Hey, This Hypertext Markup Language May Be Good For Something
April 1st, 2008 | by Brad King |I’ll be honest, I nearly had a heart attack when I first opened up this article; however, I continually tell people to RTFA before commenting, so I thought I’d read the article before commenting.
The piece is about a journalist discovered that by aggregating links together with a narrative around it, newspapers could become a “a hub for shared community experiences.”
I like the idea of a journalist sifting through the community of information to create a story. This has been doing on for years. As a big baseball fan, I love reading ESPN’s baseball blogs, which are oftentimes compilations of the best stories from outlets around the country — pulled together with an insightful narrative commentary.
Still, why should I get worked up about this?
This is hardly new — nor is it the best use of modern tools. Slate got by for years creating just this type of system. And human-search aggregation sites like Alltop are trying to do the same thing, albeit without the narrative.
There will always be traction for these types of round-ups; however, it’s hard to believe this is the future of journalism.
Still, I can’t knock the piece because it ends with a link here: The Only Way For Journalists to Understand The Web Is To Use It. If you have ever tried to explain to someone how Web publishing works, you know how difficult it is for traditional journalists to grasp. This piece does a great job with that.
