Linkbot
I complained the other day about the distracting random sprinkling of automated hyperlinks in New York Times articles online — which often seize mechanically on a certain word or phrase and lead only to Times content, often paid content. I didn’t offer a good real-world example, but now here’s a perfect one from today.
Carter Eskew, an aide to Joseph Lieberman, denying that he and Lieberman’s opponent Ned Lamont hated each other when they were classmates at prep school:
“I don’t know if we were best friends. We were more than casual acquaintances. When you’re locked up in southern New Hampshire for three years, and this was pre-global warming so we were inside most of the time, you tend to get to know people well.”
The global warming link leads, of course, to Times articles about global warming. Not to a catalogue of lame humorous asides.
It may not be clear how newspapers should manage their migration to the web (though here’s a start: the Washington Post has announced it will link to other content, including competitors). But sometimes it’s clear what they should not do. Robotic hyperlinking falls into the second category.
Filed under: Blogging, Digital Media, Media
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