Filtering The Web – Custom Aggregation Constructs
Cats: Music Promotion|
By James Pew
Up until a few weeks ago, how I navigated the web was very pedestrian, random, and not very productive. Like any business owner, I’m constantly researching my industry. Just like any artist researching trends in the new music business. Or like any person wanting to know where this is all going, and how to get there faster than the rest. I absorb as much as I can.
The web is overwhelming. But its extraordinary rate of progress in this broadband web 2.0 world offers new advantages to the global indie music community. No need to belabor the impact of the cultural movement happening via the internet. Go here and here for evidence of it.
For those who have moved past the “is this internet thing going to stick” mentality and are forging ahead with growing a web presence that seeks to engage in community, and streamline and integrate with a business model, this post is for you. To artists who can see the connection between the small strategic success of the Grand Aggregation Experiment (below), and their own strategic web thing, this post is mostly for you.
The Grand Aggregation Experiment
Last week I scanned through the headlines on popurls.com for anything relevant to the subject matter discussed on Studio Manifesto. Popurls has the top headlines from the most read and talked about content on, you guessed it popular websites. Through one of these popular URLs, Digg, if I remember correctly, I found a post on Psyblog about an experiment conducted in nightclubs that found the louder music was played the more people drank.
In a nutshell when music is too loud, you can’t hear or talk to anyone. If you can’t talk, you drink. I left the following comment on the PsyBlog post, along with two links to Studio Manifesto posts:
Loudness is a bit of an epidemic in our society. When it comes to music there is a perception that louder is better. People rarely ask for balance or clarity, just loud. As a sound engineer and an independent record producer, I’ve had a number of run ins with this issue.
Here are the links I left with my comment:
The Silver Dollar Room Disaster
Both posts deal with loudness issues. One dealing directly with loudness in a night club.
Traffic to both Studio Manifesto posts increased ten-fold over the next few days. Bringing in a couple comments, including an awesome comment from a man from Tennessee who was really pissed at the volume level of a local show he and his wife tried to attend.
Leaving the links on Psyblog was meaningful considering the direct relation to the subject matter. No one called me out for “link baiting” or “trolling.” A contribution was made, along with an introduction (of my web presence), to a community I normally wouldn’t have much reason to talk to.
The next phase of the Grand Aggregation Experiment deals with what I am calling a Custom Aggregation Construct. But first an explanation of a powerful RSS filtering application called AideRSS that I discovered at a Third Tuesday Meetup in Toronto. Third Tuesday meetups, sponsored by Canada Newswire, focus on the topic of social media.
Here is the AideRSS description found on their website:
AideRSS is an intelligent assistant that saves time and keeps you on top of the latest news. We research every story and filter out the noise, allowing you to focus on what matters most.
Its true. It does that. On a scale of one to ten it ranks blog posts by the level of discussion and interest around them. If no one is reading or commenting on a particular post, the post rank will be as low as one. If a blog post is generating a lot of interest and discussion, its post rank can be as high as ten. When you select a particular blog, or a folder of blogs you previously arranged in your feed reader (ie. google reader), the AideRSS plugin can either show all posts, or only the best, great, or good posts.
My specific aggregation construct is expressed through the combination of three software applications. Fire Fox 3 + Google Reader + AideRSS. This is just one of many construct combination’s that are available across multiple platforms and applications. AideRSS and its Post Rank filtering app is the key. Go to aideRSS.com to learn about other browsers or feed readers AideRSS works with.
I’m using the word construct because the power of real time information gathering, filtering, and searching that results is something you’d expect a “virtual construct” of the William Gibson Cyberpunk world to be capable of.
The best part is this construct is exceedingly simple to set up. And the customization process begins immediately. Through Google Reader you subscribe to every RSS feed (blog) that you are interested in. Then you go to www.aiderss.com, and depending on your browser, download the appropriate aideRSS plug in.
With the construct now in place you can zero in on discussions centered around your area of focus. For a band, that may be another band. If for example your band sounds a little like AC/DC, then discussion among AC/DC fans may be a good place for you to engage and plant a few seeds. Or maybe you might align yourself with a cause that affects your industry. Like Graham Wright from the Tokyo Police Club did when he wrote a post on his blog about Bill C-61.
Copyright happens to be another topic I’ve written about on Studio Manifesto. The following three posts for example:
Open Letter to the Government asking for Fair Copyright.
So copyright is among the topics my Aggregation Construct is optimized to filter through and rank. Providing me with the most relevant content, discussion, and breaking developments in copyright reform. And leading me to the places where the people most likely to be interested in the above posts hang out.
Once there I make a contribution. Depending on the strength and relevance of that contribution, some of the people engaged, may follow a link back to Studio Manifesto. Once at Studio Manifesto they may follow another link to Euphonic Sound. And a beautiful relationship may begin. Or not. Maybe they’ll share my link with someone else who will follow the above cycle. Or not.
Either way, my strategy is to create a compelling opportunity, in the most accessible way, for a person with potential common interests to discover my presence and purpose.
Layers of aggregation are necessary to focus your attention on the content and places most relevant to you. In the first example popurls.com is the first layer and Digg is the second. In the second example a filtering/aggregating technology is used to fast track the research needed to find your audience.
What do you do to find potential fans of your music, or readers of your blog? How do you filter the web?
Filtering The Web – Custom Aggregation Constructs by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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March 25th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
You have some great substance behind your post, I especially like the depth and tangents that you explore while talking about your use and musing about aggregation using AideRSS. I’m still somewhat perturbed that going through such lengths is necessary and that there isn’t a substitute for doing a combination of tools to get the necessary content you are seeking, but you raise some great points and I wanted to thank you for the digression.
-steve