The Palm Pre news was announced tonight and was NOT leaked before 9 p.m. So? The problem is that the articles that are on TechMeme were written FRIDAY and the journalists that wrote them timed them to release at 9 p.m. -- my article has the real news because I wrote it at the last minute. Yet it isn't a headline on TechMeme right now. Proof that Techmeme is NOT about news. - Robert Scoble

Techmeme is about who has done the best articles in the PAST. Not about who has legitimate news to break tonight. It also is NOT about linking behavior. None of these articles got any links. Techmeme's algorithm decided on the ranking based on past behavior. Unfair? Hell, life isn't fair. I just love pointing this out so you know that Techmeme isn't about news, it's about popularity. - Robert Scoble

Who cares about the Palm Pre? - Scott Loftesness

Scott: a lot of people do. Plus Palm forced Adobe to hold the news until tonight. Adobe told me about every other announcement but said that one of its partners had forced it to hold the news until 9 p.m. Sunday night. - Robert Scoble

That partner was Palm. What's funny is that at least one of Palm's PR people worked at Apple. That's why I knew that Palm was the one, because only Apple PR people do shit like this. - Robert Scoble

why are you still reading techmeme? :-) - Duncan Riley

Scott: back to your question. The Palm Pre is the one device that beats Apple's iPhone in experience (I've seen them all). It is the one device I will stand in line for this year. - Robert Scoble

Duncan: :-) - Robert Scoble

Removed Techmeme from my feeds months ago.. - Matt Hooper

good to see palm are still going. i love my TX. i hate to see a company like that go under. - Terry O'Fee

I find that Friendfeed has taken the place of Techmeme in my "what's hot right now" searching - Bastard Operator From FF

So, O'Reilly's on board? http://biz.yahoo.com/bw... - Scott Loftesness

I can't wait for the Pre (v 2.0-- I'm not a 'ealry adopter-type') - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

tech websites talking about other tech websites .. hhahah it seems to be the norm these days.. - Terry O'Fee

Aaron: when I have news and know it I expect to get onto places where news is supposedly shared. - Robert Scoble

Am I wrong to take it that the first article on TMM does mention Flash on the Pre by way of saying " will be available on smartphones running Windows Mobile, Google's Android, Nokia S60/Symbian, and the new Palm operating systems. ". Maybe it's not such big news? - Jef

Jef: the first article has the news. All the rest do not. And even CNET couched it just in case it didn't happen. It's article was written on Friday. - Robert Scoble

Aaron: good point. But TechMeme usually tracks those places pretty strongly. Much more strongly than in the past. Oh, and now I'm on Techmeme as of 10:03. Goal achieved. - Robert Scoble

Aaron: complete indeed, I'm going to bed! :-) - Robert Scoble

Aaron: I think Gabe is having fun now. He just posted a PC World headline that had the news. - Robert Scoble

The Palm Pre doesn't exist yet right? So saying it will get flash is kinda meh. - Omar Shahine

Omar: from what I'm hearing the Palm isn't that far away. This stuff is important for developers especially since the Palm is going to be a very hot selling device. Developers care about technology decisions BEFORE a device ships so that they can build apps for it and have them out on day one. - Robert Scoble

Robert made Techmeme at about 10:15 Pacific. http://www.techmeme.com/090216... - Louis Gray

Honestly Robert, glib line aside, there's far better ways to get a tech dose.FriendFeed and Twitter are one outlet, combined with some select pics in terms of blogs. Techmeme got into farce territory last year when it became clear he banned and ranked down sites he didn't like. I've never believed in one person showing me what's going on, nor should you. Sub-feed at best for techmeme, until they renounce their selective ways, which from what I've heard, have gotten far worse now. - Duncan Riley

Duncan: Gabe insists only one person has been banned from Techmeme. - Robert Scoble

Robert, maybe if you wrote longer articles you might rate higher on TM. 127 words of analysis is not enough. - Paul Montgomery

Seriously Robert, the Pre is crap no matter how much you try and build it up. - Donovan Slennon

So, Donovan, have you actually used one? Robert has, and for that reason alone I suspect his opinion carries more weight than yours. - Ian Betteridge

too much news about mobile tech and not enough about photography on Techmeme me thinks. - Thomas Hawk

But I think an under reported piece of this whole story is how RIM is not a part of it. Blackberry is slipping further behind, which is very disappointing. - JT Perry

Since Scoble made it to Techmeme, albeit not as soon as he would've liked, can we now say that it IS about news? - coldbrew

JT, RIM was one of the mobile phone companies making the biggest gains in sales last quarter - so I'm not sure what you mean by "slipping further behind". - Ian Betteridge

coldbrew: funny, the article on top right now is not one with the Palm Pre news and I'm gone again from the headlines. Life still goes on... - Robert Scoble

that's why I follow you on twitter ;o) "breaking news as it happens!" - sofarsoShawn

Scoble, looks like you've been clustered below the VentureBeat post. - coldbrew

coldbrew: yeah, but if you're not a headline it really doesn't matter. Very very few people click on anything other than the headlines. - Robert Scoble

Is TechMeme even influential with people outside of Tech blog producers? I've only been to the site a few times and found it rather boring. So is there anything to suggest that it still helps form opinions or drives traffic? - Andrew

I'm not sure if this answers your question, Andrew, but here are some stats:http://www.avc.com/a_vc... - coldbrew

Andrew: my referer log shows that last night Twitter brought me 480 visits while TechMeme brought me 294. Google Reader brought me 150 and Inquisitr brought me 50. - Robert Scoble