PandoTicker, A Future Competitor to Techmeme?

Last night, I decided to check out Sarah Lacy's new venture and blog PandoDaily.

It is more or less what I expected from Sarah. PandoDaily features a simple blog design which emphasizes the excellent content, while bringing quality analysis and reality to tech blogging . While this is definitely welcome addition to tech blogging, it is not enough of a "power feature" to compete in an already crowded market.

I think Sarah knows this as well, which makes the prominently displayed "PandoTicker" and $2.5 million round of funding very interesting.

Currently, the PandoTicker is very simplistic. It is a list of links curated by Trevor Gilbert, with a short summary attached. All in all, it's still a glorified Twitter feed. I can't imagine that Sarah would give such a basic ticker so much real estate, and hire an editor for it, if her plans were simply to provide us with a glorified Twitter feed.

While the implementation is simplistic, all the pieces are in place for a serious Techmeme competitor. PandoDaily is supposed to be a representation of Silicon Valley, and becoming the industry standard aggregator would do nothing but further this position. 

There is no doubt that part of the future of blogging is aggregation, and connecting the dots of important content and conversations. Techmeme is at the very least a proof of concept that people want/need someone fill this ever growing gap. There's simply too much content being thrown at us. 

If PandoDaily can turn their ticker into a aggregator that matches or rivals Techmeme, I will be very excited for the aggregation space once again. It will be an essential feature for any blog planning on achieving commercial success. 

Think of this as well: Imagine if PandoDaily could make or break an article based on whether or not they throw up your blog post. 

TechCrunch 2.0.