The Lords on news aggregators…
Posted June 28, 2008 
Comments(2)
Comments(2) Now, there’s a headline to get the pulse racing! paidContentUK picks up on an interesting part of the Lords report on media ownership, which says
News aggregator sites benefit on news gathering done by other organisations, but they do not invest in original content themselves. This is an issue of justifiable convern and we recommend that the Department for Culture Media and Sport should examine the effect of news aggregators and consider how their impact on news gathering might enhance their investment in news.
It’s interesting they came to this conclusion after visiting Google – who pointed out that they only take a small part of the story, and that they take no ad revenue from Google News.
I’m looking forward to their next inquiry into post-equine evacuation: stables doors – bolted or unbolted?
They seem (based on your quote) to have missed that News Aggregators can be thought of as traffic sources as well content thieves.
I looked at this when I set up my own niche aggregators, and created a proposed set of principles of operation:
http://tinyurl.com/6cuvsh
These are they:
1. Link to the Source of the Post
2. Provide an Opt Out
3. Be a Signpost, not a Destination
4. Do it right: don’t be forced to do it right
5. Do not overdo the Advertising
6. Do not Display Full Content on your index pages
7. Don’t overwhelm blogs you are aggregating with file requests
I wonder if any of the Lords of the Blog were involved?
Presumably their next job will be to abolish the Press Association?