Why I believe in the link economy

To push for quick word choices by playing down their consequences, I’ve watched more than one web professional shrug and say “We’re not saving lives here.” Sometimes, I even nodded in agreement. Not anymore.

Colleen Jones, A List Apart: Articles: Words that Zing.

Has there ever been so much public blowback from a magazine’s own writers about a site redesign?

via Gillian Reagan, Atlantic Bloggers Blowback On New Site Design, Editors Say The Site Is User-Friendly, Needs To Make Money.

[T]reating blogs as a series of headlines, designed to maximize pageviews, is a deep misunderstanding of blogs, their reader communities and their integrity. I hope they get restored to their previous coherence, and these amorphous “channels” gain some editorial identity. I hope writers like Fallows and Goldberg aren’t treated as random fodder – anchors! – for “channels”. I believe in the Atlantic as a place for writing. The redesign seems to me to ooze casual indifference to that and to the respect that individual writers deserve.

via Andrew Sullivan, quoted by Adrian Chen, Borg-like Atlantic Redesign Sparks Blogger Identity Crisis – The Atlantic – Gawker.

“Creating content for the web is an art and a science. There has been a lot of talk now about the science,” said Break.com CEO Keith Richman. “Those guys studying the science of it will be forced eventually to focus on the art of it.”

via Michael Learmonth, Lowered Expectations: Web Redefines ‘Quality’.

Big premium content producers allow these third parties ["horizontal-ad networks"] to aggregate their impressions and their data and pay mere pennies in return is one of the most value-destructive practices imaginable.

It is, in fact, these kinds of misguided practices that are at the root of the problems around making content organizations successful in the digital world.

via Jim Spanfeller, Think Technology Trumps Content? Well, You’re Wrong | paidContent.