1. Kevin Schofield on March 27, 2004 12:17 PM writes...

It's called editorial voice, and it comes hand-in-hand with journalism. I think it's a great stretch to say that what Microsoft is doing i going to decide for everyone what blogs are "relevant to people." Credibility and popularity are two of the dominant factors that go into the Google PageRank algorithm too. There are a lot of search engines out there, many of which already index blogs, and there's room for more that take different approaches.

Yes, there's always a tension between editorial voice and censorship. In this case, though, any given search engine is not preventing information from being posted or accessed (unlike a parental controls filter installed on a PC). Search engines are really recommender engines, not filters. but even Google doesn't index everything.

BTW, while I work at Microsoft, I don't work on the BlogBot project and to the best of my knowledge have never discussed it with the people who do.

2. Liz Lawley on March 27, 2004 1:59 PM writes...

I'm not arguing that there's no value or need for editorial voice. Just that I'm uncomfortable with it as a primary role for search engines. It's easy enough to build in variable layers of editorial voice on *top* of the search engine. But I'd prefer to know who's doing the filtering, and how.

While it's true that search engines don't index everything, there does tend to be a public perception that they do...one that I run up against over and over again in my students (and that most librarians encounter regularly in their patrons).

However, I'm *not* the one who said that Microsoft was going to decide what was relevant to people...that's a direct quote from the MS product manager.

(This isn't a Microsoft-bashing attempt, btw. I'd say the exact same things if Google announced that they were going to create a blog-specific search engine, but then added "There are some blogs that may not be relevant to people. Those blogs we may never index." To me, that's scary language, particularly when it comes from a company with large-scale market penetration and a presumption of neutrality amongst its users.

Looking forward to meeting you on Monday, btw. :)

3. Alex Halavais on March 27, 2004 2:03 PM writes...

I'm feeling contrary today:

What exactly is a "grass-roots information medium"? I can think of some possibilities, but I think you would need to make a case that blogging is somehow naturally one of them. It is, at this point, an *experimental* or perhaps *amateur* medium--just as radio was in the early days. But that doesn't make it grass-roots.

Blogs already marginalize interesting provocative, and unique voices. I see no clear indication that MS would necessarily accelerate this via searching. One of the nice things about marginalization, is you always know where to find the interesting stuff: on the margins! Indeed, by clearly defining the mainstream of the blogging world, it might lead to innovation in mapping these margins. As it stands now, finding interesting material not provided or pointed to by bloggers with a good share of the market is a matter mostly of chance and serendipity.

I would be much more concerned if MS or AOL (or Typepad, for that matter) decided to move to production tools that were proprietary or lacked interoperability. If they want to pour money into search, I say, more power to them.

4. Jack William Bell on March 27, 2004 2:08 PM writes...

Kevin; I disagree strongly. I don't think search engines should provide an 'editorial voice'. In fact I can say, without reservation, that I don't want to use any search engine that is limiting my results according to the preferences and preconciptions of a human being. If I want an 'editorial voice' I will read the newspaper.

Liz is right about this on several levels; the Blogbot should index everything and then provide some way to structure the results according to relavancy. In fact this is the very thing blogs themselves do -- they add a level of meta data to the Internet according to the 'editorial voice' of the blogger. Then I, as a reader, can choose which blogs to read according to how well they match my preferences. (Thus the 'Echo Chamber' meme.) Or I can even (as I actually do) also read the blogs of people with whom I disagree in order to get a more balanced view.

This kind of 'editorial voice' is different from one imposed by a search engine because it is one I choose for myself. I would be both distrustful and unlikely to use any service which proposed to make those choices for me.

5. Liz Lawley on March 27, 2004 2:14 PM writes...

Alex-

Ouch. :) That's why I don't post here more often...y'all are such careful readers, and sloppiness in language here tends to come back and bite me...

At any rate, "grass-roots information medium" was probably a poor choice of terms. I wanted to convey the concept of reduced barriers to entry, and the level of serendipitous connection that the combinatin of blogs for publishing and tools like Technorati for searching provide. Will think about how to frame this more rigorously, so as to avoid triggering your curmudgeonly side. ;)

6. Kevin Schofield on March 27, 2004 4:46 PM writes...

Looking forward to meeting you too, Liz! :-)

Saying "a search engine should or should not have an editorial voice" is really just an argument in semantics, as it implies a certain definition of what a search engine does.

Let me aim for the comon ground here: whether it is the Google PageRank algorithm (which was authored by humans) or human editors, there will always be filtering and prioritization going on. I think we would all agree that a responsible search engine/newspaper/webzine publisher will be clear and public about their editorial biases.

7. Liz Lawley on March 27, 2004 4:53 PM writes...

Ah, but semantics are important!

Prioritization and selective inclusion are not, fundamentally, the same thing. And prioritization based on user behavior is substantially different than selection based on "editorial biases."

It's inherently problematic, I think, to try to limit or filter input into a search engine based on editorial control--particularly in a genre where there's so much churn, so many new voices entering on a regular basis. I see it as much more realistic to limit or filter output at the search level--but ideally, some of that limiting or filtering should be user-driven rather than centrally-driven. Fodder for conversation this week, at the very least....

8. Seb on March 27, 2004 10:35 PM writes...

Re: index everything, then let readers filter - I've been thinking everything (blog posts, blog comments, trackbacks) ought to be accessible in that way. The default view might be incomplete, but I'd like to be able to see what has been cut out if I want to - or be more discriminating if I don't have too much time.

Also (holy grail alert) I want to be able to apply personalized filters/reordering to every collection of microcontent out there.

9. David Sifry on March 28, 2004 12:12 AM writes...

Hey, can't wait to see their new search. in the meantime, Technorati will continue to index everybody, and will offer lots of different ways to slice and dice the data...

Dave

10. V. on March 28, 2004 2:20 PM writes...

I believe the valuable editorial input is to be found at the grassroots level. There are literally hundreds of sites that exist, in all areas of interest, to simply point the readership to well written and interesting pieces.

I find it amusing that Microsoft will assume an editorial role, to be judge and jury, decideding what I may like to read.

Call me old fashioned, but I still enjoy following links on a site I love to a new site, in hopes that I will love it.

To aid me in this process, I'ver written spiders and filters that make some assumptions based upon my personal taste.

I don't believe I'll allow Microsoft to judge my merit as a writer as I simply do not respect that corporate entity. It unnerves me that more and more companies are out to make a profit somehow based upon the work of individuals who charge nothing for their words, images, software, ideas, etc.

Of course, I have no idea how any of these huge firms make or plan to make money from blogs and such, but it just seems wrong somehow.

Can nothing be left alone?

As for me, I'd rather they not use my bandwidth. I'd rather not be considered or included. I'll just add this crawler to my growning list of meta tag represented annoyances and hope they respect those and my robots.txt.

11. C.M. Worth on March 28, 2004 6:49 PM writes...

This isn't terribly surprising. If you look at MSN's homepage, you have nothing but a cherry-picked and served-up-cold panoply of crummy junk. It was only a matter of time before MS decided to do the same old thing with blogs and tell us it would revolutionize the blogosphere.

12. Tim Worstall on March 29, 2004 7:29 AM writes...

Oh wonderful.
We plot and plan and fiddle and code to create a ( arriving soon folks ) search engine of the Blogosphere, and then we find ourselves competing with Microsoft. Ho hum.

13. Ross Mayfield on March 29, 2004 11:31 PM writes...

Just gotta say I love Dave's comment