July 18th, 2006
If You’re Late to The Party, What Should You Do?
Yesterday, three pieces of news were all the rage in the tech. blogosphere.
Ken Yarmosh at Technosight says this is part of the “me-too” mindset – where only a few blogs provide the scoop (signal) while the rest are plain noise.
But Nick Wilson (from Performancing) rightly argues that if you’re a tech-focused blog – and a big boy at that – you can’t afford not to cover such breaking news, late or not.
So, what do you do if you’re (really) late to the party and yet still have to at least mention this sort of “breaking news”? One of the most established ways is to go speedlinking-linkblog-style. This usually implies a single link to an authoratative source, a one line description, and a one line personal opinion. Many of our daily reads do this, including Darren Rowse at ProBlogger and Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion.
But in my opinion, unless there’s just so much that you have to catch up on, go semi-linkblog-style. This means your post should be short (concise-type-of-short, of course) but not a one-liner, should contain authoratative links to more detailed articles, and of course, the hugely important personal take on the issue. I’m no expert at this, but my post right before this one was written in this format.
The benefits? Not only is the time investment on your part minimal, but also on the part of your readers that most probably have already read on the issue earlier. And for those who have not, your links to more detailed articles should satiate their thirst. Traffic building-wise, you’re taking a positive step by getting trackbacks (in a positive manner) on established blogs, plus alert the bloggers there to your existence.
So, don’t be afraid to write shorter semi-linkblog-style posts if you’re late to the party. Save your limited blogging energy for original posts that have more long-term potential. Don’t be afraid of linking out because if you’re doing things right, your readers won’t leave you. And, as Steve Rubel has pointed out, only generous (link-wise or otherwise) bloggers influence.
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4 Comments
July 18th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Thanks for this little reminder of how to “keep up” without being an echo. I’m trying to apply this to my Crand Canyon Skywalk article as we type.
In this case, there is little information other than the press release so trying to add or collect more info is difficult. I don’t even have enough to make an informed opinion (not that that should stop me) but I look for ways to offer some new insite or information.
July 19th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
[...] When I wrote yesterday’s post suggesting the use of two forms of linkblogging (speedlinking-linkblog-style and semi-linkblog-style) when you’re “late to the party” (i.e. late at blogging on breaking news), I couldn’t have predicted that Darren Rowse would promote a post by Tony Lawrence on how you could screw yourself by linkblogging poorly onto ProBlogger’s front page. [...]
July 23rd, 2006 at 1:50 am
[...] I’ve only recently written on how good linkblogging can help you keep up with the latest memes without being (too much of) an echo, so I’m certainly not afraid of linking out. But like most bloggers, even those quoted at LexBlog as great “link-outers”, I play both games. In fact, I like linking out, but I like linking in even more. I’ll link to my own (relevant) posts above linking outside. [...]
July 28th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
[...] But for this blog (and perhaps a couple of others), I find myself facing a completely different scenario. Some posts take up to two hours to write, while others of similar length take less than a third of that time. I’m not talking about linkblogging – done correctly or otherwise. [...]
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