It made me laugh, but it's too broad of a generalization.
Some news aggregators really add value. They drive traffic and stimulate interesting discussion. They make it easier to get opposing viewpoints on the same topic.
I wonder if Scott Adams has a chip on his shoulder because of the effect aggregators have on old media, his bread-and-butter. I find it hard to imagine XKCD labeling all news aggregators as parasites.
I think this was really more a joke about Rupert Murdoch than his personal view, especially since Murdoch's 'parasites' comment has been discussed a lot recently.
Yes, there is a certain irony in words being broken only because they need to fit within the rigid printing parameters of the newspaper medium he's trying to defend.
I'm showing my personal bias, of course. I just launched a business/economic social news site called http://newsley.com.
But, far from being parasites, social news sites expose readers to a much greater cross section of news than a local newspaper ever could. And, a well moderated social news site like Hacker News or a heavily filtered reddit is much more useful than an editor could ever be. There's still a whole lot of room for news aggregation/content crap filtration online. Social News is just getting started.
But then, I'm probably preaching to the choir here on HN. :)
On newsley, I don't think making the description a link is a good idea. Digg does this too and I find it very annoying as I'll accidentally click it sometimes (for example, if I want to copy and paste it). I'd also suggest making the description text a lighter color so the titles stand out a bit more.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 31.4 ms ] threadSome news aggregators really add value. They drive traffic and stimulate interesting discussion. They make it easier to get opposing viewpoints on the same topic.
I wonder if Scott Adams has a chip on his shoulder because of the effect aggregators have on old media, his bread-and-butter. I find it hard to imagine XKCD labeling all news aggregators as parasites.
Edit: adding link to show a reference http://www.mediaite.com/online/google-rupert-murdoch-decries...
A link to the minimal version of the site (no flash etc.)
But, far from being parasites, social news sites expose readers to a much greater cross section of news than a local newspaper ever could. And, a well moderated social news site like Hacker News or a heavily filtered reddit is much more useful than an editor could ever be. There's still a whole lot of room for news aggregation/content crap filtration online. Social News is just getting started.
But then, I'm probably preaching to the choir here on HN. :)
And, thanks for the input on changing the description text to make it unclickable. I'll have to think that one through a bit.
I like Dilbert but Scott Adams seems unpleasantly wed to the past.