What's With the Missing Links?

For a long time now I've seen a disturbing trend on some websites, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others. Reading the newest post from Seth Godin has finally made me comment. Seth said,

I read a blog post describing the best way to get the most out of a Squidoo lens. The author said you should make sure that the keywords and title are perfect and limit outbound links so that you can be sure that people will only do what you want them to.

He was talking about how to make your stuff so good that people just want to link to you. But that's not where I'm going. I want to complain about online news stories that talk about a person, place thing, website, or online company - but don't bother to make it easy for us to find out more.

Here's a great example. (Hint: try to find a link to any of the studies mentioned!)

It's not hard to embed a hyperlink, guys. In fact, you can craft a link that will open in a new window if you're so worried about losing eyeballs. That's got to be it, right? I can't think of another reason why they don't want give out some link love.

As Seth says, "If you make great stuff, people will find you."

[LATER THAT SAME DAY ... ]

Yet another example, in an otherwise fine critique of Edward Tufte's work, shows several links missing. Indeed, at one point the author quotes a writer from, "..the online Business Intelligence Network." Is there a better opportunity to provide a link?

Wall Street Journal: Overdoing It

WSJ.com is running a customer survey campaign. But in my 15 minutes on the site, I was asked 4 times whether I would take their survey. This is the second time this has happened, though the first time, about a week ago, I was only asked 3 times.

Needless to say, after that pestering, I did WSJ a favor by not taking the survey.

Dementia In NFL Players

Some N.F.L players are paying a high price for the glitz, glamour (and in some cases) and big payday of playing American football. More reports are leaking out about the debilitating health of retired players. The latest highlights two players affected with dementia. They are 2 of 20 known, with an estimated 60 or 80 more unknown.

If I knew that the NFL was making such a fuss about church groups gathering together to watch the Big Game so they could support their retired players, I'd be sympathetic.

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Starbucks: I Smell Just Fine

A very unhappy Starbucks customer takes Howard Schultz to task in Time magazine. I enjoyed the well-crafted commentary, but wonder where this person lives. In parts of San Francisco, there's a Starbucks on every corner. Maybe the real estate is too rich where Bill works, so the company can't afford to buy the space. Or maybe no one's willing to sell to them?

Anyhoo, I've used Starbucks to jump on wifi, and think it's fine. Of course, I've not done it where there isn't enough seating. Still, I think it's great they have it. Why would I want Starbucks to stop offering wifi? I know I can always count on a speedy internet at a great price when I've traveling state-side.

The NFL (Death) Spiral?

Nwz Chik has a post on how the NFL is trying to trademark "the Big Game" as a phrase. Oh brother: this is the latest effort by the NFL to shoot their brand in the foot. First they told church groups they couldn't have Super Bowl parties because the big group would show up as one person watching when it might actually be 101. The blogosphere slammed the NFL for that bright move.

And now this. In the San Francisco Bay Area, "the Big Game" refers to the annual contest between Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley (Cal). I'm betting that lots of you out there have your own Big Game.

So I have to ask: Has the NFL had too many concussions? Where is their competition? Arena football? Is that why they've gone into testosterone overdrive? Where the heck else can advertisers go to reach the football-watching demographic? What is the viable option to advertising in the Super Bowl?

I’ve seen perfectly good teams blow themselves up. My team, the San Francisco 49ers, is a good example. And they did it in one season – or should I say, in one off-season. (Did you see Jeff Garcia step up in Philadelphia?) Now let's see how quickly the NFL can do the same, following this new game plan. Should we call this the East Coast offensive-defense? Sounds a mess to me.

Good On Verizon

I just read about Mary Ellen Bates' experience with Verizon, and I was very pleased! I just suggested to my mom that she get a Verizon or Sprint wireless card. She's leaning toward Verizon, and I sure hope she has a great experience too.

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Starbucks: I Can Only Say Wow

My family took me to Circus Circus in Reno for my birthday. There is a little coffee stop (it's not even a coffee shop) where they "proudly serve Starbucks coffee." But what we got was a travesty. In fact, it was so bad, that we went back to talk with the workers.

When we got home, I wrote a letter to Starbucks corporate. What I got back was (a) a very nice email from a senior customer service representative; (b) a 30-minute call from the Starbucks manager responsible for Reno; and (c) a letter from that same customer representative with a few free "Coffees on us" coupons.

The one message that ran clearly through all of these communications was quite simple and powerful: we care that you contacted us, we thank you for your loyalty to our brand, and contact us again if you ever have such an experience.

Papillon Cafe is a local coffee shop that I frequent all the time. Owned by Brenda and Tom, they have created a wonderful community feel to Papillon - which just around the corner from a Starbucks. I sometimes go there when I want something I can't get from Papillon. And of course, Starbucks becomes my "third space" - other office - when I'm about town.

Papillon has my coffee consumer's heart - but Starbucks just earned some of that heart too.

Rock on, Starbucks.

Those Pesky Offers

You know those subscription offers magazines that come on a postcard size piece of paper? I just opened my latest Wired magazine and, like I always do, thumbed through and pulled them all out. I've been doing this for a long, long time. Do you remember Omni magazine? (Yes, despite previous posts, I do like Wikipedia, I just don't want kids thinking it's the only truth out there.) It was the precursor to Wired, and covered science fact, the paranormal, and more.

Anyway. One day, I called Omni and complained that I'd had to pull out 11 -11! - subscription offers and I thought that was just way too many. Shortly after that, Omni stopped publishing. Wired only had five, but I can't help but feel that so many has an air of desperation about it. What's the perfect number of these things?

Fork in the Road: Citizendium from Wikipedia

A few months ago, I wrote about Jimmy Wales wanting to burn Wikipedia to CDs and distribute them to kids in developing countries. While a worthy thought, I was and am concerned that poor kids are going to get poorly vetted information that they will take as fact. There's a reason why colleges and high schools are banning the use of Wikipedia as a source for papers.

Citzendium plans to fix this with a different model of open source knowledge. Fast Company has a nice, concise explanation of Citzendium's objectives.

(On an aside, Slashdot reports that Jimmy Wales has stepped down as Chair of the board; Wikipedia confirms it.)

May I Introduce Ms. Dewey?

Oh, oh, oh, too, too, too wunnerful: I was introduced to Ms. Dewey by a DCWW Web Women post. Ms. Dewey is a flash-powered, smart alek interface to the world of search. Ms. Dewy must be named after the dewey decimal classification system (which, yes, is alive and well). Never mind the search results, with which some people seem to have a problem. Or the fact that the results are sorta hard to read. At this point in the experiment, let's just enjoy the show. Visit Ms. Dewey, then get the inside dish from David Ewalt of Digital Download on this Microsoft Live project.