Are You Linking? You Should Be.

I just read a piece by Scott Koon, Do Links Really Matter?  In it, he asks, "If the point of your writing is to spread ideas or opinions that you’ve had, does a link really matter? Should you care if you get credit?"  I think we all like to get credit, but isn't all of our writing an idea or opinion?  We do research, we get the facts, and with those, we state what we think about them.  A perfect example is Iraq, the facts are out about American death tolls, there's a lot, and people have widely varying views about it.  Having been there, and seen first hand what's going on (my job consisted of looking for roadside bombs, I've got pretty good knowledge of who's responsible for them), it's a very good thing that we're there, and just like Japan and Germany nearly a century ago, it's going to take a lot of time until things settle down.  But that's my opinion.  If someone were to read this, and it prompted them to write something, I would expect that they would acknowledge me in some way, leave me a comment, a trackback, or link to me.  I will have done all three for this piece, I left Scott a comment, I linked to his piece (first sentence), and I will use the trackback when I finish writing this.

As Scott mentions, the trackback is not always reliable, but it always bothers me when I am inspired by something I've read, and there is no trackback link.  Sports Illustrated particularly bothers me with this.  I love sports, particularly the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Cowboys.  SI is one of my favorite places to read about sports, but I often have a different take than they do.  I would love to have a permalink, so others who read on SI will see that I have responded, and can also read my take.  There are times, more often than not, where I won't write anything, solely because if they won't allow me to be recognized for responding, I'm not quite sure I want to leave anything linking to them.  I will also remember this going forward, as I am less likely to look to them as a source when gathering info.

The key point of whether you link or not, seems to be, as Scott writes, "...when a high visibility person posts..."  'High visibility,' the people who are firmly entrenched, who get countless hits a day on whatever they write.  They aren't worried about the little guy anymore, although, they were probably a little guy, just like the rest of us.  They should start to worry though, as the next generation of the web is pushing towards more interaction, see Fav.or.it, Disqus, and Twitter.  We want to see who you talk to, who inspires you, other view points.  If you aren't making an effort to correspond with us, we'll eventually go elsewhere, there's always somebody around the corner looking to replace us.  I realize you 'high profile' people often run short on time, I understand that.  However, it doesn't take long to link back to someone, leave a trackback link on your post for me to use, and even if you have a ton of comments on your post, at least reply to a few people, let us know you pay attention even a day or two after you wrote it.  Interact with me, and I'll become more loyal, don't interact with me, and become like ATI.