A lot of PR people I know – particularly those affiliated with the tech and social media industries – make frequent daily visits to Techmeme. What is Techmeme? Here’s their “ABOUT TECHMEME” blurb:
“At this moment, the hottest stories in technology are scattered across dozens of news sites and blogs. That’s an awful lot of sites for anyone to check. Fortunately, Techmeme arranges all of these links into a single, easy-to-scan page. It’s auto-generated through a news-picking software system, so updates occur around the clock.”
In a recent email to his subscribers, the ever-helpful, often-brilliant Sam Whitmore of Mediasurvey performed an analysis of the changes that occured over the past year at Techmeme’s Leaderboard, the meme minder’s top 100 sources. Sam analyzed snapshots of the Leaderboard on October 1, 2007 versus October 1, 2008. Here’s a look at the Top 10:
1. TechCrunch (still at the top)
2. CNET News (up from 5th)
3. Silicon Alley Insider (up from 13th)
4. VentureBeat (up from 25th)
5. New York Times (down from 3rd)
6. Ars Technica (down from 4th)
7. AppleInsider (up from 49th)
8. Gizmodo (up from 15th)
9. Wall Street Journal (up from 10th)
10. ReadWriteWeb (down from 6th)
Other notable entries would include InfoWorld at #36 in 2008, down from #11 in 2007; BusinessWeek’s drop from 28th position to #48; and Computerworld’s drop from the Top 20 on the Leaderboard to #34 as of October 2008.
If you believe that Techmeme presents a reasonable view as to hot trends in technology reporting online, there are some interesting takeaways from Sam’s research.
Most notably: from a media coverage standpoint, it’s a good time to be affiliated with gadgets, content, Web 2.0 apps and (no surprise) economic trends and venture capital. The precipitous Leaderboard drops for publications like Computerworld and InfoWorld, in particular, suggest that “B2B Tech” is of little interest of late.
Partly this may be because the “cool stuff” is making inroads into the enterprise. Partly this may be because the recessionary trends were already underway by October ‘08, making enterprise technology less interesting to budget-conscious buyers. And partly this may be because the world of tech/social media has broadened considerably in the past year: it’s not just for geeks anymore.
There’s one key takeaway that all PR pros should understand: Sam Whitmore is a guy worth the subscription price.
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Another PR tip about TechMeme I heard from Gabe Rivera himself, in an interview with Sam Whitmore: if you are having trouble pitching the top TechMeme sources, look at the other sources in the “Discussion” under the main topic. That is a treasure-trove of worthy blogs and publications that *might* be more pitchable, and a little hungrier for content than, say, TechCrunch should you have trouble getting through. It has worked for me.
And on top of that, Sam’s one heck of a nice guy, too.