On Oversteering

After reading Steve Gillmor's Back in the USSR post this morning, I find I have much more insight into his points on not linking - yet still disagree with the message.  Gillmor, in essence, is saying that links are gamed, Google is gamed, and the only way to remove ourselves from the game is not to be a pawn to link-abuse.  His solution is, in our blogs, to not link.

He says:

That's the problem with links: We're all waitresses on this gig. We're waiting on the Big Day when we hit the Big Show, when Mike Arrington or Doc Searls or Dave Winer bestows the Big Link on us that gets us another 10,000 in ValleyWag bucks. Some of my best friends are linkers. Don't forget to tip your linkers. Don't want to link? What, and give up show business?

My goal in blogging is to have a conversation, to engage in community, and to learn from my peers.  Therefore, I link to whomever I use as source.  It makes no real difference to me if bigger bloggers link to me insofar as I'm not looking for them to drive traffic to me.  When they might link to me, it's because I've written something that they, as individuals, want to respond to.

Those are the links that I'm looking for, that I still give.  I agree with Gillmor when he says that over-linking messes up the page and may insult the intelligence of the reader.  Not because the reader might know everything you're talking about - but because the reader knows how to find definition of terms or corporate web sites on their own.  Still, this is not sufficient to stop linking to people you are actively in a conversation with.

There is an other argument that linking supports a page-view model.  Links still work for me in feeds.  There's no page-view imperative here.

Robert Anderson, on this topic, said this morning,

While there must be those who refrain from linking due to their own elitism and to withhold credit, suggesting this is the motive behind the whole "non-linking" crowd ignores the argument being made. To be fair, I don't think Jim is ascribing these motives to all non-linkers; however, I cannot agree with the claim that not linking is not blogging. And if he turns out to be right (i.e., once the definition of blogging is finally complete), I suspect it won't matter. Things are changing, blogs are evolving, tools are getting better. Coupling RSS, gestures, and discovery engines will bring more of the right information without relying on the sacred link.

I'm not sure I really meant withhold credit as much as I feel that not linking is indifferent to credit - which may be worse. 

I do agree with Robert's assertion that there will be new tools developed.  But tools are toys, toys are games, games are gamed.  Whatever we create to measure attention will be gamed.  So the gaming of links is not a valid reason for Gillmor et al to argue against linking.

Again, I think this all comes down to blogging to learn and have a conversation vs. learning to be a columnist.  Incidentally, Jay Fienberg had some great comments to this in my last post.

Technorati Tags: linklove, attention, linking, game theory, cooperation, community_indicators

Comments

[Edward]

Links of course have been commercialized; if you link, you bestow Googlejuice, which in turn is monetizable.

There are economies of linking where Google is not a factor - I'm thinking about delicious, where links are everywhere and there's a whole collection of for:ourfounder and via:ourfounder tips of the hat going on.

[Jim Benson]

Yes. It is monetizable. I'm wondering why that's so much an issue. Already when we use any Web 2.0 app, they are monitizing our attention - even if it is fleeting.

I think we've hit a point where that is a part of life and we can't really avoid it. Should we foster it? No. But should we kill off our own communities in order to escape it, probably not.

Del.icio.us is a good example though. It's given me an idea, which I'll blog about now in an actual post.