A point I've been making throughout this blog is that aggregate content is key, and that human aggregators will never be completely replaced by machines: this is because, irrespective of what the aggregate may be, people sometimes want to see what someone has to offer (e.g. a news editor, or a celebrity). A key consequence of this is that editors will continue to have enourmous influence in determining content's success.
Most 'automatically generated' aggregates like Digg and Newsvine can only exist thanks to other, human-curated aggregates, and are thus in a sense derivative. Nothing would be popular if it wasn't first discovered in some way first; and that initial discovery usually happens via an authored aggregate. (There is a school of thought that holds that in the future media consumption will only be a matter of finding the content that's right for you. In my previous post I argued that this is a limited view)
But some automatic aggregators don't rely on external, authored aggregates. They measure popularity simply by tracking traffic to individual pieces of content. In these cases word-of-mouth is key, but only at the beginning: once the portal takes over (assuming it's a popular one) then word-of-mouth takes second place. (Some automatic aggregates also rely on random techniques, in which previously unknown content is promoted only a few times to a few users; if the response is negative the content isn't promoted again; if it's positive, it stays.)
These 'proper' automatic aggregates are likely to be an enduring feature of the media landscape. They offer a way to popularity that circumvents the human editors that control most aggregates--the dreaded 'gatekeepers'. But although they offer a sense of 'meritocracy' of content, they are clearly gamable (just get a thousand people to click on your clip) and are not beyond the reach of organised marketing.
In the emerging equilibrium between (truly) automatic and human aggregators, the lines will probably be drawn along genre and production values. Because of the need for attributable authorship, human aggregates are likely to continue to dominate news; and expensive Hollywood blockbusters will have the budget to arrange for human aggregators to feature them.
True automatic aggregates need not be limited to user-generated content: nothing prevents Youtube from listing (but not necessarily hosting) any blockbuster.
[NB: This is part of what was once a larger post. The other parts have gone here and here]
Updates:
: 13/12/06: Mark Glaser reports that the YouTube partly curated by human editors (my emphasis):
“Featured Videos are not paid placements,” Nielsen said via email. “Our editorial team scours the site for the most entertaining, novel and unique content and they are the ones who decide which videos get featured.” [...]
The problem is that YouTube is not as transparent as it could be about what is featured on its home page, what slots are paid for, and what criteria it uses to choose the editorial picks. YouTube’s new parent company, Google, is famously tight-lipped about how it ranks search results, how it picks sources on Google News and other important decisions that affect the fortunes of many online businesses. YouTube considers itself to be an entertainment destination, taking Google further into the editorial realm.
: 15/01/06: Digg also uses human editors.
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