For the record, this was written before the big Techmeme news of yesterday.  I don't think it changes anything but I thought I'd mention that. 

In regards to my Twitter post before Thanksgiving, I got this e-mail over the weekend and wanted to address it...

I see Matt Ingram got the headline on Techmeme even though he was quoting you. Do you still think “Headline = Main story, Links Below = Commentary and that’s the way it should be”

I bet not. I bet it doesn’t feel as good when you’re on the other side of the techmeme screwing.

I hope you now realize that techmeme is a fraud. That’s why services like friendfeed and hacker news are the future. Because they aren’t rigged to give a select few all the glory.

For the record I still emphatically believe what I wrote in that post and I'll tell you why.  Because I don't believe in the idea that success should come in an instant and that it's somehow unfair if it doesn't.  This idea has become really popular since the advent of blogs and I think it's the result of two phenomenon in our culture. 

The first, is that we get everything a lot faster.  Where as people 50 years ago used to trade letters that could take as much as two weeks to reach their destination we e-mail people and are upset when it doesn't get there that instant. 

The second is that the Internet has turned the world into more of a meritocracy.  Where as before you could be the greatest musician in the world and no one would hear you the web allows people to easily share their creativity.  That sharing then allows them to be discovered when they otherwise wouldn't. 

These are both great trends but they've combined in a way where people now expect success to be instantaneous.  But success should be earned through hard work.  It's great that we've evolved to the point where it takes less time but we shouldn't expect it to take no time.

Mathew Ingram has been writing quality posts for years now and he's earned the right to be at the top of the Techmeme chain. 

Will I get there someday?  Maybe.  But in the end I've been doing this publicly for slightly less than a year (I blogged in private for about 6 weeks) and a few days ago something I wrote was exposed to tens of thousands of people.  I don't know how I could possibly be disappointed by that. 

It's something that would have been unheard of 5 or 6 years ago.  So I don't know how  that could be considered unfair?

P.S.  It would also be dishonest of me to not at least mention that Mr. Ingram does this professionally and as such is better at it than I am.  Though in my defense, I doubt he can program as well :)