I often come back to this site for the simple reason that all that I have even done better these lasts time came from Scott’s oblique and analytic insights, but more from all of the comments contributed along any single post.
Thanks for all, as anyone can use whole or part of them to adjust eventually, ease the way things can be done, serve any parties (the publishers, the audience & the site too) for a mutual benefit, avoiding false routes.

I use to start with an idea, consider what I can manage and build outward by iterations. Someone may find it tricky, but I’m confortable with this.
For now, I ignore details and it will only be a problem when it’s a problem, so I don’t waste time on problems I don’t have yet. May be by shrink my time, I should go more and more faster and relevant on what I’m doing
What I learnt from the comments and count on:

- A (pretender) site does not have to choose between being a pass-through content publisher and a starting point aggregator. It can be BOTH.
- … someone will always go back to the site that constantly updates with links (as way to derive the most value from the web for news or content source). Brillant! Hope that this happen!
- … you don’t have to be the dominant aggregator to realize the (economic) value of content (re)distribution.
- ….people come back to places that send them away (work for sure for the big web moguls
decide to go for this route, experimenting with a few news (content) sites in different verticals (tech/gadget news, finance, women, fashion, cosmetics, travel, interiors, gourmet/gastronomy, astrology, video, headlines news, auto and sport news,….).
- … users want their information quick and easy (we all knew that; the real thing is how to figure it out the best way)
- …all that is needed is a bunch of decent news and content headlines (I added for my case the visual preview) to know if something’s pique’s your interest
- … there are rooms for Google/Yahoo/MSN-type sites on smaller, more target scales (thank for highlighting)
- …. people only would like a single content-hub (aggregator) in any given category. (hard to do, but I try in my case to make it relevant)
- … every site has an opportunity to define its own category whether it is the localized version, unique niches or to simply do it better that the currents Google/Yahoo/MSN,… (this enforces that)
- …. people want to see the (best) content (may be the more salacious), and they don’t care whether or not you produced it (I hope so
- ….they value good filtering and recommendation over second rate proprietary content (aha!!!)
-…. it is difficult to convince of the high value of becoming a place where people (repeatedly) visit and then could walk away. But the value comes to my opinion in not being reluctant to link out. (damn TRUE
- … there are a bunch of (smart?) publisher who are starting to, not yet at Google News scale but with small steps in narrow verticals (may I pretend to be part of it, doing it my way?)
-… by sending people away, a site guarantees that they will come back. (I hope so!)
- …. It’s not a matter of start and end, it’s where you come back, …. people do like organized information, aggregated content (humm! I really hope so!)
- …. for a site to establishe itself as the reset switch, not a gatekeeper, but a terminal hub, …users will more and more come back, because it should be an easy place to switch to the next interesting train. (Praise God
- … aggregations of outbound links can be tweaked to provide a better service to the news site visitor above and beyond what they might otherwise find on Google/Yahoo/MSN,… etc. (may be!)

I’ve got these points, and again, thanks Scott for opening doors.
Last, I just would like to introduce for those who will be transported to the site to have a look, that I have rolled out the ‘Loung TALKS’ that can be found in the menu TODAY -> Insights-> Lounge TALKS or, at this url http://www.slavisqarats.com/lounge-talks/.

It is by mean one of the features I have announced and planned to set up to bring life to SlavisQarats allowing users of all types to cast their voices in many topics and subjects even those that are not related to the site editorial structure.
One of the advantage is to keep it simple, silly!
Lounge TALKS is zen in discussion forums giving exactly what SlavisQarats needs and leaving out what I would avoid as having to manage a forums with rules, back-end contrainst and platform security concerns .
Lounge TALKS’s layout is clear and absolutely easy for any user to understand, simple yet effective, what gets people talking about any subject.
The main advantage in term of efficiency is that that allows it creates by itself an instant communityeven to simple visitors not registered, to interact, take part in discussions, ask questions, give answers and express opinions.

I have longly searched ways to set up an AJAX discussion mean with these features and a self-moderated community, giving a better performance in terms of maintenance, and Lounge TALKS comes with a lightning fast and efficient database back end to provide real stability.
Lounge TALKS’s functionality includes editing and tagging topics with a click, and no more waiting, what brings a considerable server load savings.
It is easy self-ruling and allows users to discuss with each other on anything they like without the need for moderation, to define new topics with tags or keywords (only for those who desire to be registered). The tags system will help users find topics much easier, and for now I have pre-defines tags they can use.

