A few, vital notes on linking ...

We all know that linking is an important, even handy, aspect of blogging.

We discussed the mechanics of linking here.

But a refresher might be in order, along with a point or two beyond.

1.) You don't need to reproduce the link in the link.

In other words, you don't have to do it like this: http://mysablogs.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-hot-link-to-something.html

It's unnecessary because it's highly unlikely someone will copy-and-paste the address off the page rather than just click on it. Even if they just want the address, they can "right-click" on it and that'll do the job.

This becomes a problem, sometimes, when you have incredibly long, involved links, and these have a tendency to "blow out" the page, making it impossibly wide for most browsers.

And that will stay with your page until the offending entry drops off the page.

It's better to just link up a few words, a phrase, or a sentence that'll send people to where you want them to go.

2.) Try to throw the "target=_new" thing in there.

There are valid schools of thought that discourage the use of this code, which causes the item to open in a new browser window. I don't discount their views, but ... as for now ... our style is to use "target=_new" (or a variant) when we're sending someone "off-site."

Cleaning up link code is a big part of what slows us down when we're trying to plow through a chunk of blog entries. (Fixing "curly" quotes is probably No. 1, though.)

Help us help you.

Good to read ...

From the always-reliable Mindy McAdams: Staff journalists who blog: Two cases.

Enjoy.

A word on comments ...

I'll be adjusting the way we do comments on most blogs over the next few weeks. It's gonna take me a while, but I think it's gonna pay off, eventually.

I'm going to be taking different approaches on different blogs ... mainly because of differing needs, but the general rule is the blog box will be at the bottom of the entry and any previous comments. PLUS, the "post" button on the main blog pages will actually DO SOMETHING now and will call up the "post a comment" box.

Thanks to Geek Speak for being my unwilling test subjects. Look there if you want to see what I mean.

So, to sum up graphically:

On sending notifications

Folks at the Express-News are shouldering a much bigger share of the load in terms of publishing blog entries, which is awesome ... we thank you for making our lives easier.

One thing to remember, though, is to send out notifications once you've published.

Even if few (or no) people have signed up for your notifications ... WE HAVE.

We need to know there's fresh content there to promote. And trust us, we want to, because we're under directives to feature as much fresh content as possible.

So, either send notifications (instructions can be found in the now-classic "How to Edit a Blog Entry" entry ... scroll nearly to the bottom) or hit us up with a generic e-mail.

Trust us ... brazen self-promotion works.

I'd tell you who's best at that sort of activity, but I don't want to embarrass her. Er, or him, it could just as easily be a "him."

Small Dead Animals 1,000; Us 1

Alan D. Mutter, a former newspaper guy and now Silicon Valley CEO type, writes in his blog, "Reflections of a Newsosaur," about an odd phenomenon he experienced over the last couple weeks.

Seems "Reflections" had a few posts that were linked to by various sites ... a number of "traditional" news sites (Business Week, San Francisco Chronicle, etc.), which he deems "Large Ones," and a blog built and maintained by a Canadian schnauzer breeder called "Small Dead Animals."

Traffic surged into the thousands thanks to the Dead Animals blog. From the "Large Ones"? Not so much. He counted one reader showing up via the Business Week link.

He has a theory why:

Small Dead Animals is a creature of the web, by the web and for the web. Unlike the blogs grafted as an afterthought onto the sites of Forbes, Business Week, the WSJ and the rest, Small Dead Animals is a primary destination for readers hooked on what, in this case, is the bracing point of view of Catherine McMillan, an airbrush artist and schnauzer breeder who resides in a small town in Saskatchewan.

Although the Large Ones deserve a C+ for making an effort to add blogs and a few other modern touches to the print content they recycle at their staid and static sites, the banal results please neither their traditional readers nor the connoisseurs of such sites as YouTube, Gawker or the Huffington Post.

He continues ...

Readers of the traditional media have been conditioned over the years not to look to the Large Ones for the quirky news, dorky videos and (knee) jerky opinions that, for the most part, saturate the blogosphere. And Kos-inistas largely view the mainstream media, when they view them at all, as fodder for future potshots.

With the formidable creative talent, market reach, commercial relationships and financial capability they possess, the Large Ones ought to have an enormous edge over Canadian schnauzer breeders in creating editorially compelling and commercially successful online content. But they are failing, because they try to confine their new media ventures to the tightly edited and carefully modulated conventions of their existing brands.

If they want to be serious about the new media businesses, the Large Ones are going to have to establish skunkworks where people who really get the new media are given the resources and support necessary to develop original, independently branded fare. And the Large Ones will have to restrain themselves from over-managing these necessarily alien efforts.

I posted this as food for thought, but it does suggest that, for our purposes, we continue to push the envelope wherever possible. We've a lot of people to convince we're more than just car crash and crime news ... and that we're as plugged into the world at large as much as your garden-variety schnauzer breeder.

Think ... ART!

As we attempt to feature the blogs more prominently, here's something you can do to help ...

When putting together your entries, do everything you can to come up with usable, solid art that we can utilize for the photo position.

Many of you already do this, and it's appreciated, but it's going to become more important as we move forward.