one man's journey into creating gibblybits

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Wired learns to link... kinda

No, they didn't start linking to TUAW, that would point far too many readers in the direction of a blog that would really put them to shame. Instead, this piece on Threat Level about the undersea cables that are dropping like a once-industry-leading-magazine's readership is chock full of links.

So clearly Wired "gets" the whole hyperlinking phenomenon. Why, there are up to 10 whole links in that article! Of course, the first link is to another blog.wired piece, which (as you may know) helps the ol' Google juice. Other links include such high-profile sources as Scholars for 9/11 Truth, SMBlog and the venerable Galloping Beaver-- I think that's where Walt Mossberg got his start. Let's not forget their clever links to the Navy and two, TWO links to TeleGeography. SEO gold, for sure.

When SEO douchebags run your content, your content will be as brilliant as SEO douchebags.

Epilogue: The original article on Wired about the iTunes movie rentals that got me so pissed about all this to begin with? After two angry emails they actually added a link. Not to what Christina said, mind you (because citing sources would be the mark of a journalist, naturally), but a link to TUAW's trick regarding the duration of a movie rental. Of course, this was well after the story moved off the page at BoingBoing and other places, so, as my imaginary redneck uncle Jimmy used to say: "gotcha good!" Well played Wired, well played.

Why do I feel like bloggers will be fighting this same fight for at least another 5 years?

1 comment:

Christina said...

What is Conde Nast even doing to Wired? I mean, really? The quality of the print magazine has been waning for years, the site is kind of a joke and the fact that they added a link but not to what they even cited (I'm sorry, that pisses me off as much as it pisses you off -- I was initially just giddy to see my name mentioned on the site, like, I'm still young and seeing my name cited by Fortune and Wired is a huge deal), and not within a time frame that was relevant is just shoddy and sad.

My mom and I have had this discussion - as I have tried to school her in the whole "blogging" thing and how we are treated differently from mainstream journalists, even though we are often very similar. She got her undergraduate in journalism and was an editor before she got pregnant with my sister so she too is shocked that the bigger places that should know better don't follow common courtesy linking and citation practices.

But I have to sadly agree, in five years, we'll still be having this conversation. It's the same reason I get more respect from my relatives (relatives I hate, but still) for appearing in a weekly column for USA Today about American Idol than I do for contributing to two top tech blogs and doing video stuff. The brand recognition and cache just isn't there yet. For some sites, it is getting there or is close, but that's the one advantage the MSM (and their corresponding websites) have from online only ventures -- time.

Though what pisses me off is that you know that if say we were Entertainment Weekly or People or Fortune or whatever, Wired would have linked. Nevermind that ultimately we are part of the same conglomerate (I know it isn't the same division or parent company or anything, I'm just saying), we don't get half our subscriber numbers by giving away $2 a year subscriptions like Wired so we don't count.

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