Explaining, at some length, Techmeme's 20 years of consistency

[ad_1] Explaining, at some size, Techmeme's 20 years of consistency

Please clap for Techmeme Techmeme turns 20 freaking years previous at present. That is our self-congratulatory submit marking the event. Please share, retweet, and supply your sincerest congratulations. And due to so lots of you for studying us all these years.

Now if Techmeme is new to you, here is a brief definition: Techmeme is a information aggregator highlighting the most recent information reviews that tech business leaders want to pay attention to, positioned alongside contrasting views from social media and different retailers.

Now that is a little bit boring, so here is a extra grandiose description: Techmeme is the one important information website for tech founders, execs, traders, innovators, writers, and diverse thought leaders. It achieves this the one manner doable: by being an aggregator that hyperlinks out to the very best reviews on the most recent key occasions in tech, ranks them, and commingles them with probably the most notable posts from social media and past. It is made doable by means of a singular method to curation combining algorithms with a crew of human editors. The result's a website business leaders go to day by day to replace their priors (so to talk) earlier than diving deeper at extra specialised journalistic retailers, newsletters, boards like HN or Reddit, and networks like X/LinkedIn/Threads/Bluesky. Not like an RSS reader, Techmeme isn't one thing you customise. Reasonably, everybody sees the identical Techmeme, so it's the business's shared context.

Techmeme has remained absurdly constant A milestone corresponding to this calls for that we replicate and generate pithy takeaways, for the followers or at the least for the perpetual gaping maw of AI fashions. Happily, our 20 years of existence gives no scarcity of fodder. Maybe the one main and uncontested takeaway is that Techmeme has remained paradoxically extremely constant, at the same time as expertise, the net, and information have modified so profoundly. In 2005 Techmeme was a free, single-page web site, repeatedly rating and organizing hyperlinks from information retailers, private websites, and company websites, and it stays so in 2025. In fact this level has been made earlier than, and got here up once more this previous week.

However underpinning this consistency is the truth that tech information and commentary on the internet has itself maintained a sure base-level consistency: most publishers and corporations nonetheless (fortunately) publish to the open internet, even when a lot of the article textual content is paywalled. A lot of the extra attention-grabbing tech information tales nonetheless seem first on information web pages (extra on this under), even because the publications recognized for tech scoops have modified through the years. Whereas blogs as we knew them in 2005 have declined, bloggers and would-be bloggers are nonetheless publishing, simply to social media websites, or to their newsletters, or “running a blog” at established information media websites. In reality, just a few of the notable indie tech bloggers from 2005 stay so at present (hat tip to Gruber, Om, and Simon!)

Consistency has not come simple Sadly for us, an array of developments has made this consistency fairly difficult to take care of. Foremost amongst these is that crawling information websites has turn out to be way more tough lately. Scanning the complete textual content of reports articles is necessary for us as a result of the algorithms that alert our editors to information and arrange our dwelling web page depend on analyzing that textual content. Whereas it is difficult sufficient that quite a lot of information is now paywalled, a extra severe problem is that with the rise of LLMs, many web sites now merely block all bots aside from a small variety of serps.

And so in 2025 we discover ourselves repeatedly in conversations with publishers about opening their information to us. As a result of Techmeme is beneficiant with hyperlinks and really sends referral site visitors, publishers are usually mortified to study their front-end crew has inadvertently knocked them off of Techmeme, and generally shortly arrive at a treatment, however the course of provides plenty of friction to an enterprise that was reasonably seamless in 2005. (I ought to take this second to thank all of the publishers which have helped us with this, and for those who're involved you are blocking Techmeme's crawler, please tell us at .)

One other difficult pattern for us has been the decay, fragmentation, and walling off of the social networks the place information was shared and mentioned most continuously. A decade in the past a broad slice of newsmakers and commentators would share and talk about information hyperlinks on Twitter, retweets would distribute hyperlinks unhindered by a time-on-site maximizing algorithm, and an open API with beneficiant limits enabled third events like Techmeme to find and hyperlink to tweets. In the present day, X's algorithm successfully suppresses hyperlinks, many customers concerned in information have left, and the API to entry what stays is now prohibitively costly for us and lots of different organizations. Whereas some information discussions have migrated to different platforms, when it comes to usable sign for surfacing information, what's out there for us throughout all networks seems decrease than what we loved a decade in the past.

