"EASY AS PIE"
Seeing this article by Newsweek International columnist and Editor Fareed Zakaria, titled "The Decline and Fall of Europe" (via Bubblegeneration), I was struck by the web-link to the left of Fareed's picture (see below).
The link has a little Technorati symbol followed by the phrase "Blogs about this author". Click on the link, and you see a list from Technorati "blog search" that shows all the blog posts that have linked to/commented on this article.
Now other media sites may have been featuring this link for a long time now and I just didn't notice. But this struck me as pretty cool for the following reason.
Putting a link like this next to a mainstream column/article means that a mainstream user can do a blog search WITHOUT even thinking of doing a blog search. The magic little button does it all for them.
In fact the button might not even have the word "Blogs".
It could just have said "What people are saying about this article on the Internet".
Now that's something a mainstream user would probably totally get, and not have to grok dense, geeky, techie words like "Blogs" or "RSS" or "Tags" and the like.
So the folks at MSNBC/Newsweek get a Gold star in my book for attempting to make mainstream a relatively sophisticated web tool and feature: a blog search.
We need more efforts by mainstream media and other web sites to feature these types of links of relatively sophisticated, non-mainstream "Web 2.0" type of services.
Now you may argue that just adding a "blog search" link is not a big deal and that it's pretty easy for a mainstream user to understand and use.
Even then, to make it available prominently and easily next to the article is a BIG STEP in my book, since it makes it much EASIER AND CONVENIENT for a mainstream user to click on a whim. And not have to think about going through the bother and effort typing in "Technorati" or another blog search engine in a browser window.
And for services like Technorati and a whole host of "Web 2.0" services, this points to another major marketing opportunity. It's not just about getting more and more mainstream users to use your services, but it's also about getting third party sites to make accessing your services easier and more conveniently as well.
Why, they may even have to hire a separate person to focus on this "third-party distribution" opportunity. And cut third-party sites into the economic action.
Fred Wilson a few days ago had a post that highlighted a feature called "Feedflare" from Feedburner, one of his portfolio companies. As he describes it:
"You may have noticed that the bottom of this post has a few new links, like email this post, add it to delicious, number of technorati links (when there are links), subscribe to this feed, and digg this feed."
What I'm talking about is distributing a "Feedflare" like service via third-party content sites. Going for whole-sale distribution rather than just retail distribution. These types of buttons need to be ubiquitous across mainstream media content sites, where most mainstream users will likely encounter them for the first time.
We're at a stage where there's sufficient competition in a whole range of burgeoning Web 2.0 services that make it even more important to break through the crowd. And proactively going after more third-party distribution may become more and more essential.
I don't know if Technorati "sold" MSNBC/Newsweek to putting in the link, or if someone at MSNBC/Newsweek just decided to do it on their own. But it's noteworthy in my book.
Oh, and the article itself isn't half-bad...a bit of a re-tread though of the same old "Europe is declining" theme we've seen for some time now.
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Posted by: Kir | Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 12:59 PM
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Posted by: Tifany | Thursday, March 16, 2006 at 01:21 AM