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Is embedding better than quoting?

Started by mathewi · 6 months ago

Anil Dash of Six Apart has an interesting post up in which he proposes that instead of simply linking to or quoting from blog posts, bloggers could actually embed a segment of the post they are citing — in much the same way that people embed YouTube videos etc. by inserting some Javasc ... Continue reading »

15 comments

  • StevenHodson

    6 months ago

    personally I found the embedded version distracting which took away from the flow of the post
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  • mathewi

    6 months ago

    I know what you mean, Steven. I felt the same way.


    On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Disqus
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  • Ram

    6 months ago

    The embedded text added too much junk (comment links), who wants that. One more thing the embedded version is not visible in Google Reader
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  • mathewi

    6 months ago

    That's interesting -- if it wasn't visible in RSS readers that would
    definitely detract from the usefulness. I had a similar problem with
    Clipmarks, where the code wrapped around the clip screwed up my RSS
    feed.

    On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Disqus
    reply
  • Anil

    6 months ago

    My sense is that this very primitive implementation that I've done is probably *not* the most useful thing to do with this technique. I'm just hoping to inspire someone more creative to come up with a good reason to do this. :)
    reply
  • mathewi

    6 months ago

    Don't get me wrong, Anil -- I think it's an interesting idea.


    On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Disqus
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  • Jasonp107

    6 months ago

    I think the concept is cool and VERY interesting, mostly because of the implications it carries for monetization.

    At the moment, content on the web goes everywhere, but it's nearly impossible to tie it back to the source and, if you're the author, monetize it anywhere other than your own site.

    But if content becomes embedded instead of just copied...hmm...
    reply
  • Jon Husband

    6 months ago

    Personally, I don't think it adds a lot .. maybe it saves "half" a key stroke if you want to ensure that you follow general rules by providing a ling (I assume the eembed creates a link).

    But made at least one click more easy, it might becomes a part of lots of peoples' blogging work flow.

    And StevenHodson's point below is pertinent, too .. I presume that CSS adaptations could / will follow ?

    ... cut-or-copy-and-paste is pretty hard to dislodge from work flows. This is effectively another form of that, and requires additional html, no ?
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  • leigh

    6 months ago

    Tumblr type approach would be good.
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  • mathewi

    6 months ago

    Yeah, Tumblr's reblogging is quite cool.


    On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Disqus
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  • Tim Burden

    6 months ago

    This can't work, for a few reasons, some already mentioned.
    1. People's URL structures change
    2. People's blogs disappear.
    3. People forget to maintain their Javascript applications. Any of these three would cause a nice fat javascript error
    4. It doesn't save much time.
    5. It doesn't allow pulling the part of the post I want, though I'm sure we could rig that.
    6. It does include things I may not want, like the comments, though I do think that's a neat idea.
    7. It won't count as Google food.
    8. It won't be searchable on my blog search.
    9. It's yet another thing my page has to go get while it's loading, and while that's not so bad in the sidebars, it could be irritating waiting for a post to load before I can read it.
    10. There is no 10, but I like lists of 10.

    It did get me thinking though. What I think would be cool is if everyone's comments on a particular subject were melded together.

    Take this subject as an example. Anil does the originating post over on his blog. A couple of people comment over there. Then Mathew does this post, and when he does, he clicks a box that says this is a response to a post and enters the trackback. Now this post shows up here, and as well as a comment on Anil's blog.

    Now a couple people comment here, and these comments show up on Anil's post as well, and so on. And, all new comments from Anil's post show up here, too. So all the comments are all in one place.

    This is one place where you might WANT to be using JS so that Google doesn't see duplicate content all over the place.

    Just a thought...
    reply
  • mathewi

    6 months ago

    Those are all good points, Tim -- and the comment thing in particular
    is something I've wanted for a while. CoComment and Disqus and other
    things are all attempts to do that, but they don't really work as well
    as they might.

    And I like number 10 the best :-)


    On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Disqus
    reply
  • Tim Burden

    6 months ago

    Test
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  • Joe Clark

    6 months ago

    I’d love to see a truly original post on your blog, Ingram. Anyway, no, you don’t want to be embedding plain text from other people’s sites because (a) that’s what BLOCKQUOTE with cite is for and (b) it leads to 360 validation errors, which is what this page had just before I wrote this paragraph.
    reply
  • mathewi

    6 months ago

    Thanks, Joe. When you leave an original comment, maybe I'll start
    coming up with original posts.


    On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 5:45 PM, Disqus
    reply

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