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We are experimenting at SiliconBeat. If you look to the right-hand column of our home page, you will see a new feature. It is a way for companies and other people to submit press releases directly to our site (here's how), so they can be posted almost automatically without us having to comb through it. We will start sometime tomorrow. Headlines will be posted on the right with links to the full releases.
The reason is because it's getting harder and harder to keep up with the flood of news. We've been inundated with requests for reviews and write-ups, and feel like we're letting too many people down. Over the next few days and weeks, we'll review whether this is useful or not.
In the interests of our readership, however, we reserve the right to reject certain posts, if they are too far off the mark. By now, you know our focus is money and innovation in Silicon Valley. We'll certainly let in news about other U.S and foreign start-ups if we think it is relevant. Indeed, this could complement our main offerings about Silicon Valley. Biotech and other areas we don't cover are also encouraged.
Finally, we realize that many of you subscribe via RSS, which means you don't visit the homepage. We'll tinkering with this and other features, and try to create separate RSS feeds if we think there is demand.
Let us know your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
http://www.siliconbeat.com/cgi-bin/mt331/mt-tb.cgi/1472
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Tracked: August 8, 2006 2:37 AM
Sounds like an interesting idea, though I am one of those people who reads the RSS feed and then only visits the site if there is an article I want to read. If you get too much news you can always send me some, as I get none handed to me. It must be nice.
Jason Schramm on June 22, 2006 7:15 AMComment link
Matt:
I think this is a bad idea. The value of an editor is to edit. I subscribe to SB to subscribe to your perspective, not to subscribe to PRNewswire. In Web2.0-speak, in this attention economy, I need attention leverage for my limited attention, not another firehose.
I realize you may be overwhelmed. But the answer is to "raise your price" to viewers who value your ability to edit the stream and use the "revenue" to put more editorial resources on it. Raising the price may be any number of things, more ads, charge, or something novel like involve a community of readers in the editing parts of the flow *for* you to get more leverage yourselves. It raises the price for a few, but presumably with some other benefits for them and for all. "Open source editing" Whacky, huh? Gee, isn't that what Digg does, albeit with an indiscriminant 'editorial staff'?
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Very good points. And that is the reason we are not subjecting readers to this. They choose to glance at that column.
Second, we may be begin to filter the "unfiltered" news, in other words, become more selective about what we accept in that area. It would become a free listing of relevant news in the VC/start-up world on a given day -- we'd give the headline, provide a brief summary, and people could then click through to the press release if they want to read more. A sort of VentureWire unfiltered...
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It's an experiment to see what happens. If it doesn't add value for our readers, it will come down. The idea is not to shunt all the news over to the "unedited" sidebar. It's intended as a way to get more information to our readers, who may want it. It's additive.
Michael Bazeley on June 22, 2006 7:57 AMComment link
Peter, regarding your other points (ads, community participation), these are things we'd like to do more of. Appreciate the feedback.
Matt Marshall on June 22, 2006 7:57 AMComment link
Hey guys, I think this is a great idea. I think Peter had some alright points, but I since the 'unfiltered' articles will be available on the side column to interested parties, so it shouldn't affect the quality of the site and the site's ability to hold those with limited attention spans. Blogging, or at least this blog, has entered the user generated content arena. Congrats on making the move! I'd hate to see more ads, but understand the economics.
Jason Barnes on June 22, 2006 9:35 AMComment link
Ah -- If the wheat and chaff are clearly separated, then, yes a venturewire-like thing adds value. It is especially valuable if it is archived and searchable. Then today's chaff becomes tomorrow's wheat when I what to see who *else* was doing something in this category over the last year...
Peter Rip on June 22, 2006 1:01 PMComment link
It is a very practical and intelligent concept...
UGC is an important evolution in real-time news distribution....
Because STATISTICALLY, it will be abused by some - does NOT invalidate the Wave of the Future
Like everything else in Web 2.0, it has to be optimized and tweaked, but essentially if just a few gems are discovered daily, that would not have been without the change - it makes sifting through the ore to find the gold - worthwhile :-)
Search Engines WEB on June 22, 2006 4:35 PMComment link
