Linking trends

We’ve talked quite a bit about convergence in class, and this issue fits in nicely with that idea. Media outlets are sharing writers, content and now stories. It also follows along with the trend of giving the reader as much information and choice as possible. Is it a good idea? It’s hard to say whether it’s a good idea for the media, but it’s certainly good for the readers. And I’d say that as sites all begin linking to each other, then the best ones will still stick out the most anyway, and keep readers the longest.

There is one point made in the article that struck me as interesting. Karp argues that Google sends people to other sites and “does such a good job of it that people keep coming back for more.” Google’s function is meant to send people to other sites, so is not really in the same category as news sites, but this comparison made me think that news sites are meant to share news, and hey, if they do a good job by sending people to find their news elsewhere, then maybe people will keep coming back. I mean, the yahoo.com homepage is popular for news, and most of the articles they run come from elsewhere. People keep coming back to Yahoo in part because they know they can get a plethora of news on the site.

As for whether AP and other wire services will become obsolete, I would say that may very well happen slowly over time. After all, the idea behind wire services is that they can cover events all over the place, so that Lakeland-based The Ledger can run articles about wildfires in California without sending a reporter there. But if The Ledger can just link to stories from California-based media, then they won’t need wire stories. That said though, AP and others have such a high reputation that I don’t see them being dismissed very quickly.

Ultimately though, this debate is moot. Now that some sites have started linking to others, those that haven’t will be forced to jump on this bandwagon. As readers become accustomed to Web sites that offer lots of links, options and additional information, they won’t want to return to sites that only have their own material. All it took was one medium to start moving in this direction and all of the other media had to follow – much like when one medium gets a scoop and within hours or minutes every other medium has a similar story to keep up.