Observation on the Trackback "How To"...
I don't know what it is about Trackback that makes it utterly impossible for anyone to explain it well. Certainly the How Trackback Works (from cruftbox.com is a scruffy but noble attempt to make it comprehensible to people. But I think it's going to fail because it explains the process before it adequately explains the concept. I think it has another failing too: it concentrates on explaining the mechanical and clunky 'do it by hand' approach of getting trackback URLs and pumping them through the 'pings' interface. No-one's going to get it until everyone's using autodiscovery.
Ben and Mena Trott's version (Trackback for Beginners) is well-written and comprehensive, but essentially incomprehensible. I think it's because it doesn't concentrate on explaining the core uses of the functionality (get person x to automatically link back to me when I post something about them), but instead tries to go right back to first principles. Personally I'm not only not interested in someone Trackbacking my site simply in order to get a mention, I'm actively against it and don't think they should be mentioning it - let alone promoting it. On a weblog (at least) there's got to be reciprocity of some kind otherwise it's going to be the most-spammed feature in online history.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I guess this is my cue to repeat my plea that you share your secrets to a transparent TrackBack link setup with us TrackBack simpletons!
→ Posted by: Marcus at March 25, 2003 2:24 PM
Yeah, I know, I know. I'm just so horribly behind at the moment that I barely have time to scratch out my daily witterings... I'm thinking about it. Honest...
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at March 25, 2003 2:38 PM
I still don't see how autodiscovery improves the 'trackback as self-promotion' situation, or the lopsidedness of trackback 'conversation' between high-profile bloggers and low-profile bloggers. All it does is shift the burden of pinging from the human to the machine.
What's the net benefit of automating what is essentially an act of sending a message from one person to another? Most automated email is, after all, spam; how would a world of widespread autodiscovery trackbacking avoid that fate?
→ Posted by: Rory at March 25, 2003 4:39 PM
Well trackback clearly has two effects - first thing it does is encourage people to link to you and discuss your posts, because they will get a counter-link in return that will bring people back to their sites. Whether that's good or not isn't really relevant. The second thing it does is encourage people to follow on a post they've read onto another person's site - automatically, all the time... That seems to me to have one really obvious benefit - that "low-profile webloggers" get the opportunity to write something that will be seen. I don't know how long it will be until Trackback becomes totally spammed into oblivion (certainly trackback management stuff will probably appear in the next year or so) but I think autodiscovery makes several things easier (finding the URLs to ping without having to actually look for them etc) and a few things harder (just deciding to go 'check me out' on someone else's site). I remain unconvinced that trackback is going to change the world, but if we're going to try it out then it only makes sense to try and get people to do it properly...
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at March 25, 2003 5:09 PM
scruffy?
→ Posted by: Michael at March 25, 2003 5:17 PM
Eep. Busted.
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at March 25, 2003 6:24 PM
Bloody autodiscovery, eh? ;)
→ Posted by: Rory at March 25, 2003 6:42 PM
As you said in another post about TrackBack(I think), the name "TrackBack" gives no help as to what its function is, which is "comments from other websites". I think it just needs a better name or description because its purpose is not self-evident without explanation.
→ Posted by: omit at March 25, 2003 9:25 PM
Tim, TrackBack does a lot more than just comments from other websites. TrackBack's a protocol, and remote comments, as you've described, are one of the things it can do.
It can also say, "I have a post that's relevant to the topic your site is aggregating information on." Which is pretty cool, too.
→ Posted by: Anil at March 26, 2003 9:24 AM
I don't think there's any doubt that Trackback can do loads more than the basic core use that we're all starting off with. But the issue here is how to get people using it at that very basic level and explaining it to them in a way that they'll understand. The people who can understand the various other uses of Trackback aren't really the people who need instruction on it!
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at March 26, 2003 12:09 PM
On Anil's point about its other merits: don't get me wrong, I can see the value of trackback for dealing with *automated* sites, or for large, community sites that feel less 'personal' because of their size. Automation can even be useful on a personal site, as Matt Haughey has shown by pinging song info from WinAmp to his blog.
But automating the process of saying 'hello, I wrote about your post' is not going to be particularly attractive to everyone. And this ties in with exactly this issue of selling trackback to the masses. Why should we assume that people don't 'get it', and that this is why few use it? It's been around for a while now, after all. What if they do get it - the main selling point of remote commenting, that is - and just don't think it's particularly useful?
If the main value of trackback turns out to be, in fact, its value in updating automatic aggregation services, or alternatively its value as an internal blog-management tool (the way Matt's using it), then it's being sold in the wrong way.
An alternative might be to present it as an aggregator-pinging service, and have an option in MT configuration to switch autodiscovery on *for specific sites* (which the user nominates, perhaps adding their URLs in the same way they add entry categories), with the assumption being that those sites will be high-profile blogs or portals.
But this would still leave the door open to trackback spam.
→ Posted by: Rory at March 26, 2003 1:41 PM
Yes, Anil, I know what you're talking about (like sxswblog or austinbloggers.org), and that usage is valuable as well. Perhaps that should be given a separate function or nomenclature, even though it's the same technology behind it. Once people see what Trackback can do, I think there is an "aha!" moment, especially with aggregation services, which are really cool.
People want to know what they can do with trackback, not how it works. "Oh, I can link my comment to his post?" or "If I check this box, my post will show up on this blog as well as mine?" This relates to Tom's earlier comments about transparency--the gears should not show. For example, if you use a permalink, shouldn't your post ping the person's site you're linking to? By using the permalink, you're saying, "I am specifically commenting on those specific comments on that person's site." I suppose this is known as autodiscovery.
This gets to the heart of a Movable Type problem--one which may limit its ability to become the leading blogging tool for the masses. Like Greymatter before it, it is a geek tool. Endlessly customizable, configurable and scriptable--but to do this, you have to have a lot of knowledge about scripts, PHP, server configuration, etc. Out of the box, it is not user-friendly (to the point where you have to pay somebody to install it or else cruise forums, consult friends with technical know-how and spend a lot more time with it, just to get it to do most of the same things you were already doing with your previous Fisher-Price blogging tool).
There's too many steps necessary to do anything in MT. I like the page for downloading the new Madonna mp3, where it says, "There is no step 3. Three steps is too complicated!" Yes, it is. Even for blogging tools.
A problem with Trackback's lack of adoption is the fact that Blogger has not integrated it (and despite it being outre among many bloggers, Blogger is still the tool of the blogging masses).
As for the spam issue--maybe a site's owner (or members) should have the ability to approve or deny trackback pings, perhaps by an approval process (site owner receives an email saying "so-and-so has pinged your site. approve or deny?") or a Slashdot-style vote-up or down process.
→ Posted by: omit at March 26, 2003 8:54 PM