August 31st, 2005

Filed under:
Blogosphere
18 Comments »

I’m Not Reading Your Daily Links

Longtime readers know that I used to regularly post link round-ups. These were groups of links with extremely short blurbs, sometimes organized around a theme (here, for example, are some links about the beast with two backs). I posted these lists because I wanted to share these links, but didn’t have much to say about them.

Over time, I naturally posted these groups less and less. Why? I guess it was a quality control issue. If I didn’t have the time or inclination to excerpt some content and write at least a couple sentences, then it probably wasn’t that compelling to me in the first place. Seeing as this site is all about what interests me, it seemed wise to deprecate the round-ups. None of you, dear readers, complained.

I no doubt learned this practice from some other blogger. However, the social bookmarking tool Delicious has made these clusters of links much more popular. Influencers like Roland, Jeremy and Steve post them regularly. While I read those sites pretty closely, I inevitably skip their lists of links. I guess I’m extending my logic to the rest of the Web. I am, after all, reading those guys’ sites for their perspective, not a bunch of links. Plus, of course, those links will surely show up in a longer post on somebody else’s site.

I may be alone in this. Maybe I want some thoughtful analysis while everybody else wants a quick fix. Do you dig the daily links list?

Comments: 18 Responses so far

Mel
August 31st, 2005
6:19 pm

I must confess, I skipped over your lists of links many times when you posted them, especially if they were themed around something (like, tech stuff, which I’m not really into).

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Greg
August 31st, 2005
7:25 pm

You know, its funny, even with the rapid increase in link clusters… thinking about it, I personally have never paid any attention to them, on anyones blog. I think you hit it, when there is no content by the author of the blog on the link, its just not catchy.

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Rebecca
August 31st, 2005
7:38 pm

Actually, I enjoy link roundups - it gives the blogger a chance to share some interesting resources they’ve found which might be useful to others, and it gives the readers a chance to discover new web sites.

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Jarrod
August 31st, 2005
8:35 pm

I liked the link round-ups too - they always used to save me searching for interesting sites when you could just tell me which were interesting sites :)

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Sarah Campbell
August 31st, 2005
8:45 pm

I always bookmark link lists to go back and read later. I never do. I read people’s blogs for their perspectives, rants, stories and analyses. Clicking through a bunch of links just requires too much effort :)

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Paolo
August 31st, 2005
9:07 pm

Some people can’t go through their day without checking “What’s Hot” on the net via some popular link dump. If the majority of people didn’t, sites like Boing Boing wouldn’t be as popular as they are.

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George
August 31st, 2005
9:32 pm

Funny, skipping over your links made me kill mine.

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denise
August 31st, 2005
9:53 pm

I tend to skim but mostly ignore link lists. Sometimes one will catch my eye and I’ll click it through, but that’s a rare thing.

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Cheryl
August 31st, 2005
10:09 pm

I generally skim or skip link roundups… once in a while I see something that catches my eye, but not often.

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Roland Tanglao
September 1st, 2005
12:05 am

i do have very brief commentary on each of the links - it’s the stuff before the double quotes

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Kevin Dugan
September 1st, 2005
3:18 am

Darren - IMHO, I prefer the perspective over the links and feel that, while the links are probably well-intended, they add to the noise and clutter.

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Mike
September 1st, 2005
3:35 am

I am personally a fan of link rollups as well. I like to discover new sites from people that I trust.

However, instead of having to write seperate blog comments, why not simply add an RSS feed to the side of your blog with “cool new sites”?

So, when you find a cool new site, you can just bookmark it on del.icio.us or blinklist, and then just syndicate the RSS feed. On BlinkList we even automatically give the user the javascript for easy blogrolling.

Mike

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Mim
September 1st, 2005
12:23 pm

I liked the link round-ups. It was a good distraction and I found stuff I could pass along to others. I’m less tech inclined though, in comparison to others who are posting their opinions here.

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jo
September 1st, 2005
12:37 pm

Pretty much a ditto on what Mim said; i miss the links.

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Doug
September 1st, 2005
6:15 pm

if planarity was only on a links list, then more links please.

i don’t read many blogs, so i enjoy checking out the interesting stuff you’ve come across.

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Arieanna
September 2nd, 2005
4:25 am

I’ve never been a fan of link roundups. I scan my feeds by title - the link roundups are a mishmash of too much stuff. It’s why I find it almost impossible to read Dave Winer and why I never read link roundups.

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Shane Birley
September 2nd, 2005
8:36 am

Link lists, I find, are pointless. I skip them as well.

Sure, they may be “shareable” but tell me why they are cool, useful, useless, or otherwise.

A single sentence tends not to grab my attention if it is attached to a link.

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Chris Cheetham
September 4th, 2005
10:51 am

I’m a student, pointless links kill time that should be spent doing constructive things like research etc

I like them…

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