Topicle: still doesn't get it.

So it seems we've got a blip at Topicle.com on today's tech PR circuit. Topicle.com is a kind of meta-search engine that allows people to assemble links to their sites and create specialized 'vertical' search engines for particular topics. For instance someone (most likely a paid employee of Topicle.com) created a search engine for Real Estate that includes a bunch of links to reportedly reputable site concerning real estate. It could be said that Topicle addresses the problems outlined in my last post: Rise Of The Linkmeisters, in that it is supposedly less susceptible to outright SEO manipulation.

But Topicle still thrives under the aegis of the collaborative Web 2.0 thesis. As I sat staring at the Topicle homepage one thought came to the fore: Why on earth would I want to spend my time assembling links for some 'vertical search engine' given that those links are public information? I could think of a few reasons:

1) I am working in this industry vertical and I want only my links to show up in a search, so... I just pick out my links and register them as the Official Search Engine of Industry Vertical X. Welcome back to the Linkmeister SEOfest.

2) I like to play around with web sites that look cool. LOL!!!!1!!

3) I'm a kid and this is a great opportunity to look important and help to put my individual POV skew on the universe.

Who did you leave out of this equation Topicle.com? The people who matter: people who are trying to create reputable and valuable sources of information- and require recompense to do so. Because your rule is that my hard earned link collection is instant public property, you rob me of all my return on my hard earned work, and you implicitly prohibit the development of a search engine vertical that actually provides some level of information that's useful. These kind of sites are creating a culture of non-accountability and zero value. If this kind of thinking proliferates, we will certainly have a web not worth surfing.

graffiti is cool. but not very informative.
(photo by Gary Taylor)

Topicle: No thanks- I'll go play with YouTube.com instead. Create a policy where I can have some damn privacy, maybe I'll come back. In the meantime I'll steer clear of Anon's Awesome Vertical Search Engine.

Topicle.com link

Ohloh + Om Malik starts an Open Source Blog

Malik is on the right holding a 'mobile device' the person on the left appears to have his startup swerve on.

Recently Om Malik decided to make his mark (or mark his territory) on the Open Source world by launching his new blog Ostatic, with typical Silly Con Valley fanfare.



What do I expect from this blog? the same payola pay-per-post droning I expect from all the other pure crap Om Malik produces. If there's money and the internet involved you can be damn sure that Om Malik will claim to be an expert in it. I assume that Malik does what other blogs like TechCrunch.com do, take PR payouts from various Silicon Valley chieftans and then act as if they're excited about technology X.

I promised a friend that every time I say something negative about something I have to say something positive about something else :) . So I'd like to direct my readers to a very cool site called OhLoh. Ohloh is a social network for OSS developers that has excellent reporting and communcations facilities, it also has some nice embeddable widgets you can drop into your blog or website that gives accurate stats about OSS projects. If you're into OSS, Ohloh is worth a look.

link: Ohloh.com