Web 2.0 Mash-ups and the New Aggregators

Reflections on the Aggregators

One of the Web 2.0 catch phrases coined by Tim O’Reilly is that “Data is the Next Intel Inside,” the observation that the Web services that control user-generated content are poised to become dominant.

I think this is true in many ways but the key to my niche-building has been to keep relationships open and dynamic, letting the data flow where it will. I have declined requests to host other people’s blogs on my server or to create a definitive list of “A List” bloggers for my community.

I’ve used my visibility in the community to suggest standards. Two types of standards come to mind. One is the call to unite around particular services for particular online functions: Flickr.com for our photographs or Del.icio.us for our bookmarking. The other type of standard-setting I engage in is the suggestion to use certain types of tags for particular purposes or events.

Because QuakerQuaker is built on open and transparent standards it would be ridiculously easy to mirror the aggregator. Anyone could poll the Del.icio.us feeds and display them on a web page. It would be easy to try to throw the system by tagging all of one’s posts with all of the category tags. (The flexibility of Yahoo! Pipes does allow a content creator to modify the raw feeds in a manner embarrasing to the borrower; I have convinced site to provide missing attribution after creatively mangling the feed.)

My authority comes not from owning or controlling any of the data but rather from being a ...