The ugly side of aggregation

Michael Wolff’s new publication, Newser, is probably the best example yet that aggregation-oriented startups have taken the wrong lessons from weblogs. Andrew Leonard reviews the site:

But what takes Newser beyond countless other similar sites is a truly precious degree of shamelessness. All of the above stories — even the slide shows — are repackaged, rewritten and abbreviated versions of content originated by other publications. When your pursuit of traffic leads you to the point of ripping off a Fox News Lindsay Lohan/Britney slide show, you have stooped so low you can’t even reach up to the lowest common denominator.

Some people never forget a face — I never forget a name, and one thing I appreciate is that Andrew Leonard doesn’t either. In his blog post he makes sure to remind people who may not remember that Michael Wolff is the same guy who tried to write a book damning the insanity of the dot com era and wound up exposing his own sleaziness instead.