and there are beautiful gradients and rounded corners as far as the eye can see. Comments slide out and boxes light up all over the site. The design of Newspond should be the poster child for Web 2.0.
I don't think that Newspond will dethrone Techmeme or Digg anytime soon, but they are definitely a start-up to keep your eye on. If any of their claims end up coming to fruition, we will be hearing from them a lot.
Today, Techmeme unveiled a new feature that they call the "Techmeme Leaderboard." The leaderboard essentially makes data that Techmeme has had for years available to readers. It lists the top 100 sources for Techmeme stories, ranked by Presence, which is described as, "...the probability that a random Techmeme headline at a random time over the past month was published by that source."
Obviously there is going to be some bias in any "Top 100" list, regardless of the topic and that is the case with this list. Regardless of bias, I think that there is a lot less potential for tampering with this list than there is for tampering with the current king of the popular blog lists, Technorati, who just counts unique links to a blog to determine its rank. Technorati is going to have to scramble now to try and figure out a way to get back on top.
I think that Techmeme's list is a pretty accurate reflection of what I consider to be the most influential blogs and news sites out there today. The leaderboard is a great addition to Techmeme's already stellar offerings and I think it will keep people coming back almost as much as their front page news does. So, for all you ambitious bloggers out there, now you have a new list to shoot for.
Check out the Techmeme Leaderboard here.
Other sites that also work to aggregate the hottest stories on the Internet include Gabe Rivera's Techmeme and Tailrank. In my opinion, Technorati Topics comes up short, while Techmeme succeeds, simply because of the way that the stories are displayed. Techmeme reads more like a newspaper, with the most talked about stories of the moment on the top of the page, and its River feature, which shows the stories in chronological order. Technorati Topics lets the stories fall down the page, much like Digg Spy. The reason why this doesn't work particularly well for Technorati Topics is because so many blogs are included in its pool.
It seems as if Technorati is displaying every blog post from those in its pool, instead of the popular ones. It is really hard to tell from looking at Technorati Topics what the most important and popular stories are. While it may be entertaining to watch Technorati Topics for a few minutes to see some blog posts, the speed at which the stories fall down the page, along with the lack of filtering for individual posts, really hurts the service.
I have been a big fan of Technorati for awhile now, and it has been really painful to watch it struggle recently. Even though Technorati Topics will probably not be a smash hit it its current state, it's nice to see the site pushing out new features again and trying to get back on top. Hopefully this is just one of many things that Technorati has up its sleeves as it tries to get back on its feet.
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