I’m such an important blogger that I don’t have to give you any reason as I urge, even command, you to visit this link.
[W]hen famous A-listers write those self-satisfied one-line posts, they aren’t really blogging well. Instead, they are just spending the social capital they’ve already accumulated. They accumulated that social capital by first learning how to listen and read the professional and blog genres that interest them (interpretation on one level), then following the conversation closely enough to know how to contribute something (more interpretation), and then, when they are at their best, linking in richer, fuller posts that build social networks, yes, but that also discuss what they are linking to (interpretation again). I think Jorn Barger said that good links add value to the thing being linked to — for interpretation, Kurt Spellmeyer sometimes says, is saying something the text has not already quite said. Not just quoting it or pointing to it, not just linking alone. —CCCC Waves and Ripples (Weblogs in Higher Education)
I missed this blog post when it was originally written, back in March…