Scoble: Throwing himself under busses so I don’t have to.
My friend, Robert Scoble, has two great rants up about blogging & linking: Big gadget sites don’t link to blogs followed by Pissing off the blogosphere.
His main point is a valid one – far too many places, whether they be old media (The New York Times) or big blogs (Engadget) or even small bloggers who are afraid people won’t read every word they’ve written, don’t link to external sources.
This is actually a huge deal. The real, true power of the web is just that – it’s a web. Everything can be interconnected, and learning about or researching a subject can be vastly easier online than anywhere else. Using hyperlinks is the very reason content belongs online. If you don’t hyperlink your content, why on earth do you have it online?
People often wonder why “old media” is struggling to find a voice and an audience (and a business plan) for online content. Rarely is the fact that “old media” tend to be stingy linkers mentioned – but I suspect it’s actually a fundamental reason people choose to get much of their content elsewhere.
For me, I’ve never really thought about it in these terms until Robert brought it up. I’ve always tried to link everything and anything, even words like “Google” and “Sun” (surely you know that Google = www.google.com and Sun = www.sun.com). Why? Because if I were reading my blog, I would want to just be able to click on pertinent details and dig deeper rather than having to open a new window and Google for the subject at hand. It just makes sense. If a word or phrase can be hyperlinked, and it’s more useful that way, it should be.
By the way, this situation also exposes what’s so great about bloggers, especially the big and popular ones – they write about what’s on their mind, often not even thinking about the impact of what they’re saying. Communication is fast, transparent, and emotional.
Preach on, brother Scoble.
January 28th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I don’t think anyone is in disagreement that the old media sites don’t link. Engadget though live and die on linking, I certainly don’t read them for their pithy comments.
What seems to have annoyed people is Scoble, a guy who earned his place at the top I admit, claiming his video is what people should be linking to. I found the NYT article to be better than his video. Scoble is allowed his opinion but nobody appreciates accusations and claims like that.
Ah well, plenty of people are linking to him now
January 29th, 2007 at 5:27 am
[...] Links Done Right Help Users The debate on linking is very important. First users are expecting it but more importantly they help provide better content consumption. I have never been a strong writer which is why I went to school for computer science rather than journalism, but I’ve learned that it is difficult to write comprehensivly about something in a short writeup. This is where the art of blogging comes in.. To write a blog post of less than a few hundred words that provide a user with hours of relevant content consumption is a big challenge. With links a strong blogger can do it. Links provide a path to more knowledge and content. Period. Add comments then the content becomes amazing. Linkage and community are the ‘gems’ of blogging. [...]
February 5th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
[...] Don MacAskill has some insightful commentary on why we should be liberal in our linkage. “The real, true power of the web is just that – it’s a web. Everything can be interconnected, and learning about or researching a subject can be vastly easier online than anywhere else. Using hyperlinks is the very reason content belongs online. If you don’t hyperlink your content, why on earth do you have it online?” [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 pm
[...] How does a successful local paper go about educating it’s online writers (assuming it’s not just a technical brief)? Are the lessons generic enough to impart upon others in the community? Is there some sort of code of conduct that is encouraged? What about linking etiquette? Are there editorial guidelines that transfer over from print, or even online? [...]
April 28th, 2007 at 3:01 am
Peace people
We love you