Everyone’s looking for a magic bullet to conquer social media, leverage Web 2.0 to their advantage, dominate the digital marketplace, and further their self-described expert/guru status. This seems to be especially prevalent with the late adopters in RE.net ( the real estate cool kids of Web 2.0), but I see traces of the magic bullet attitude in almost every conversation I have about social media and digital marketing strategy. That tone surfaces in this post proposing the end to RSS in favor of human aggregators -basically asking the question, why should I waste my time with my Google Reader, when I can just follow what the cool kids are sharing?
We can easily find the best blogs and the best thought on the web and add them to our RSS feeds. But lately we have been provided with lists of the most influential people, by various sources ranging from Web 2.0 veterans to late adoptors adding themselves to their own lists. Twitter encouraged this when they introduced Lists, so the relevance of your twitter presence can be measured by some scale on how many lists include you. You don’t have to go look for followers, just copy some guru’s list.
Obviously we have moved beyond lists to Human Aggregators, people whose social content is so rich, comprehensive, and relevant, that you need not seek out information or connections on your own, just follow them for everything you need to know. The ultimate magic bullet. So, now we will begin to see more and more lists of human aggregators. Stop reading right now and make your own list. It will be just as meaningful and relevant as any other that you find.
I value those gurus out there, selflessly sharing stellar content, but I like to do some reading and research on my own. I still subscribe to over 200 RSS feeds, that include technology, news, and real estate specific content. I interact with folks who are not gurus or cool kids. I drill down on hyper local information. I share what I think is relevant. Maybe the real magic bullet is Time Management, and not just following the gurus. You can learn to manage your time AND share content that is relevant!
When I first heard the term Human Aggregator, one famous Web 2.0 name immediately came to mind. A person who tweets over 15o times a day, and has a website that covers any topic you could imagine. I guess someone could make the argument that someone that prolific should be crowned King of the Aggregators. Why go anywhere else?
