ausculture.com

Hey, did anybody check out the list of the best 100 Australian web 2.0 apps?

Interesting to see Gnoos on there. I’m surprised the site was up long enough for Ross to rate it. Also, I’m not going to name names but some of the other sites on the list have already closed down. Go click through and have a look at some… be mindful of the ones that probably wouldn’t call themselves Australian unless you were buying a round.

Anyway… I think that’s a sufficient dose of abrasiveness for the moment. After all, the many people who put hours of hard work into ausculture.com every day are undoubtedly just insanely jealous.

Still, I was looking at the list and noticed a few other sites that had simpy whacked a crappy theme on top of Pligg. I say “other sites” because that’s exactly what ausculture.com did. As I was looking at these sites though, I noticed that 95% of the links were straight into the websites for major Australian newspapers. Honestly, I think that is kinda missing the point. Part of the reason people liked Digg in the first place was in the charm of sending truckloads of users to small and obscure sites to look at really interesting content. That the Digg effect usually brought those sames sites to their knees was part of the fun.

It’s not so much fun when your social news aggregator is just giving you an alternative top ten articles on the major online newspapers. Those sites already have most popular lists.

Of course, this causes me to ask the question “Is there any room for an Australia social news aggregator?” - particularly one that is aggregating more that four sources and concentrating on Australian content?

I’d have to say that so far, it’s looking like a no from where I’m sitting. Anyone have a different opinion?

Maybe there is, but that such a site would have to do more than reskin pligg (or reddit.) I notice, however, that perthnorg isn’t just a reskin and their traffic looks less-than-stellar.

Possibly related stuff elsewhere

• Nielsen: Digg Traffic Sucks. Mashable: That’s What She Said
• The 30 Top Social Bookmarking Web Sites on ebizma.com.