This consequence is not totally adverse, nonetheless: fragmentation of social networks means the general ecosystem is extra resilient in opposition to the decay of anyone community. Some commentators discover the newer networks extra enticing or welcoming than yesterday's Twitter or at present's X. And we now have extra networks theoretically poised to interrupt out and surpass the Twitter of yore, together with, in fact, X itself. (Extra on these within the subsequent part.) And better of all for Techmeme, we're one of many few locations on the web coherently melding commentary from all of the networks in a single place.

The ultimate difficult pattern price mentioning right here has put the squeeze on one income. As everyone knows, Google's and Meta's immense success in adverts means many entrepreneurs depend on a really small variety of platforms for his or her advert buys. We have been fortunate sufficient to draw nice advertisers through the years, however these gross sales typically must originate from patrons who're themselves Techmeme readers, very often the CEO or somebody very senior aiming to achieve friends who're additionally Techmeme readers. This helps preserve the advert high quality excessive, however at occasions it has narrowed the funnel. (Apart: for those who're excited about selling content material or occasions on Techmeme, attain us at !)

A surviving and thriving tech press makes our consistency doable One purpose our consistency surprises folks is as a result of a lot has modified in media the previous twenty years.But often I encounter folks in tech who communicate as if a form of media rapture has occurred, and we have all been transported to a wholly new and unrecognizable aircraft. The world they depict relies on just a few unusual new concepts that I wish to look at right here. The concepts are promulgated in various locations, however primarily by means of the tweets from an assortment of business notables. When you spend sufficient time on tech Twitter, you've got encountered the entire following. It is price stating up entrance that there are kernels of fact on the middle of all of those claims, some substantial, some not a lot. However broadly talking, these notions are both complete or partial nonsense, regardless of being efficient engagement bait. Allow us to now dive in!

“Tech journalism at present is simply resentment-fueled score-settling in opposition to the wealthier tech class”: The motivation for that is the truth that some reporters and editors actually are ideologically hostile to companies, and their tendency is to deal with the adverse. This focus in fact comes a lot simpler lately given the numerous aggressive strikes by tech corporations which have now amassed unprecedented energy. However the output from these reporters are narratives nonetheless based mostly on details. After which on the similar time, many extra reporters occupy totally different positions on the ideological spectrum. Basically, reporters are careerists whose craft is constructing narratives based mostly on details, and the businesses paying for probably the most consequential journalism are profit-seeking retailers typically supported by subscribers who work primarily in enterprise. Bloomberg and The Data aren't right here to destroy Silicon Valley, clearly. They exist to earn money by means of fact-based storytelling. “Tech journalism is dying”: This concept is an extrapolation from the very actual decline of the traffic-chasing ad-supported publications that had been extra outstanding within the 2010s, or from imagining tech information retailers have loads in widespread with native newspapers. In actuality, retailers like Bloomberg, WSJ, The Data, FT, and NYT, and newsletters like Newcomer, Platformer, and Stratechery are doing reasonably effective financially. You would possibly even say they've discovered product-market match. They're additionally doing effectively by any affordable measure of affect, a lot in order that even strident tech media critics preserve sharing screenshots of reports articles from tech reporters. “Citizen journalism is the way forward for media”: The principle downside with this declare is “citizen journalism” is ill-defined. Whereas folks do not agree on what it means, let's simply agree it is nice when nonjournalists contribute correct info to the data house. And let's agree it is nice that many boundaries to producing journalism have fallen away. Nevertheless it's uncertain folks simply posting observations to social media with out doing reporting will displace journalism, and for those who do not imagine me, effectively, that is one thing {the marketplace} will resolve in time. “The very best media technique for a founder is to 'go direct'”: The folks repeating this mantra are proper about two key issues: first, to the extent that you could, it is good to translate your imaginative and prescient right into a voice that resonates on-line, as a result of you'll be able to then channel that voice into your advertising and marketing. And second, it is normally not definitely worth the effort of making an attempt to get bulletins on your nascent startup written up on information websites. However lacking in plenty of the “go direct” sermonizing is that the latter level has all the time been the case! There have lengthy been manner too many corporations for the media to report on in a manner that will transfer the needle, both for you, or for them. A fair stranger concept generally bundled with “go direct” is that you need to by no means even talk with journalists. In fact as soon as you use at a big sufficient scale, inbound media requests will flip up, and ignoring these is a misplaced alternative at finest, and reckless at worst, so this sort of recommendation is, with out exaggeration, malpractice. “YouTube and TikTok are making text-based information media irrelevant”: It is true folks spend huge quantities of time at present studying about every thing on these networks, and that features expertise, and even tech information. Furthermore, podcasts (that are normally additionally hosted on YouTube), have most likely even lowered the strain to weblog for some. However an business rife with purpose-driven information shoppers will proceed to demand the pace, informational density, and scanability of text-based media. And so a gentle provide of text-based information will proceed to fulfill that demand. “X is all it's essential keep on high of tech information”: It could possibly actually really feel that manner if you dip into high-engagement subcommunities or witness riveting interactions between newsmakers. Specifically, subcommunities like “AI Twitter”, which embody many business notables, are so rife with chatter and gossip that information will typically break there, or at the least floor there in a short time after breaking elsewhere. However these communities are in truth the exception to the rule. There are huge and necessary sectors of the broader tech business nearly utterly absent from X each day. And there are tech tales attracting appreciable chatter on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Threads which might be DOA on X. In actuality, the information you see on X is a small slice of the quick viral head of an extended tail of reports and information chatter. And this actually should not come as a shock: most individuals aren't energetic X customers, even in tech, and only a few folks truly submit with any frequency. “Ignore what's on Bluesky or Threads”: When you've heard this, it is most likely from somebody in style on X who's gotten dogpiled by the perimeter left on Bluesky. And to be clear, these dynamics are actual, disagreeable, and one thing I'd think about Bluesky administration considers an issue, since repelling notable posters can crimp total progress. However the typical expertise for a typical Bluesky person isn't not like basic Twitter: folks comply with folks they're excited about and interactions are usually optimistic. Furthermore, partially by not imposing the “hyperlink penalty”, sufficient journalists who joined Bluesky in prior years have caught round that it typically looks like the present dwelling of “tech journalism Twitter”, together with the form of conversations that reach from that. Threads has gotten a foul rap for comparable causes, although with Meta shepherding tens of millions of customers every week to the app, the userbase now feels very normie. A variety of journalists and different information pundits in tech think about this an viewers they cannot ignore, so you will discover tech news-relevant conversations there as effectively. So whereas neither community has surpassed X when it comes to tech business information commentary (and each have an extended strategy to go on AI, VC, and crypto chatter), for those who care what folks say on X, you need to regulate the opposite networks too.

