R2: Rise of the Aggregator
“Anything scarce is valuable” (Anon)
You say: “Site xyz has featured me on their blog. I’m so honoured to be published by them.”
I say: “What a load of bollocks! That’s not being published - it has no value!”
Let’s wind the clock back to February 2003 when Michael Barnes started the Art-Nudes blog . It was, I believe, the first of its kind. A site driven by one man who wished to collect together links to what he considered the best in art-nude photography. A site which gave the viewer a new talent to examine and appreciate every day. It was an invaluable resource for anyone who was interested in the genre.
It was the first art-nude aggregator, and as such there was both a demand by the viewers for new images and by the photographers to be featured. Thus being featured on the blog was something that was considered valuable to the photographer as it gave coverage and publicity, and there was (and still is) a certain kudos if your work appeared there. As photographers were featured, many would link back to the blog in appreciation, thus increasing its value and fame.
Its value was in its uniqueness.
However, it was not a form of peer review. It was not selective of only the very highest quality because such a blog has a need to add new images. It would not be possible to run the blog showing only the work of the best 20 photographers, or even the top 200. This would have limited its diversity. So in practical terms it was very nice to be listed but it didn’t carry weight as actually “being a published photographer”.
Now you might wonder why I would say this. I’m certainly not trying to devalue Michael’s work, which we have on many occasions promoted. In fact we love his blog, and the passion and dedication to art-nude photography. However, as with most art, there has been a tendency to copy uniqueness, and now there are hundreds, nay thousands, of similar blogs from people who decided to copy Michael’s idea.
Nowadays, artists post all the time on their blogs whenever they get featured on any aggregator. They seem to think it is some form of review.
Let me say this again. There is no publishing value in an aggregator!
The internet is the ultimate in free publishing. It costs nothing to create a blog, it costs nothing to create posts, and it costs nothing to link to and show images from a photographers site. I therefore postulate that in this context, free has no value.
Of the thousands of aggregators that have sprung up imitating Michael’s blog, some are quite selective and rather good, but some are bad and feature any rubbish they can find. These sites have the same running costs, nothing. If the blogger chooses bad images there is no loss to them. If they close the site there are no jobs lost. They have no vested interest in making the best choices other than their desire to have a high visitor count. Thus being listed on one of these sites cannot possibly be counted as being published any more than having someone visit your site is considered being published.
Compare this to a magazine or book. If the images are bad then the publication doesn’t sell, so there will be no advertisers or subscribers and the magazine will go bust and the editor and staff lose their jobs. It’s a big difference and changes the whole focus of the image selection.
There is another kind of aggregator site which charges to view the images. These sites, for example Michelle7 charge their viewers. Thus their content must be good enough for the subscribers to pay and this enforces a selection procedure that imparts value to the act of being selected.
It’s this selection pressure that makes the inclusion have a value. There is a quantifiable loss involved in getting it wrong.
Now it’s easy to argue that a good aggregator will have value in that it will have recurring visitors and it is this volume of visitors that give it value. This is to some level true, but over time the rise of the aggregator sites and growth of them is becoming their own downfall.
Enter into this the site StumbleUpon. This is the ultimate aggregator. Anyone can create a Stumble account. Each account has a blog. You can add to your Stumble blog by right clicking an image and adding it to the blog together with a text entry. It’s the aggregator taken to its ultimate limit of ease of use, simplicity and mass market appeal. It is to photography aggregators what WalMart is to baked beans.
There are some good aggregators on Stumble, showing some remarkable work. But no-one in their right mind would shout about being added to a Stumble blog.
Stumble is the death through democratisation of the aggregator.
So please, if an aggregator features you, remember it has no value, it’s free and for every time you post a message about xyz site listing you, you have probably been Stumble-blogged many more times.
Finally. I want to be published some more, so please click the Stumble button below this post.
See - wasn’t that easy?!
How does it feel to be your very own aggregator?
(Your patronage is appreciated. We love you all.)
These photographs are of the lovely Pirate Maiden who is very much worth adding to your aggregator.
You say: “Site xyz has featured me on their blog. I’m so honoured to be published by them.”
I say: “What a load of bollocks! That’s not being published - it has no value!”
Let’s wind the clock back to February 2003 when Michael Barnes started the Art-Nudes blog . It was, I believe, the first of its kind. A site driven by one man who wished to collect together links to what he considered the best in art-nude photography. A site which gave the viewer a new talent to examine and appreciate every day. It was an invaluable resource for anyone who was interested in the genre.
