In the past week, not only have I had a birthday (which always gets me thinking about what I am doing), but I have come across several blog entries that have made me think about my “Interesting Finds” entries. Last week was Andrew Garrett’s entry – No-one links to the linkers and Mike Gunderloy’s entry – (Contest Time Again) about his contest coming up for his 1000th Daily Grind entry and last night was Sam Gentile’s entry – New and Notable 100! The Big 100.
I have to admit that I agree with most of what Andrew says in his entry.
Mike and Sam are both linkers but they heavily supplement their content with real original content which reinforces a following of people who like the subject matter they specialize in. I know Sam spends a great deal of time on some of his entries (like his How To: STS/Windows Authentication with ADAM/AD, Roles in AzMan with WCF) and Mike provides a ton of Book and Product reviews that help all of us developers decide what we should get or at least look further into. I’ve been reading Mike’s Daily Grind for years and I get the feeling he writes reviews in his sleep.
So back to the subject of links – why do bloggers see them as being important? Or should I say, why do we see people linking to our stuff as being important? Is it important when you link to someone else? How about comments? Aren’t comments more of a commitment and more meaningful?
Out of the blog [entries] that I read, Mike's and Sam's carry the most weight as to links that I should probably check out. I also like they way that they give their opinions or review of the links they list (this by the way requires much more time and talent than my simple listing of links that I find interesting). I will have to admit that I do take their link listings for granted, meaning I rarely take that extra step and let them know that I found their work valuable - something I intend on starting.
Bottom line is, I do think links are valuable content, but I place more weight on a link listing if the [feed] content also contains large amounts of original content as well ... anyways that is my opinion. What is yours?