Webb Alert

An interesting new endeavour that I can't quite get my head around. Webb Alert is a five-minute daily news roundup of Internet/digital matters. Its host, Morgan Webb, is a tech geek goddess worshipped by many for her hosting of X-Play.

I'm not sure how popular it is, but experience with it so far has left me scratching my head. The stories are about a minute long, if not shorter, and summarize stories that can otherwise be found on any tech blog or even in the mainstream media. It's basically a vocalization of links the creators find interesting. They even say so in some of their copy.

Moreover, the broadcast can be embedded on your website. I found it at ArsTechnica.com, where I just finished reading all the stories Webb Alert ran in its broadcast.

There was one "unpaid ad for a blog that I like," during the broadcast, but that was it. If you click on the Advertise With Us link, you get Morgan's bio, which says volumes about where the creators are putting their money in terms of attracting an audience.

What is suspiciously absent from the site is an About Us page. Who's running this operation? Are they billing themselves as a news organization, or an aggregator with a talking head?

I'm looking at this through my media criticism lens (which may be unfair, depending on their intentions), but I find the site wanting. There should be more transparency here, given the precedent set by other of online independent media.