Lots of discussion going on these days about the idea of aggregation news content.  Most of the heat is being directed at the Associated Press and, to a lesser degree, Google.

I was reading Jeff Jarvis blog on the topic tonight.  I agree with his main points.  Let me share just one:

but the latest story in a topical cluster is often the 87th rewrite of the news and it’s usually from the Associated Press, which cuts off links and credit to the original journalism

It is interesting that I can get better AP content for me as a customer with my iPhone App that we can in our local Information Center, despite the fact we pay thousands for that!

I want to discuss the greater issue of aggregation.  I think aggregating quality content is something any local media organization should already be doing (WZZM has been for months).  For years, we let Google and Yahoo! News aggregate all our content, repackage it, sell ads around it and build a sizeable reputation and audience.   It just came to me a few months back – why don’t we do this?

I agree with Terry Heaton, who has dicusssed the concept of ‘Walled Gardens’ for at least a year, probably more.  The concept is this: we can’t expect to create great content and simply expect everyone to come to only our site to experience it.  The web is not built that way.

There are lots of companies working to build better SEO strategies.  I don’t know of anyone building better web walls!

Do you agree with me?  Or, do you think we need to keep everything on the home site to maximize ad revenue?  Let’s discuss.