Delicious founder to show you political bias on Memeorandum

Delicious founder Joshua Schachter and technologist/blogger Any Baio have created a new GreaseMonkey script that displays the political orientation of blogs and news sites on the aggregator site Memeorandum. GreaseMonkey is a Firefox extension that allows users to customize the appearance and functionality of Webpages.

Using an algorithm that scores every blog on Memorandum based on linking activity, this new script colorizes the Website. Those who install the GreaseMonkey script will now see Memeorandum in shades of blue and red. Liberal-leaning blogs are blue and conservative-leaning blogs are red. Darker colors represent stronger biases.

These colors are a reflection of bloggers' linking activity; they may not always represent personal views or biases (liberal bloggers often link to conservative sites and vice-versa). However, this script eliminates the arduous task of reading blog after blog on Memeorandum to find one consistent with one's own views. But then again it could fuel peoples' tendency to avoid dissident view points, which for obvious reasons inhibits intelligence. None the less, this GreaseMonkey script, along with Microsoft Blews (see my previous post) is evidence of an emerging form of aggregation intended to help people identify political biases.

To install this application, visit Andy Baio's blog at http://waxy.org/2008/10/memeorandum_colors/