Do you know how to tell useless, fake articles (sorry, “posts”) on the Web from the actually substantive ones? I do; it’s easy. If the title starts with a number?i.e. “7 Ways to Improve Your Blog” or “20 of the Best Design Practices,” etc??it’s junk 999 times out of 1000.
Clear evidence aside, lately I’ve seen a few articles or posts that advise blog authors?and I use the term “authors” very loosely?that the way to get their post on Digg or some other fustercluck is to use numbers in their titles. So aside from the fact that nearly all of these posts have no valuable content, you may know that the author has no purpose in sharing it except to try and get search engine or aggregator visibility. All such “authors” are defining themselves according to a very low and regrettable standard.
The net result of all of this is that the Web is being choked by trashy, attention-gaming junk that is being offered for reasons other than informing one’s fellow enthusiasts and colleagues of anything notable or useful. What’s more, news/article aggregators have become time-wasting caricatures of what they’re supposed to be, and are now all but worthless.
