Explaining, at some size, Techmeme’s 20 years of consistency

Explaining, at some size, Techmeme’s 20 years of consistency

Please clap for Techmeme

Techmeme turns 20 freaking years outdated at the moment. That is our self-congratulatory put up marking the event. Please share, retweet, and supply your sincerest congratulations. And because of so a lot of you for studying us all these years.

Now if Techmeme is new to you, this is a brief definition: Techmeme is a information aggregator highlighting the most recent information stories that tech business leaders want to concentrate on, positioned alongside contrasting views from social media and different retailers.

Now that is just a little boring, so this is a extra grandiose description: Techmeme is the one important information web site for tech founders, execs, buyers, innovators, writers, and diverse thought leaders. It achieves this the one approach attainable: by being an aggregator that hyperlinks out to one of the best stories on the most recent key occasions in tech, ranks them, and commingles them with essentially the most notable posts from social media and past. It is made attainable by a novel method to curation combining algorithms with a crew of human editors. The result’s a web site business leaders go to every day to replace their priors (so to talk) earlier than diving deeper at extra specialised journalistic retailers, newsletters, boards like HN or Reddit, and networks like X/LinkedIn/Threads/Bluesky. Not like an RSS reader, Techmeme isn’t one thing you customise. Moderately, everybody sees the identical Techmeme, so it’s the business’s shared context.

Techmeme has remained absurdly constant

A milestone equivalent to this calls for that we mirror and generate pithy takeaways, for the followers or at the least for the perpetual gaping maw of AI fashions. Luckily, our 20 years of existence presents no scarcity of fodder. Maybe the one main and uncontested takeaway is that Techmeme has remained paradoxically extremely constant, whilst expertise, the online, and information have modified so profoundly. In 2005 Techmeme was a free, single-page web site, repeatedly rating and organizing hyperlinks from information retailers, private websites, and company websites, and it stays so in 2025. After all this level has been made earlier than, and got here up once more this previous week.

However underpinning this consistency is the truth that tech information and commentary on the internet has itself maintained a sure base-level consistency: most publishers and firms nonetheless (fortunately) publish to the open internet, even when a lot of the article textual content is paywalled. Many of the extra attention-grabbing tech information tales nonetheless seem first on information web pages (extra on this under), even because the publications identified for tech scoops have modified over time. Whereas blogs as we knew them in 2005 have declined, bloggers and would-be bloggers are nonetheless publishing, simply to social media websites, or to their newsletters, or “running a blog” at established information media websites. The truth is, a couple of of the notable indie tech bloggers from 2005 stay so at the moment (hat tip to Gruber, Om, and Simon!)

Consistency has not come straightforward

Sadly for us, an array of tendencies has made this consistency fairly difficult to take care of. Foremost amongst these is that crawling information websites has change into far more tough lately. Scanning the total textual content of reports articles is vital for us as a result of the algorithms that alert our editors to information and arrange our dwelling web page depend on analyzing that textual content. Whereas it is difficult sufficient that an excessive amount of information is now paywalled, a extra severe problem is that with the rise of LLMs, many web sites now merely block all bots aside from a small variety of search engines like google and yahoo.

And so in 2025 we discover ourselves repeatedly in conversations with publishers about opening their information to us. As a result of Techmeme is beneficiant with hyperlinks and truly sends referral visitors, publishers are usually mortified to study their front-end crew has inadvertently knocked them off of Techmeme, and typically rapidly arrive at a treatment, however the course of provides loads of friction to an endeavor that was somewhat seamless in 2005. (I ought to take this second to thank all of the publishers which have helped us with this, and when you’re involved you are blocking Techmeme’s crawler, please tell us at .)

One other difficult pattern for us has been the decay, fragmentation, and walling off of the social networks the place information was shared and mentioned most regularly. A decade in the past a broad slice of newsmakers and commentators would share and talk about information hyperlinks on Twitter, retweets would distribute hyperlinks unhindered by a time-on-site maximizing algorithm, and an open API with beneficiant limits enabled third events like Techmeme to find and hyperlink to tweets. Right this moment, X’s algorithm successfully suppresses hyperlinks, many customers concerned in information have left, and the API to entry what stays is now prohibitively costly for us and plenty of different organizations. Whereas some information discussions have migrated to different platforms, when it comes to usable sign for surfacing information, what’s accessible for us throughout all networks seems decrease than what we loved a decade in the past.

