Comments on: AideRSS - a new tool that may make a difference, sometimes for some of us

By: Kris Hoet

Kris Hoet — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:24:41 +0000

In business marketing I think it might make sense to use aideRSS to check the interaction on certain blogs whenever you’re considering outreach to them. It doesn’t help much on influence, but interaction is also a good indicator for blogger outreach programs. I’ll be testing with it this way as well.

- Kris

By: Stefan Kolle

Stefan Kolle — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:19:20 +0000

Although I see and appreciate where they are coming from, I’m afraid there is an omission in the thinking here.
As Kris points out, this can be an excellent tool to decide on outreach programs and other situations where the popularity of a blog is relevant. However, popularity does not equal relevance, particularly in a field still seeing so much development as blogging.
A lot of new business bloggers are coming to the field still, and the fact that at the beginning they don’t have a large readership yet doesn’t mean they might not have great content.
Let’s just say, I’m a little bit worried that this is another service that reinforces the dictatorship of the popular, such as Digg. And of course, running a blog that is built on the premise that some human mediation is necessary to find the best and most relevant posts, I feel threatened :)

P.S. I know it’s early days, but testing the service it manages to completely miss out on the most important and relevant posts on our blog, while giving other, really less poignant posts perfect 10’s.

By: Hans De Keulenaer

Hans De Keulenaer — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:37:25 +0000

@Kris - I look forward to learning about your further experiences with AideRSS

@Stefan - Junta42 makes also a good attempt to combine automated tools with moderator intervention.

I also sympathise with your comment of the blogosphere’s tendency to zoom further in a selected few of established blogs that are already popular. I’m experimenting with a marketing blog carnival, and surprised how well it works - I’ve learned already about many marketing blogs flying below radar.