Scripting.com Blocks TechMeme

TechMeme‘s blog news search engine is gaining popularity and becoming increasingly influential. Perhaps too influential.

Dave Winer, who writes the popular and venerable blog Scripting.com, has requested that TechMeme stop indexing his site. TechMeme automatically determines news headlines on its site by analyzing linking patterns among influential blogs (“influential” being defined by TechMeme’s founder, Gabe Rivera). Winer doesn’t like the fact that when he links to a story it gives that story extra juice on TechMeme.

It’s rare for a blogger to take action to reduce her/his own influence, but that is exactly what Winer has done. It’s just an experiment for now, he says. Something tells me we won’t see droves of bloggers rushing to take similar action.