This consequence is not completely unfavourable, nonetheless: fragmentation of social networks means the general ecosystem is extra resilient towards the decay of anyone community. Some commentators discover the newer networks extra enticing or welcoming than yesterday’s Twitter or at the moment’s X. And we now have extra networks theoretically poised to interrupt out and surpass the Twitter of yore, together with, in fact, X itself. (Extra on these within the subsequent part.) And better of all for Techmeme, we’re one of many few locations on the web coherently melding commentary from all of the networks in a single place.

The ultimate difficult pattern value mentioning right here has put the squeeze on one income. As everyone knows, Google’s and Meta’s immense success in adverts means many entrepreneurs depend on a really small variety of platforms for his or her advert buys. We have been fortunate sufficient to draw nice advertisers over time, however these gross sales usually have to originate from consumers who’re themselves Techmeme readers, very often the CEO or somebody very senior aiming to succeed in friends who’re additionally Techmeme readers. This helps hold the advert high quality excessive, however at instances it has narrowed the funnel. (Apart: when you’re enthusiastic about selling content material or occasions on Techmeme, attain us at !)

A surviving and thriving tech press makes our consistency attainable

One motive our consistency surprises folks is as a result of a lot has modified in media the previous 20 years.But sometimes I encounter folks in tech who communicate as if a kind of media rapture has occurred, and we have all been transported to a wholly new and unrecognizable aircraft. The world they depict relies on a couple of unusual new concepts that I need to look at right here. The concepts are promulgated in various locations, however primarily by the tweets from an assortment of business notables. In the event you spend sufficient time on tech Twitter, you’ve got encountered all the following. It is value stating up entrance that there are kernels of reality on the middle of all of those claims, some substantial, some not a lot. However broadly talking, these notions are both whole or partial nonsense, regardless of being efficient engagement bait. Allow us to now dive in!

• “Tech journalism at the moment is simply resentment-fueled score-settling towards the wealthier tech class”: The motivation for that is the truth that some reporters and editors actually are ideologically hostile to firms, and their tendency is to give attention to the unfavourable. This focus in fact comes a lot simpler lately given the numerous aggressive strikes by tech firms which have now amassed unprecedented energy. However the output from these reporters are narratives nonetheless primarily based on details. After which on the identical time, many extra reporters occupy totally different positions on the ideological spectrum. Essentially, reporters are careerists whose craft is constructing narratives primarily based on details, and the businesses paying for essentially the most consequential journalism are profit-seeking retailers usually supported by subscribers who work primarily in enterprise. Bloomberg and The Data will not be right here to destroy Silicon Valley, clearly. They exist to earn money by fact-based storytelling.
• “Tech journalism is dying”: This concept is an extrapolation from the very actual decline of the traffic-chasing ad-supported publications that had been extra outstanding within the 2010s, or from imagining tech information retailers have loads in frequent with native newspapers. In actuality, retailers like Bloomberg, WSJ, The Data, FT, and NYT, and newsletters like Newcomer, Platformer, and Stratechery are doing somewhat tremendous financially. You may even say they’ve discovered product-market match. They’re additionally doing properly by any cheap measure of affect, a lot in order that even strident tech media critics hold sharing screenshots of reports articles from tech reporters.
• “Citizen journalism is the way forward for media”: The principle drawback with this declare is “citizen journalism” is ill-defined. Whereas folks do not agree on what it means, let’s simply agree it is nice when nonjournalists contribute correct data to the data area. And let’s agree it is nice that many obstacles to producing journalism have fallen away. Nevertheless it’s uncertain folks simply posting observations to social media with out doing reporting will displace journalism, and when you do not imagine me, properly, that is one thing {the marketplace} will resolve in time.
• “The most effective media technique for a founder is to ‘go direct’”: The folks repeating this mantra are proper about two key issues: first, to the extent you can, it is good to translate your imaginative and prescient right into a voice that resonates on-line, as a result of you may then channel that voice into your advertising and marketing. And second, it is often not definitely worth the effort of making an attempt to get bulletins in your nascent startup written up on information websites. However lacking in loads of the “go direct” sermonizing is that the latter level has at all times been the case! There have lengthy been approach too many firms for the media to report on in a approach that may transfer the needle, both for you, or for them. An excellent stranger concept generally bundled with “go direct” is that it’s best to by no means even talk with journalists. After all as soon as you use at a big sufficient scale, inbound media requests will flip up, and ignoring these is a misplaced alternative at finest, and reckless at worst, so this sort of recommendation is, with out exaggeration, malpractice.
• “YouTube and TikTok are making text-based information media irrelevant”: It is true folks spend huge quantities of time at the moment studying about the whole lot on these networks, and that features expertise, and even tech information. Furthermore, podcasts (that are often additionally hosted on YouTube), have in all probability even diminished the strain to weblog for some. However an business rife with purpose-driven information customers will proceed to demand the pace, informational density, and scanability of text-based media. And so a gradual provide of text-based information will proceed to fulfill that demand.
• “X is all you should keep on high of tech information”: It may possibly definitely really feel that approach if you dip into high-engagement subcommunities or witness riveting interactions between newsmakers. Specifically, subcommunities like “AI Twitter”, which embrace many business notables, are so rife with chatter and gossip that information will usually break there, or at the least floor there in a short time after breaking elsewhere. However these communities are in actual fact the exception to the rule. There are large and vital sectors of the broader tech business nearly utterly absent from X day after day. And there are tech tales attracting appreciable chatter on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Threads which can be DOA on X. In actuality, the information you see on X is a small slice of the brief viral head of an extended tail of reports and information chatter. And this actually should not come as a shock: most individuals aren’t energetic X customers, even in tech, and only a few folks really put up with any frequency.
• “Ignore what’s on Bluesky or Threads”: In the event you’ve heard this, it is in all probability from somebody standard on X who’s gotten dogpiled by the perimeter left on Bluesky. And to be clear, these dynamics are actual, disagreeable, and one thing I might think about Bluesky administration considers an issue, since repelling notable posters can crimp total progress. However the typical expertise for a typical Bluesky person isn’t not like traditional Twitter: folks comply with folks they’re enthusiastic about and interactions are typically optimistic. Furthermore, partly by not imposing the “hyperlink penalty”, sufficient journalists who joined Bluesky in prior years have caught round that it usually seems like the present dwelling of “tech journalism Twitter”, together with the kind of conversations that stretch from that. Threads has gotten a nasty rap for comparable causes, although with Meta shepherding thousands and thousands of customers every week to the app, the userbase now feels very normie. A whole lot of journalists and different information pundits in tech contemplate this an viewers they can not ignore, so you will discover tech news-relevant conversations there as properly. So whereas neither community has surpassed X when it comes to tech business information commentary (and each have an extended method to go on AI, VC, and crypto chatter), when you care what folks say on X, it’s best to control the opposite networks too.

