Remembering the essence of a clipmark

I just wanted to briefly mention a concern that I've had lately.  I have recently noticed a lot of public clipmarks that contain entire articles/pages (or most of it). For two important reasons I am hoping this will change.
 

First, in my opinion, the key distinguishing aspect of clipmarks is that instead of simply posting links to entire web pages, we are clipping and sharing the best piece or pieces of information from within those pages (the "sweetspot" if you will).  It is my opinion that clipping too much information substantially reduces the power of the clip as a way for people to quickly toggle through bits of information about all sorts of topics in less time.  Basically, when it comes to a clipmark, I think that more information often results in less quality.

 

The second reason pertains to respecting the rights of content owners.  There are many different types of clipmarks that are generated from all sorts of different web sites, so this concern certainly does not apply across the board.  But, when small nuggets of information are clipped, they can serve as powerful drivers of traffic to the source of that content.  In this way, content creators benefit from having their content clipped.  This is fair and good for everyone.  But clipping an entire page clearly lessens the likelihood of a click through to the source page because all of the information can be gathered from the clip.  This is not the intention of clipmarks and, often times, is not fair to the original source of the content.

 

I hope the idea of clipping small pieces of information instead of entire web pages is one you will all agree creates a better experience for everyone and shows greater respect for the rights of original content creators.

Clip on!!

eric

Comments

[O'Marin]

Nice post. Congratulations!

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