This is just from my perspective and certainly doesn’t constitute a statistically significant sample size, but it seems to me that as a lot of blogs are getting bigger and turning into businesses, they are adopting many of the bad habits of big media. In particular, I’m seeing some of the same stories going around the blogosphere without anyone actually linking to the other blogs.
From a reader perspective this makes things more difficult. TechMeme, Technorati, Sphere and other search engines aren’t able to link stories as effectively, so it’s easier to miss important viewpoints.
And that’s what I love about blogs. In just a few minutes, and by following a link trail, you can get a wide variety of opinions on a given subject and then form your own. Without links, it makes it a lot more difficult.
It’s also how good new blogs are found. Without Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, Jeff Jarvis, Om Malik and Jeff Clavier, among others, linking often to TechCrunch when it was just a baby, it would never have grown.
I know I’ve been part of the problem, too. As more and more new flows in to my cell phone and email inbox, I have less time to read other blogs. Just a few minutes ago I wrote about a startup that emailed us directly and said they just launched, SponsoredReviews. After I posted, I did a quick search and saw that Blog Herald had also written about them, before me. I added a link to them. Not because I got the story from them, but because I think another opinion is valuable to our readers.
I’m going to make an effort to do more digging for past blog posts on subjects I write about going forward. And if I miss something, don’t take it personally. Just send me an email (it’s on the TechCrunch About page), and if its relevant we’ll add it.
I think the question is, when do you link – for example you note that the BH wrote before you.
For example, upon waking up, AOL sent me a press release about the TradeDoubler acq. I posted about it.
And then after my morning bowl of raisin bran, I did my daily trip thru the land of the blog. And I noticed that you posted about this. Now, the first non-important question would be, did you or I (or someone else) post first. But the more important question goes to what you said about linking. So do you (you in the general sense) provide links whether the person came before or after? I am guessing the after will be near impossible to keep up with. Do we let the Technorati/Techmeme’s of the world handle the after?
Typically what I try to do is say something like… additional discussion here and here.
One thing I have started to see become popular is the [via] link. Mashable does a good job of using this technique.
But I do agree that people need other people when they are small. When they get big and are on top of the mountain, it’s easy to say that they don’t need those same people anymore.
I keep going back to my favorite phrase of all time from the Honeymooners… “you better be nice to people on the way up, because you will see the same people on the way down.” I try to live by this everyday.
I’ve noticed this as well. I agree that we’re relying more and more on the automated tools and then starving them of the information they need to work.
Mike,
Mr. Gillmor will undoubtedly be very happy about your observations.
Not that anyone else will.
RQ
Sounds like you’re a vicim of efficiency. Once you become a big-name blogger, people give you stuff. I’ve watched it in business, in entertainment, and now in blogs.
The key to this is that TechCrunch became big because it did two things: reported news people wanted to hear, and reported it well. The linking got the people there, the content kept them there. I added somebody to my feeds today because I followed a random link, then saw other stuff from the site I enjoyed.
There’s something else I think you’re missing about the linking. I haven’t seen much of a change in the linking practices from TechCrunch in the months that I’ve been reading it. Like I said before, you’re the victim of efficiency, and instead of people sending their tidbits to other blogs, they’re sending them to you. When somebody beats you to the punch, you hand out the credit, but that’s becoming more of a rarity.
I follow the del.icio.us hotlist, Digg, other social networks, and once it gets onto TechCrunch, you can be sure it’ll be everywhere else later. It’s that echo chamber that everybody fears. That’s what happened to magazines when they got big, and what happens you’re an A-lister.
All valid points! The trouble is that the cost of creating outbound links is very high. When you accumulate a sizeable archive of blog posts you will note that it becomes harder to tap into the Data Space of posts in automated fashion. This is an examle of where the technologies under the Semantic Web banner enhance the current state of affairs. The first step, though, is a collection point (a Data Space) that acts as a Linkbase for in and outbound links to resources (other blog posts, discussions etc..). Imagine if you could dynamically insert content from your blog and discussion forum archives into new posts in either realm. Again, this is what the Semantic Web delivers.
Mike I agree, it is hard to get attention sometimes.
Oh btw you missed the scoop by 11 days on this one. Jerod mentioned the site on his MyBlogLog profile 4th Jan
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/jarrodhunt/
One of these days I will discover a way to gain some blogger attention for my Disclosure Policy Plugin
I’ve noticed the same thing, Mike. Bloggers seem to have an obsession with being first, even if they really weren’t. It’s definitely rude. I try to link to as many people as possible when I write about something, and particularly to lesser-known blogs.
This is why I’d like to see Techmeme, megite, or tailrank develop a plugin that lets me show links to related posts at the end of my post. How hard would that be? For the blogger it would be an effortless way to guide readers to other viewpoints – something I’m sure readers would appreciate.
Mike – what’s your policy about your forums in terms of linking out? Aaron deleted my post tonight about Performancing down because I linked out.
Perhaps one cohesive strategy for all xxxxcrunchxxxx sites would help us all understand your policy.
>>I’m going to make an effort to do more digging for past blog posts on subjects I write about going forward.
Excellent, I applaud your effort. Automatically searching for relevant links in a sidebar and making them easy to paste into posts would be a great feature for a blog editor like Flock, Blogjet or Windows Live Writer.
Well, there’s always TextLinkAds, I hear it’s easier than…
Sorry, dumb joke – I just couldn’t help myself.
I would also like to draw peoples attention to the fact that some A-list blogs are actually refusing to carry trackbacks from blogs. We have a podcast and we have a huge array of sources. If we use the info we find on a site as source material for the show we always try to trackback to the original article. Blogs that used to carry these type of trackbacks now have either blocked our URL, have banned our blog, or are checking their trackbacks for this type of link.
Sure we are not *writing* about a story – we are verbally reporting the story or something about it. I still believe that this is an opinion about a subject and a discussion. In this day and age where multi-media is king I would have thought that this was a good thing. But no. Our links don’t show up at all.
You might disagree with me on this but I think that it is narrow minded to think that we would have to “Blog” about it to be considered a valid trackback.
Some blogs are too big for their own good when they think they are better than the rest of us. Very elitist if you ask me. Plus we are giving credit to the source in doing so, if they don’t want it then I won’t bother.
You’ve got a classic dose of what I call “The Like Problem”.
There is no cure for this ailment. Nothing you can do. Abandon hope all ye who enter etc.
Oops. I meant to say “The Link Problem”. Mea Culpa.
This is happening at all levels, sometimes it’s kind of funny though.
For example, some of the smaller blogs will copy a bunch of my content, but never link to my site, just as you notice. What’s funny is that many will then add me to their blogroll, so I know they’re doing it!
I’ve probably found 50 sites who did just that over the past month. When I’m posting original (humor) material, this really stinks, since they sometimes get credited as the original author.
Anita
Or along the lines or what smithee wrote, what if someone came up with an ajax-y blog or browser widget that scans the current blog & inserts related links in a popup or whatever? Although maybe that would get annoying…
Mike
A very interesting post which gave me lots of food for thought.
On the trackbacks – It’s abused a lot by sploggers, so I can see why a lot of larger blogs (traffic wise) would disable them, as apart from the amount of moderation required they can also put excessive load on a server.
Michele
how do you get thos ‘diggesque’ thumbs up/down things on your blog?