The first result for a search on the term Edge Aggregator in Google returns a link to Edgeio on blog.ferret.com -
Edgeio will spider and index anyone’s feed and aggregate the posts tagged with “listing”. It then clusters the other tags in order to attach the post to the right classifieds category. The revolutionary thing here is that Edgeio does not require you to post your offer on their own site, they go and take it from yours..
Forgive me for being pedantic but this is not edge aggregation - it's centralized aggregation of content from the edges. But not to the edges [1]. Its no different to centralized RSS readers like Bloglines and Rojo, or memetrackers like Tailrank and Memeorandum, all pulling in information from Blogs and presenting it centrally.
True Edge Aggregation requires distributed aggregation to the edges ie. back to the blogs. And one way we'll do that is with feed grazer widgets like Grazr, OPod and OptimalBrowser, which are already popping up in numerous blogs.
Tom Raftery took Edgeio for a spin by advertising a Nissan Micra and an Antique Italian Cabinet for sale. He included the tag Listing in both posts to ping Edgeio. I hope Tom doesn't mind but I've now added them to the Open Irish Directory bookmarking service by clicking on the OID Bookmarklet (just drag it to your toolbar) and using the same tag - Listing. It took all of 5 seconds. All bookmarked posts with the tag Listing are now being aggregated to the OID (see Grazr panel in sidebar) under the hierarchy
Leisure & Sport -> Shopping -> Classifieds & Auctions [2]
Now that's true Edge Aggregation - from the edges and back to the edges. I have to say I'm a great admirer of Mike Arrington and what he's accomplished with TechCrunch but I just don't see how Edgeio is defensible when all the pieces of this jigsaw are already out there and, as Matt Terenzio observes the trend is toward distributed models superceding centralized marketplaces.
[1] In fairness to Edgeio their tagline is Listings from the Edge so its the commentators rather than the company themselves who've been perpetuating the misnomer.
[2] 'Classifieds & Auctions' is an individual OPML node so if you don't like it in that position in the hierarchy you can easily place it where you like on your own Grazer. That's the magic of OPML.
Technorati Tags: aggregation, opml
Hi there
I saw your post on my daily Technorati search today. Interesting. And it is true that we say "listings from the edge". However......
edgeio does syndicate out also. The name edgeio is edge with "i" and "o" - or in and out.
You can see part of the out strategy on my blog - http://www.teare.com - with the use of the edgeio widget. However a better sense of where we are going with the "out" is by adding /?atom=1 to the end of any edgeio query url. We want 3rd party sites to consume edge content from our aggregated source. A good example of this is a local portal managing it's own classifieds section by taking liostings that edgeio has found from local bloggers and other publishers.
In future we will be able to include paid listings in the "out" side and share the revenue from those listings with publishers.
This product is called edgesense (like adsesnse for classifieds). We will launch it in a few weeks.
So. We think edgeio is an edge aggregator (we bring in content from the edge) and also an edge feeder (we serve things to the edge). The real change here is that the centre provides the glue needed to turn distributed content into a valuable product that can serve as a new business model for publishers on the edge. And all this without becoming a destination ourselves.
Let me know if this makes sense to you. Great blog by the way. Thanks for writing on this subject.
Best
Keith Teare
ceo/founder/edgeio
Posted by: Keith Teare | March 30, 2006 at 05:43 PM
Thanks for the feedback Keith. I know its probably a matter of semantics but I still disagree with the term "Edge Aggregator" being applied to Edgeio.
Yes, I understand how Edgeio will syndicate content to the edges and how the widget helps to serve that function but what I was objecting to in the use of the term "Edge Aggregation" was the sense that the actual aggregation is not done at the edges.
You say you "bring content from the edge" where it gets centrally aggregated. And you "serve things to the edge" or syndicate them. But you don't aggregate them at the edges. I readily acknowledge that's being picky and I guess it all depends on our accepted definitions of 'aggregation'.
Could you explain in what way Edgeio provides "the glue needed to turn distributed content into a valuable product" in a way that Social Bookmarking systems and Technorati don't, or won't going forward. From what I've seen Social Bookmarking in conjunction with Feed Grazing at the edges can accomplish most, if not all, of what Edgeio does. I'm sure I'm missing the 'something' that makes Edgeio defensible because I know yourself and Mike are two smart guys!
Posted by: James Corbett | March 30, 2006 at 10:53 PM
Hi
OK, to take your 2 points:
1. You say you "bring content from the edge" where it gets centrally aggregated. And you "serve things to the edge" or syndicate them. But you don't aggregate them at the edges.
Actually, our widget does in fact aggregate content that originates at the edge, back out to the edge. So a widget can, for example, aggregate all listings about photoshop from belfast out to a blog in dublin. We, in the center, play the role of capturing the distributed content and making it available to the dublin blog. The only other way for such a comprehensive aggregation to take place would be for the dublin blogger to crawl every blog in Belfast in real time and look for the appropriate tags. Social bookmarking services may get some of the posts, but would definitely miss some.
2. Could you explain in what way Edgeio provides "the glue needed to turn distributed content into a valuable product" in a way that Social Bookmarking systems and Technorati don't, or won't going forward. From what I've seen Social Bookmarking in conjunction with Feed Grazing at the edges can accomplish most, if not all, of what Edgeio does. I'm sure I'm missing the 'something' that makes Edgeio defensible because I know yourself and Mike are two smart guys!
edgeio is a real time indexer of ALL content matching some set of tags (any set of tags). I don't think that exists through either of the methods you talk about. Technorati does capture much of the content we do but does not have a syndication out service focused on listings. The value is in the syndication of the aggregated content. The 20,000 or so listings we have captured in the first 2 weeks are more valuable now that dispersed over the points of original publishing. if we can distribute these listings out to hundreds of other sites they become more valuable (for their publisher) still.
Posted by: Keith Teare | March 31, 2006 at 11:02 PM
Seems like a classic edge aggregator to me (at least by my definition):
http://mashable.com/2006/02/27/here-come-the-edge-aggregators/
You can be both an edge aggregator and an edge feeder - it's not one or the other. And anyway, it's just semantics - so long as we can communicate effectively, who cares?
Posted by: Pete Cashmore | April 25, 2006 at 09:18 PM