The Value is in the Discussion
A few days back, i read a post by David Tayor that asked "What fraction of Web pages are original content?" It's an interesting observation on aggregator sites and blogs (such as Threadwatch) and how very little of the content of "stories" is actually original.
He tracks a story right to it's source, through 4 or 5 generations of links and quotes, and essentially asks where the value in this is.
In some sense, I think this is one of the dark sides of the linking mania that the Web always had, but that's become far more rampant with so-called linkblogs where people post links to what they consider interesting content, as often as twenty or more times a day. They're serving as screeners, as selectors, but how they're selecting content is what I find worthy of note.
In particular, it's a good question to ask yourself: how often do you actually create original content for the Web and Internet, and how often do you just copy and paste or even simply point to other material without even offering even a minimal explanation of why your reader should care?
The Value is in the Discussion
The original content often, and in the best cases, comes from the discussion that follows a posted link. Threadwatch posts often contain only a paragraph or two of original content for example - but the resultant discussion between members can contain a wealth of original information, and the dynamics of a free flowing debate over a news topic can be far more insightful, useful and valuable than any static story.
When you get links, and more quotes in the discussion, the value increases, as it further fuels the debate, and adds relevant, topical links to the post. What started out as two paragraphs, a link and a quote, can often become a thriving exchange of ideas and opinions on a topic.
Pure Link Blogs
Pure link blogs and systems, such as HotLinks and del.icio.us also have value. In an internet landscape mired in spam and dross, having peers recommend links has enormous value for me. I find more interesting material on those services than i ever do from a search engine, because a small set of trusted users (in the case of hotlinks) or a larger set of interested parties (in the case of a delicious tag) have recommended those links to me.
Of course you can make your aggregator site, or link blog just as useless as the spam we're trying to avoid when searching for good information, but on the whole, they hold a great deal of value, value that i'd not want to live without.
It's why I read Threadwatch
Threadwatch does the aggregation better than anyone else. Don't need to read elsewhere, gets repetitive. But there's some original thought here and there, too.
There are blogs like Graywolf or stuntdubland that surprise you with their original take on things, but most people, it seems, are sitting in front of their computer reading their feeds. Gets boring.
What is the source?
I have done a lot of "thread starting" at TW in my time
There is always a choice as to what is the "source". Is it where I got the story. For example there may be a snippet in the SEW blog, or Wired News, which I follow back ( I am a cynical or perhaps curious individual) to the source. This may be through one or more blogs or news medias, to the "origin", say Reuters.
So whose story is it. I don't usually have the time to "credit" all the links, and is it important. I am not consistant, I usually put the reference to whichever in the chain that I think subjectively gives the most further info to anyone here reading it.
Apart from Google's potty link question, does it matter?
I want the link to the
I want the link to the original source, it at least shows me that the poster could have read the entire article.
I've wasted too much time tracking back stories three or four generations to find that the person I'm reading hasn't even read the source and is just commenting on the comments that commented on the commentary that...
No link to the original source? Back button, baby!
Sometimes the original
Sometimes the original source is rubbish.
Say just a link and a "wtf?" - but then someone else makes an article out of that discovery. It's not always black and white :)
Okay, you've finally
Okay, you've finally confused me.
If it's "say just a link and a wtf?", wouldn't the "link" refer to the original, or at least an earlier, source?
Or am I going around in pear-shaped circles?
hehe! Well, in the case of
hehe!
Well, in the case of the kind of things we're interested in here, how about a flickr post of a new adsense format?
The flickr post is the source of the discovery, but what then if Danny writes it up with a 1000 words of well thought out commentary on that new format, and what it might mean to SEMs?
Okay, in that case, sure,
Okay, in that case, sure, I'd much rather read Danny any day, and his article would be the source because that's what you're discussing -- his thoughts and ideas about the new format. And within a half an hour there would be another few hundred "new adsense format" snippets floating around anyway.
We're getting a bit picky here, but you know what I mean. After tracking things back a couple of generations you can tell that 4 out of 5 "commenters" don't bother to read the original material.
As Dave says about the article he comments on:
And yeah, in this case Dave's article is the original source, he's just using the others as examples of what he's talking about.
Sometimes the original
I've got a client who are new to blogging, and I keep pointing out posts on other blogs that I think they ought to comment on. They don't want to lower the level of discussion by commenting on writing they consider to be inferior to their own.
What I'm trying to teach them is that if they don't do that sometimes, there is no discusion to lower.
Yeah, i understand that
Yeah, i understand that qwerty.
I had a friend ask me to let her know how she was doing with some beta blogs before they went public - the writing was superb - journalism i'd have called it.
But, there was no linking, no commenting, no discussion. I told her that blogging was a conversation, and presently, she was talking to herself - albeit very eloquently :)