There's clear value to aggregation. Flayrah uses it to power several features of the front page, including the list of streams and podcasts, the source blocks at the bottom, and the Yerf Archive section (technically a database query, but equivalent to a syndication feed from 18 years in the past). I hope it helps furs find interesting sources.
You have to think carefully before including that content in your own syndication; not only for copyright reasons, but also because that makes it a part of your offering, and dilutes the value that a reader may get from following you. To be blunt, if all you're doing is repeating [part of] what someone else says, you're probably not adding much value.
That's also one reason we added newsbytes – for the cases where someone else has already written a good article on a news topic. The big loss there is the ability to comment locally; but it's fairer to the linked source, and you don't waste time rewriting them.
We do syndicate one external source, Rod's In-Fur-Nation, in part because he didn't have a well-developed system for that (it's now on Twitter - no cards yet, though), but also because I felt it complemented the content provided by our other contributors and it deserved access to a wider audience. Plus, it fit perfectly as a sidebar column.
If you focus on aggregation (e.g. Google News), it can work for you; but for good or ill, it will be what you come to be known for. And ultimately, if the problem is a lack of raw content, all the aggregation in the world won't help – you need actual reporting.
The other danger of aggregators is that you may come to rely on them to get your content in front of readers. Flayrah got just 2.5% of its traffic through FNN, but that probably doesn't count the people who got "enough" from the summaries it syndicated. Those people now have to make the effort to re-follow the sources they were using (if they even remember them), or lose out on news.
It's less convenient but more stable for people to build their own aggregation system from a variety of sources, by subscribing to email newsletters, RSS feeds or following Twitter accounts (assuming Twitter stays up; though you don't always see everything on Twitter).
There's clear value to aggregation. Flayrah uses it to power several features of the front page, including the list of streams and podcasts, the source blocks at the bottom, and the Yerf Archive section (technically a database query, but equivalent to a syndication feed from 18 years in the past). I hope it helps furs find interesting sources.
You have to think carefully before including that content in your own syndication; not only for copyright reasons, but also because that makes it a part of your offering, and dilutes the value that a reader may get from following you. To be blunt, if all you're doing is repeating [part of] what someone else says, you're probably not adding much value.
That's also one reason we added newsbytes – for the cases where someone else has already written a good article on a news topic. The big loss there is the ability to comment locally; but it's fairer to the linked source, and you don't waste time rewriting them.
We do syndicate one external source, Rod's In-Fur-Nation, in part because he didn't have a well-developed system for that (it's now on Twitter - no cards yet, though), but also because I felt it complemented the content provided by our other contributors and it deserved access to a wider audience. Plus, it fit perfectly as a sidebar column.
If you focus on aggregation (e.g. Google News), it can work for you; but for good or ill, it will be what you come to be known for. And ultimately, if the problem is a lack of raw content, all the aggregation in the world won't help – you need actual reporting.
The other danger of aggregators is that you may come to rely on them to get your content in front of readers. Flayrah got just 2.5% of its traffic through FNN, but that probably doesn't count the people who got "enough" from the summaries it syndicated. Those people now have to make the effort to re-follow the sources they were using (if they even remember them), or lose out on news.
It's less convenient but more stable for people to build their own aggregation system from a variety of sources, by subscribing to email newsletters, RSS feeds or following Twitter accounts (assuming Twitter stays up; though you don't always see everything on Twitter).