Doc Searls is not a gatekeeper.
I know, I know, it’s sooo February 11th to discuss the gatekeeper issue, but Z-listers such as myself don’t spend all their time blogging.
Seth Finkelstein responded to my Stephen Kurkjian example my last post with this point, “You only have one such result because nobody with higher ‘gatekeeperness’ wants them - not because of any great ability to reply.”
This highlights the point at which Seth and I disagree. He’s right that were someone with a highly popular blog (Doc Searls, for example) to start blogging extensively about Kurkjian, my result would soon be bumped down the list of Google results into oblivion. However, I don’t think “gatekeeper” is the right name for that situation. Doc Searls’ intent would probably not be to drown me out– he’s just adding his statements to the pile of available material on Kurkjian.
Viewed through the lens of Google, the effect is similar. Viewed from a perspective of information propagation, Doc Searls is just the reverse of a gatekeeper– he can’t blog about something without propagating the ideas that he mentions. Take Scoble’s brrreeeport meme. Nobody, not even Scoble himself, could stop that once it was started.
Compare that to the example I used in my last post of me sending a letter to the Boston Globe in 1995. The Globe acted like a gatekeeper. Some editor there decided not to publish my letter. As far as I know, that left the ocean of Globe readers exactly zero ways to find other public responses to the news. My best bet might have been standing in the middle of the Boston Common with a sign promoting my cause. Even then, there is no search engine that indexes placards found in public spaces.
That’s why I claim that Doc Searls isn’t a gatekeeper. On the other hand, I strongly agree with Seth’s criticism of the recent Technorati authority feature. I sent the following feedback to Technorati:
“Your new authority filter feature is a bad idea. It lets you find that which is already easy to find, while obscuring that which is already obscure. It might be a useful tool for establishing what blogs are popular, but popularity is very different from authority.”
“Perhaps you could call it the “mainstream” filter. It’s more accurate but less appealing than “authority.” Unfortunately, that’s what it really is.”
I think that it’s the algorithms of the Technoratis and Googles that are the real gatekeepers. So then the question is what is a good substitute for variations on “most links” or “most readers”?
Suggestion to Doc Searls: remove every “A-lister” from your blogroll. Divest your A-list links today!
February 17th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Thanks for the agree/disagree.
Regarding: “As far as I know, that left the ocean of Globe readers exactly zero ways to find other public responses to the news.”
Why do you think this? If you believe doing a google search on reporter’s name is a counterbalancing way for *Globe* readers to find public responses to the news, then why not letters or columns in other local papers, such as e.g. the _Herald_ or the _Phoenix_? You could have tried to interest those editors, or media columnists. You could have tried journalism review publications (which, actually, might be a much better target audience than hoping random Google searchers stumble across a blog post). This exemplifies a tendency to talk-down all the avenues that do exist, but we know are ineffective in practice (going around to various other publications), and talk-up an avenue that’s favored, but also seems ineffective overall (random related Google searches).
And that fact that a gatekeeper can’t take back what’s been let through the gate hardly disproves their gatekeeperness. Remember the cliche, “Oh no, I’ve created a monster” (== can’t undo what’s been done).
That Doc Searls is a gatekeeper is shown unarguably by the fact that so many people talked about and linked to my post after he was kind enough to put it through his blog-gate.
February 18th, 2006 at 12:32 am
Getting something printed in the Boston Herald would probably be the best way of all to ensure that Globe readers never see it! But I agree with the basic spirit of Seth’s post.
You’re making two main assertions here. (1) Since Doc Searls can never remove information from Google, but can only add to it, he can never suppress the information on Stephen Kurkjian’s yellow journalism that you are providing. (2) Since The Globe was the only medium available to you before the Internet, they were the final gatekeeper. I disagree with both.
On the first point, although you’re technically right that Doc Searls could not have your post removed from Google’s index, he could make it effectively inaccessible by drowning you out, as you observe. Whether or not this is his intention seems irrelevant. (Do you disagree?) I would argue that if your criticism of Stephen Kurkjian’s corrupt and unethical practices was the 10,000th result in the Google listings for his name, rather than the 4th result, it would be no more effective in affecting public discourse than your hypothetical escapade in the Boston Common. In fact, I’d say it would be as if you had never written the post at all.
On the second point, I defer to Seth’s remark above.
February 18th, 2006 at 7:43 am
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