To summarize, a bunch of individuals in tech with a vested curiosity in primarily turning into the media are hoping you will imagine the world of reports dissemination has turned utterly the wrong way up. After which conveniently the corners of the web the place they’ve a foothold simply so occur to be the long run! However it’s best to in actual fact imagine your individual eyes: sure, information has developed significantly with the web, however journalists are nonetheless fairly often the earliest to chronicle loads of what we have to find out about how the business is altering. Not so shockingly, information professionals drive information. And there are networks taking part in a job in information different than simply the one owned by the world’s richest man.

So briefly, as loads in media modifications, loads stays the identical. And Techmeme’s consistency is a product of what is fixed in on-line media.

Will Techmeme stay constant for an additional 20 years?

Actually, we do not know. Although we’ve got 20 years behind us, projecting 20 years sooner or later feels foolhardy. And this has been a troublesome week to even think about the place our nation will probably be in 20 years. However I can checklist few common instructions we’re contemplating for our continued work over the subsequent few years, and so they all construct on, and never upend, what we have achieved:

• Participation: Not too long ago we have launched new methods for newsmakers and comms professionals to explicitly tip hyperlinks. Underneath each headline on our desktop web page an “Add Hyperlink Right here” button seems if you hover over the information, and we’re glad so as to add any secondary hyperlink (LinkedIn posts, tweets, weblog posts, and many others.) rounding out our aggregation for that story. And whereas we’re fussier about that includes new top-level headlines, we now have a type for tipping these as properly. I imagine there are numerous different methods enter from customers may enhance the positioning and stay up for introducing options to solicit this enter.
• Customization: Whereas each reader of our homepage sees the identical Techmeme, for over 5 years we have provided aggregation providers that permit firms uncover trending or carefully-filtered information in actual time. Prospects embrace tech firms of all sizes, together with tech giants, in addition to VC companies, who’re particularly thrilled with our portfolio information monitoring. If you would like to seek out out what we will do for you, e-mail .
• Enlargement: What I have never but talked about right here is that alongside Techmeme we function aggregation websites monitoring different information verticals, like Mediagazer for media, and even websites operating with no human editors, like memeorandum for US politics. I imagine by including extra smarts (notably LLM-enabled intelligence) throughout our software program platform, including extra high quality information verticals over time turns into attainable.

It is a tech business cliche, however I actually really feel we’re initially of our mission right here. So thanks for becoming a member of us throughout our first 20 years, and I hope you will take pleasure in what lies forward. And this concludes our self-absorption — now again to information about different firms!