In the early ’90s, I wrote about software just about every day of my life – and that’s how Lockergnome came into being. There were very few original sources for content, and I was one of them (tilting at windmills by publishing through email). I really lost interest after dozens of Web sites sprang up and cluttered the landscape with useless award stickers and insipid reviews to inferior products. It was cathartic to read The software awards scam this afternoon…

The truth is that many download sites are just electronic dung heaps, using fake awards, dubious SEO and content misappropriated from PAD files in a pathetic attempt to make a few dollars from Google Adwords. Hopefully these bottom-feeders will be put out of business by the continually improving search engines, leaving only the better sites. I think there is still a role for good quality download sites. But there needs to be more emphasis on quality, classification, and additional content (e.g. reviews). Whether it is possible for such a business to be profitable, I don’t know. However, it seems to work in the MacOSX world where the download sites are much fewer in number, but with much higher quality and more user interaction.

So, is the software editorial dead? Do ratings and awards (for anything) really matter anymore? Why hasn’t the shareware industry done anything about it – and if they have tried, why is it still happening?