It was the first art-nude aggregator, and as such there was both a demand by the viewers for new images and by the photographers to be featured. Thus being featured on the blog was something that was considered valuable to the photographer as it gave coverage and publicity, and there was (and still is) a certain kudos if your work appeared there. As photographers were featured, many would link back to the blog in appreciation, thus increasing its value and fame.
Its value was in its uniqueness.
However, it was not a form of peer review. It was not selective of only the very highest quality because such a blog has a need to add new images. It would not be possible to run the blog showing only the work of the best 20 photographers, or even the top 200. This would have limited its diversity. So in practical terms it was very nice to be listed but it didn’t carry weight as actually “being a published photographer”.
Now you might wonder why I would say this. I’m certainly not trying to devalue Michael’s work, which we have on many occasions promoted. In fact we love his blog, and the passion and dedication to art-nude photography. However, as with most art, there has been a tendency to copy uniqueness, and now there are hundreds, nay thousands, of similar blogs from people who decided to copy Michael’s idea.
Nowadays, artists post all the time on their blogs whenever they get featured on any aggregator. They seem to think it is some form of review.
Let me say this again. There is no publishing value in an aggregator!
The internet is the ultimate in free publishing. It costs nothing to create a blog, it costs nothing to create posts, and it costs nothing to link to and show images from a photographers site. I therefore postulate that in this context, free has no value.
Of the thousands of aggregators that have sprung up imitating Michael’s blog, some are quite selective and rather good, but some are bad and feature any rubbish they can find. These sites have the same running costs, nothing. If the blogger chooses bad images there is no loss to them. If they close the site there are no jobs lost. They have no vested interest in making the best choices other than their desire to have a high visitor count. Thus being listed on one of these sites cannot possibly be counted as being published any more than having someone visit your site is considered being published.
Compare this to a magazine or book. If the images are bad then the publication doesn’t sell, so there will be no advertisers or subscribers and the magazine will go bust and the editor and staff lose their jobs. It’s a big difference and changes the whole focus of the image selection.
There is another kind of aggregator site which charges to view the images. These sites, for example Michelle7 charge their viewers. Thus their content must be good enough for the subscribers to pay and this enforces a selection procedure that imparts value to the act of being selected.
It’s this selection pressure that makes the inclusion have a value. There is a quantifiable loss involved in getting it wrong.
Now it’s easy to argue that a good aggregator will have value in that it will have recurring visitors and it is this volume of visitors that give it value. This is to some level true, but over time the rise of the aggregator sites and growth of them is becoming their own downfall.
Enter into this the site StumbleUpon. This is the ultimate aggregator. Anyone can create a Stumble account. Each account has a blog. You can add to your Stumble blog by right clicking an image and adding it to the blog together with a text entry. It’s the aggregator taken to its ultimate limit of ease of use, simplicity and mass market appeal. It is to photography aggregators what WalMart is to baked beans.
There are some good aggregators on Stumble, showing some remarkable work. But no-one in their right mind would shout about being added to a Stumble blog.
Stumble is the death through democratisation of the aggregator.
So please, if an aggregator features you, remember it has no value, it’s free and for every time you post a message about xyz site listing you, you have probably been Stumble-blogged many more times.
Finally. I want to be published some more, so please click the Stumble button below this post.
See - wasn’t that easy?!
How does it feel to be your very own aggregator?
(Your patronage is appreciated. We love you all.)
These photographs are of the lovely Pirate Maiden who is very much worth adding to your aggregator.
Labels: aggregator, Pirate Maiden, rant
posted by Richard at 9:33 AM
3 Comments:
Nice post, with most of which I agree totally. One comment and quibble, however (and the reason why I'm submitting this anonymously): Michelle7 is nowhere nearly as good as your paragraph suggests. Since I am a subscriber -- out of a professional need to see what is being "published" there -- I feel confident in saying that there is a lot of better stuff to be found on free sites than will be seen via a subscription to Michelle7. Michael Barnes's ArtNudes site is more valuable to those appreciating fine art nude photography than Michelle7, by several orders of magnitude, especially given that it is free.
Not sure if I was among those you had in mind when you wrote this, but I do have links to a number of aggregators who have featured my work, and will acknowledge them from time to time, but I don't consider it "being published" for the most part. Granted, some of them are more selective than others, some are mainly vehicles for advertising -- in those cases, I'm not entirely wild about providing them with free content, but as is the nature of the internet, they'd probably do it regardless of what I do or say, so as long as their content/ads aren't too far afield, I'll give 'em a link. They do tend to drive traffic to my site, and to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "There is only one thing on the web worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
P.S. For what it's worth, Michelle7 does actually pay for some content, so I guess that would be considered "being published."
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