Comments on: Understanding Open Trackbacks

By: Bill [Visitor]

Bill [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:27:46 +0000

The whole OSM or Pajamas media or Shaken not stirred media blogging or blog talk I neither understand or find interesting. I haven’t mentioned it once at TFM. Kind of reminds me of the Plame/Novak/Miller/Libby/Woodward brouhaha. It makes my eyes glaze over.

By: Michael [Visitor]

Michael [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:08:41 +0000

So, a lot of it was envy, but there's also a fear of Pajamas Media sucking all the energy out of the blogosphere to serve their own ends.
Adam

That is not even remotely possible .

By: Steven Taylor [Visitor]

Steven Taylor [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:48:41 +0000

Adam,

First off: you are right about LaSahwn's comment.

Second, I understand wholly the desire to boost traffic.

Third, the objection to the Trackback party concept is simply this: the trackbacks/links from one post to the next have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. I normally have ignored the trackback party links in a given post, but this morning I jumped from my place to Florida Masochist who linked to a story about next-generation DVDs. His post did deal with that topic, and I noticed a series of links at the bottom of the post, so I decided to see what the linked post at Don Surber's site was about. It was about Paris Hilton. I then hit the link to your site, to find a generic discussion of open trackback posts.

Now, all well and good, and everyone should be able to link as they wish--however, it seems to me this kind of linking violates the basic concept of the trackback--that the reason one sends a trackback in the first place is because one has postyed something of similar content on one's own blog and one wants the author of the post (and the readers of that post) that there is more conversation on the same topic at the other end of the trackback.

Fourth, having said all of that, people have the right to do as they like. I do think that these opentrackback parties are skewing the TTLB, but ultimately that just may have to be the way that it is.

By: The Ugly American [Visitor]

The Ugly American [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:05:42 +0000

well said Adam. It seems that no matter what TTLB does open trackbacks are here to stay. imo. that is a good thing.

By: don surber [Visitor]

don surber [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:03:17 +0000

Don’t sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff. She revealed how tiny she is — again.

By: The Random Yak [Visitor]

The Random Yak [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 04:38:17 +0000

Well said, Adam. We at the Yak are just getting our blog moving (3 weeks out and at least someone is reading) and our trackbacks haven’t been working properly, so we started doing them manually as you do. Technical issues aside, we agree with your comments almost 100% and will be continuing open trackbacks ourselves, though we will likely do them in “carnival format” with brief summaries to make sure the bloggers we are recognizing are getting credit for the fact that (1) we like what they have to say and (2) we actually read their blogs and link to make sure other people are seeing them too. Close to 20% of the blogs we read come to our attention initially through open trackbacks…which by definition means there’s more to this than “link whoring.”