Techmeme is, by and large, a fantastic way to stay up on the present buzz occurring in the tech blogosphere. However, I’m confused at how the system works so I’m hoping to shed some light on the subject with this post and the conversation that ensues. In talking to other blogging friends, I’m not the only one who is curious about this subject.

From their “About” box, TechMeme states:

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.

So, how does Techmeme decide which post is most worth of the primary link? For example:

Earlier this month, Om Malik interviewed and wrote a post about Jeff Bezos. Anyways, Om did the work, then RoughType links to the post and embeds the video. Then I see the Nick gets the primary post on Techmeme!?

How does Techmeme’s algorithm work? I’d assume in this case, Om’s post would get the Techmeme, love, not the RoughType coverage of Om’s interview. This, in my opinion, is an injustice to Om as he is the original content creator.

See the screenshot below:

Additionally, a while back I posted on GigaOm about Strands acquisition of NetworthIQ. My post on GigaOm went up first, (my post ran at 4:37PDT, and TechCrunch’s ran at 8:26AM) however TechCrunch’s story got the primary link, with my post was placed in the Discussion category. Here’s a screenshot from that day:

This post is not intended to complain about Techmeme – just to educate myself and the community about how the selection process is conducted by Techmeme’s bots. Is Techmeme handcoded or dynamically driven? Inquiring minds want to know 🙂