Randy Charles Morin found a new way to get links from A listers: don’t link to them.
Hmmm, I should try that sometime. Maybe I should just stop doing my link blog cause so few people are linking to it. That alone proves that linking to people won’t be rewarded with lots of return links.
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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May 24th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Oh so you are unhappy because they are linking to the source and not to your copy of the source? I don’t get you sometimes.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Nah, I’m not communicating well. Here’s what I was getting at: simply linking to people won’t get them to notice or link back anymore. That used to work in the old days but now you’ve gotta be bombastic, or otherwise interesting.
Here, watch what happens when the exact same content shows up on Fast Company’s site. I bet a TON of people link to THAT. Heheh.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Actually, I was going to link to your link blog this week until I read that article… which I found because of your link blog! How ironic.
The link blog is really great, Robert, and I’d hope it would stay. You’ve come across some really great gems (like the Morin post). Very enjoyable.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I love your link blog, I’ve unsubscribed from the high traffic news sites and just browse your link blog instead :)
May 24th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I’m sure that many more people read your link blog, and even subscribe to it, than link to it.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
The type of people that WOULD link to your link blog, already have tons of Feeds themselves, so why peek at the raw feed material of someone else, when you can tailor your own?
The type of people too busy to feed read would be the target audience, but then most of your content is all half insider baseball, blog politics and random acts of egg puffery and self-serving geeky social media thwaping, which is a waste of their time.
So really, no market need, niche is best to hope for. Only this niche has the tools and knowledge themselves, and skips over. Now if go political, celebrity or such, you could get Drudgey or Perez hit numbers, have to tailor to the mass.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I don’t link to your link blog, but I am happy to link to your blog whenever appropriate, because you do link through to differing opinions.
It type of grates on me to link through to people who don’t link through to differing opinions, but all I can do is show them how to do it consistently and hope it rubs off.
I notice Valleywag prefer to link through to their tag for you rather than directly.
I do link to tags sometimes as well, but normally in adition to a link through to a post.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I’ve wanted to link to items in your link blog from time to time, but I can’t figure out how to do it. The feed that I get (in RSS Bandit) clicks through to the article you’ve linked. I can’t get to the link blog.
So there.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Add value, not links.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Your link blog is one of the best examples I know of to show that having a human editor involved in sifting content will always beat an algorithm. Real value.
… no matter what Coulter says.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Why not integrate the link blog on Google Reader in your main blog as well (like in the sidebar) - when people notice backlinks from your blog, they are more likely to notice it.
Links saved on Google reader don’t offer any technorati juice but if the same thing is put in your blog sidebar, atleast Technorati Bots would index them.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I like Amit’s suggestion. You could so that w/ Google’s feed API.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Randy/Amit: I’d love to do that but I have to change my deal with WordPress. I’ll work on that. I don’t have control of my template (it’s a custom job that Matt did for me and it’s hard to get widgets added there).
May 24th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Here’s a simple starting point.
http://www.therssweblog.com/?guid=20070419223226
Copy this, put your own link blog rss, get your own key, add styles.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Robert: Why not use Google Notebook and choose links to really good posts instead and use that feed. Then you don´t have to publish the whole content. Isn´t there a copyright problem publishing other peoples whole content?
If you instead use Google Notebook you can select a part and thus cite them together with a back link to them this will keep everyone happy. You can point more directly to an important part of a post and the copyright holder gets a link.
You can also use Tumblr to show the feed to making it more appetizing. I wouldn´t link to a feed that i feel is infringing copyright.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Randy/Amit: I’d love to do that but I have to change my deal with WordPress. I’ll work on that. I don’t have control of my template (it’s a custom job that Matt did for me and it’s hard to get widgets added there).
If you don’t have control over your blog then you have a VERY CRAPPY deal with WordPress.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Bengt: I am not infringing copyright. If anyone who is on that feed doesn’t want to be on it, I’ll remove it immediately. There’s also a grey area on copyright, which includes fair use. I’m not using everything people put up, only about one out of every 13 things I read gets onto my link blog. It’s also not automatic and there’s also no advertising.
The reason the link blog works is because it’s efficient. If I had to use Google Notebook it’d take a lot more time. I would never do such a thing.
Nima: well, I don’t consider it a bad deal in return for what I get. If I ever do I’ll move it somewhere else.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Robert, I guess WordPress now has widgets for embedding external RSS feeds in the blog sidebar.. Not sure why you can’t do that.
May 25th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Robert: I sort of figured that was the thing. I also am thinking that in time there will come advertising in the feeds and they probably be VERY happy to be in your Linkblog.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:25 am
[...] Getting links from A-listers « Scobleizer (tags: aggregator blogs web20 money a-listers) [...]
May 25th, 2007 at 3:56 am
Noooooo! You can’t stop. I beg you! I find it an invaluable filter of the blogosphere, second only to TechMeme. So I’ve posted a (belated, I’m sorry) reciprocal link for citing my Bytes ‘n’ Bobs post :-)
May 25th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Your Link blog is invaluble. I share items from it thru Google Reader all the time.
Keep it up!!
May 25th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Your link blog is a marvel, and gives me ideas on how to improve Techmeme. I just promoted it in Techmeme’s twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/Techmeme/statuses/78199982
So perhaps threatening to not link works as well as not linking! :)
May 25th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Gabe, thanks, from you that means a lot. Of course I do notice it has an effect on TechMeme too! :-)
May 26th, 2007 at 1:18 am
That is funny, I was going to say your link blog is as important to me as techmeme, but they went and said it for me. Scobie do you need reciprocal links? I don’t think so. But your linkblog is just another quality service you are providing. Don’t bury it soon.
May 26th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Thanks Don and everyone. I’ll try to keep it up.
June 1st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
[...] rozhořčená reakce a backlink na sebe nenechaly dlouho čekat. Krátce poté se navíc přidal ještě Scoble. Morin tak získal rovnou 2 linky, které jen tak neseženete. Jedinou nevýhodou [...]
June 5th, 2007 at 12:34 am
[...] Before you can seek out this elite status in the blogosphere, you must establish yourself as somebody. Whether that is a B-List blogger on the rise, a popular expert in your niche or a media magnet. You cant just be likeable. You have to be linkable. Simply linking to people won’t get them to notice or link back anymore. That used to work in the old days but now you’ve gotta be bombastic, or otherwise interesting. -Robert Scoble [...]
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
[...] rozhořčená reakce a backlink na sebe nenechaly dlouho čekat. Krátce poté se navíc přidal ještě Scoble. Morin tak získal rovnou 2 linky, které jen tak neseženete. Jedinou nevýhodou [...]