Web Search Garage

Finding Voices

Finding communities and conversations is useful, and finding collections of links is useful. But it is also often useful to find the leaders in a community, those folks whose commentary is respected and passed along. They have double value: first as pointers to valuable information and second as credibility indicators.

If you read the writings of a community voice long enough and you come to trust them, you can gauge the merits of resources by how that voice views them. What do they think of the latest hot directory? Do they barely mention it at all? Do they give a thumbs-down? Do they support it enthusiastically? This is especially useful when you're doing research in a field you have very little knowledge of. If I were researching ...