Quite 30 or more topics in often a salacious, provocative voire outrageous falvors have been set-up, and I hope there will be more (by anyone who feels so.
To summarize, it makes it easy for users to communicate with each other, with open and no confusing categories, avatars, with the main advantage that it’s just 3-click-away aka community-forum, with a quick overview for users of all topics in a single mouse click.

The more exciting is that it is very multipurpose with many features that can come along the more I discover stuffs, learn them, assimilate them and implement them!
I invite you to start writing for example something in ‘anonymous confessions’, more, spread it around, (I really need first comments on those topics).

Took

“The auto-refresh rate (about once every three minutes, I believe) throws a wrench into comparisons with other sites that don’t auto-refresh… those are inflated by people who keep their Drudge window open while visiting links in other tabs.”

The numbers you show are for “unique visits”. Most web analytics programs measure visits using cookies. When a user visits a site that site will attach a cookie to the users browser with a unique id. In general, the cookie does not expire for 30 days or more. Each unique cookie is counted only once. So “unique audience” is truly counting each person only once. “Sessions per person” speaks more to what your readers are talking about. The constant refreshing will skew these numbers. But as you alluded to, what news site wouldn’t want their readers having them open in their browser all day?

I think there is a lot to be learned from these numbers, for more than just the news and publishing industry. Web retail business would be wise to take notice of this as well.

They’re very comfortable with constantly update external links while very capably creating original content.

I’ve written a series of posts about this – see http://ondemandmedia.typepad.com/odm/2008/09/doing-well-with.html

The rally amazing thing is that ANYONE can do a great job in a niche with the feeds available and the smart feed manipulation tools out there. Take a look at docgurley.com for a simple but relatively smart health news aggregator in the central yellow column.

But – I actually believe that the way forward is to do MORE than Drudge – sure do the aggregator thing – it’s easy. But also provide unique commentary, spin, original content, etc.

The NYT has in place right now all the tools to do this and it amazes me that they aren’t doing better – but a close look reveals why – they actually use the tools they have very, very badly.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/overstating_drudges_influence.php

The Times or any other news source needs to develop an editorial voice with regard to linking just as they do with their articles’ editorial voice. Simply having updated links is not enough.

For the NYT, it might be that their links are the “most important” sources of the day’s biggest and most important stories. You would go back to the NYT because you know their link selection will send you to “the source” and to the articles that hold the most weight among the people who matter. For the WaPo, it might be that they have the most in-depth local Washington stories and consistent links to sources you may not read every day, such as Roll Call, etc.

We integrate aggregation into our sites as well as user generated content. Our theory is the users don’t care where the content comes from, they just want an easy way to be informed on their local area.

Which makes relevancy the ultimate key.

http://www.mync.com

http://simplertimes.smithmag.net

It’s very basic on purpose — I just wanted to demo the idea that the NYTime’s articles alone could benefit from a reader-centric, aggregator-style presentation.

While I 100% agree about the value of curating external links (this is the basis of much of the world’s blogging), I don’t think companies do enough with their own archives. There’s a lot of value to be had there, and it’s already bought and paid for.

Surely there’s room for some lateral thinking that involves more than having either continual wall of changing links on the front page OR only publishing reporter articles with internal links.

I would rather, for instance, read a news article that is followed by an aggregation of other outside news/blog sites (vetted somehow) covering the same topic. That would make me think that the site providing the article and the links was the starting point more often than not I suspect. I almost never click the staple additive internal links – “news topic du jour” – that accompany or are embedded in MSM news articles. Those selflinks are of little value.

(by the way, NYT refreshes the main headlines/stories *at least* fairly regularly: hourly or so)

To put it succintly, I’m doing a PhD on the influence of the internet in Romanian politics, since a number of politicians have started popping up with personal blogs and websites in the past few years. I gathered all the political blogs I could find that were connected, in some way, to politics, I subscribed to them using Google Reader and I exported the different categories, parties and so on as individual RSS’s that people could subscribe to in bulk. At the same time, I placed one of those Google Reader shared items widgets on my blog, where I hand-picked certain posts and articles which I thought were interesting.

A normal political blog in Romania clocks somewhere around 50-100 visits a day. My average is around 350. People come for information. I know it’s pretty laughable, in terms of traffic, but that’s the reality here. I just wanted to point out that people do like organized information, aggregated content and what not…

It’s not a matter of start and end — it’s where you come back.

The smart news site/aggregator establishes itself as the reset switch. Not a gatekeeper, but a terminal hub. You know they’ll come back eventually because you’ve got an easy place to switch to the next interesting train.