One of the most important things Web publishers can do to prepare for the future is to disaggregate their sites. It’s time to think of each story — and not your website — as your main product. This is the best way to reap the benefits of links from bloggers and aggregators.
It’s clear that not everyone has gotten the message. Last week, I was featured on the local TV news. I ran a story about the segment on a local news site that I maintain, so my readers could check it out. All I needed to do was to link to the story on the station’s website. That turned out not to be so simple.
The station uses a content management system provided by a supplier to TV stations. Their site had no links to individual segments or landing pages for the segments, because each clip was launched in Windows Media Player by a Javascript. I wasted about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to link to the story before I gave up.
I thought I had solved the problem by calling the reporter, who gave me the webmaster’s name (he had no contact info the website), and calling the (hard to find) main switchboard at the station and asking for the webmaster. He told me how to structure the link.
Even is if the link worked — and it turned out to be a bum link — this is one news organization that is not ready to be aggregated.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.