Comments on: New York Times Embraces Link Journalism

By: (980)media – Agent vs. Principle, One Theme of this Blog

(980)media – Agent vs. Principle, One Theme of this Blog — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:54:13 +0000

[...] Additional link: NY Times Embraces Link Journalism [...]

By: New York Times Dabbles in Social Bookmarking | What Little I Know...

New York Times Dabbles in Social Bookmarking | What Little I Know... — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:49:10 +0000

[...] In addition to this release of Times People, NYT has released/embraced other forms of new media: The New York Times Polling Project to something as simple as Link Journalism. [...]

By: John Wilpers

John Wilpers — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:32:47 +0000

We were not only linking to other sources at BostonNOW (before its untimely demise last month), but we were publishing bloggers on our sites on the theme appropriate page (sports, entertainment, etc.) not just on a blogger ghetto page.

We also, and perhaps more importantly, published excerpts of the best blogs in the newspaper, also on the theme-appropriate page, right next to the professionals’ stuff.

It was working very well, attracting a typically newspaper-averse demographic (18-35 year olds) and generating a real buzz in that community. Too bad the Icelandic investors pulled the plug. But at least we proved it can work!

By: Mister Snitch

Mister Snitch — Sat, 24 May 2008 05:38:58 +0000

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post titled Own the news community, not the news: How to save The New York Times. The premise was that news is not ‘ownable’ as it once was. (Whoever could dominate a narrow news channel with a substantial cost of entry ‘owned’ the news. Obviously, those rules no longer apply.) What is valued today is community, and therefore the Times would need to do whatever it took to become the hub of the community. By linking to the ‘wheel’ (bloggers), and by providing them with material worth linking back to (images, charts, videoclips, etc.), the Times has done just that. In fact, the Times is far ahead of any other major media outlet in this area. While the others (WaPo, WSJ, etc. – you know who they are) all link to bloggers and other sources, they mostly just link to bloggers who link them back. In this way, they ‘ghettoize’ them. The Times is more integrated in this way than any other big player.

By: nicole

nicole — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:06:17 +0000

This is great! I recently posted a question about this on LinkedIn, wondering if newspapers would ever adopt it or not…glad to see it is!

By: Hashim Warren

Hashim Warren — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:51:20 +0000

@Scott

Excellent use of linking to defend linking!

By: Bill Amstutz

Bill Amstutz — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:44:24 +0000

I have noticed the Times using link journalism as well.

I love reading the Sunday Times in print, but have taken to reading Frank Rich’s column on-line so that I can follow all of the links. It ends up taking me a half an hour to read his column, and it’s one of the best half hours of my week.

By: Scott Karp

Scott Karp — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:20:04 +0000

@Hashim: The Lede has 50,000 inbound links -- not bad. The Lede has done well on Digg With NYtimes.com high authority domain, you can be sure those links on The Lede help other sites rank. And yes, The Lede does rank well. Sending people away = less time on site -- perhaps display ads aren't the right business model.

By: The Paper of Record Link Blogging! « Continuous Beta by Pete Spande

The Paper of Record Link Blogging! « Continuous Beta by Pete Spande — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:11:33 +0000

[...] May 23, 2008 Links , Media shift Tags: Link Blogging, NY Times, Scott Karp Scott Karp post here. An excerpt: It’s great to see “the newspaper of record” has so evolved on the web — gone [...]

By: Hashim Warren

Hashim Warren — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:58:44 +0000

Some critical questions about The Lede and it’s effectiveness:

1. Do people reference (link to) the Lede? In the same way people don’t link to Google SERPS, perhaps they do the same with link blogs.

1a. Do people pass around The Lede over email, add it to a social bookmark, or even print it out to read later?

1b. Does The Lede generate reciprocal links? Indie blogs like Instapundit thrive on link journalism because blogs in their network link to link back. But the WSJ won’t link back to the NY Times any time soon.

2. Is the “time on site” lower on The Lede than their other blogs? Sending people away quickly is cool for Google and their direct response text ad network, but no good for a business like the Times who sells display ads for companies who want branding.

3. Do search engines rank The Lede well? Or does The Lede help the sources it links to rank well?

4. Do users click through to the sources? I have found in my own blogging that it is better to give readers one link to click to rather than many. They are prone to click only one or two links anyway. So, if a blog post has 8 links, they may be left feeling like they are missing part of the story by not clicking the others. This can make the blog post feel less complete, or authoritative.

By: Tim Burden

Tim Burden — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:34:33 +0000

Kudos on this and your other articles on churnalism, Scott. News outlets have got to stop repeating what others have said, especially in wire copy and PR releases, and start linking to original sources. It’ll save all of us so much time. I’m starting to think of the re-publication of news releases under different brands as spam – plugs up my feed reader and Google News.