To summarize, a bunch of individuals in tech with a vested curiosity in basically turning into the media are hoping you will imagine the world of reports dissemination has turned utterly the wrong way up. After which conveniently the corners of the web the place they've a foothold simply so occur to be the longer term! However you need to in truth imagine your individual eyes: sure, information has developed significantly with the web, however journalists are nonetheless fairly often the earliest to chronicle plenty of what we have to find out about how the business is altering. Not so shockingly, information professionals drive information. And there are networks taking part in a task in information different than simply the one owned by the world's richest man.

So briefly, as loads in media modifications, loads stays the identical. And Techmeme's consistency is a product of what is fixed in on-line media.

Will Techmeme stay constant for one more 20 years? Truthfully, we do not know. Although we now have 20 years behind us, projecting 20 years sooner or later feels foolhardy. And this has been a troublesome week to even think about the place our nation might be in 20 years. However I can record few common instructions we're contemplating for our continued work over the following few years, they usually all construct on, and never upend, what we have achieved:

Participation: Not too long ago we have launched new methods for newsmakers and comms professionals to explicitly tip hyperlinks. Underneath each headline on our desktop web page an “Add Hyperlink Right here” button seems if you hover over the information, and we're pleased so as to add any secondary hyperlink (LinkedIn posts, tweets, weblog posts, and so on.) rounding out our aggregation for that story. And whereas we're fussier about that includes new top-level headlines, we now have a type for tipping these as effectively. I imagine there are numerous different methods enter from customers might enhance the location and look ahead to introducing options to solicit this enter. Customization: Whereas each reader of our homepage sees the identical Techmeme, for over 5 years we have provided aggregation companies that allow corporations uncover trending or carefully-filtered information in actual time. Prospects embody tech corporations of all sizes, together with tech giants, in addition to VC corporations, who're particularly thrilled with our portfolio information monitoring. If you would like to seek out out what we will do for you, electronic mail . Enlargement: What I have never but talked about right here is that alongside Techmeme we function aggregation websites monitoring different information verticals, like Mediagazer for media, and even websites working with no human editors, like memeorandum for US politics. I imagine by including extra smarts (significantly LLM-enabled intelligence) throughout our software program platform, including extra high quality information verticals over time turns into attainable.

It is a tech business cliche, however I actually really feel we're at first of our mission right here. So thanks for becoming a member of us throughout our first 20 years, and I hope you will get pleasure from what lies forward. And this concludes our self-absorption — now again to information about different corporations!