The Workbench blog has an interesting post about a bet made five years regarding Google searches of the top news stories of 2007: would NY times or blog sources rank higher?
Rogers Cadenhead writes:
In 2002, blogging evangelist Dave Winer made a long bet with New York Times
executive Martin Nisenholtz: “In a Google search of five keywords or
phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will
rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site.”
Today, Associated Press editors and news directors chose the top 10 news stories of the year, which makes it possible to determine who won the bet.
He goes on to list the stories, and the results:
So Winer wins the bet 3-2, but his premise of blog triumphalism is
challenged by the fact that on all five stories, a major U.S. media
outlet ranks above the leading weblog in Google search. Also, the
results for the top story of the year reflect poorly on both sides.
In the five years since the bet was made, a clear winner did emerge, but it was neither blogs nor the Times.
Apparently, the real winner was Wikipedia. The post and ensuing comments contain lots of interesting analysis and make compelling reading.
