I think I figured out the following from listening to Steve Gillmor. Thanks to Google (Search and/or Alerts), there isn’t much point to hyperlinking references in your text. Clueful people know how to grab terms and search for them in Google Search. Interested people run a Google Alert on their name or their blog’s name.
You can kind of count on clueful and interested people to notice if you mention their name in a post. So, to Robert Scoble I should reply, “you’re certainly welcome.” I still was pleasantly surprised to get a shout back.
Will Parker asked on his blog, Channeling Design, whether Scoble or I needed more irony in our diets. If he thinks digg top stories are low quality and I was actually criticizing Scoble’s links, I wasn’t. Or maybe Tim O’Reilly’s post was meant to be sarcastic. I totally didn’t get that. Finally, if he’s trying to get my attention because he’d like to interview at Clear Ink…I can make that happen.
3 replies on “The Unlinked Link”
I appreciate the argument around not linking being against the spirit of the Web. I still stand by what I said, though. There was at least one great discussion of this topic on the Gillmor Gang podcast.
If I appear elitist and selfish, it’s probably because I am, if you take the virtuous meanings of those concepts.
Hey JJinux, Microsoft isn’t dead. It’s just got a cold. 😛
(humor)
I don’t get it! Nowhere in your post was I mentioned, and yet I still knew to read it! Furthermore, without even linking to me, I knew what my homepage was! Wow! Damn Google is good! Microsoft is dead! 😉
Best advice I could give when it comes to listening to Steve Gillmor is “don’t.”
Couldn’t disagree more with “there isn’t much point to hyperlinking references in your text” And the whole “clueful people” thing sounds elitist.
Not linking makes one look selfish. Linking is what makes the web, well, the web.