Simian Design

August 27, 2004

Tracking the spread of an idea.

Derek Featherstone has taken a concept, the concept of credit, and pretty much run with it. Nick starts writing about this in Giving Credit, and Matt writes about it with Link Thanks.

Now, the concept of giving credit where you found something isn't new. It's been around. You see it all the time, sporadically albiet, as ( link via blah ).

Derek starting thinking about it as tracking back the thought thread. And the link element seems the way to do it.

You see, the link element has an attribute called rel/rev that is a wonderful fit for this sort of tracking. <a rel="via" href="http://foo.bar/" ...

Slick, eh? It goes into more thought and detail, and you should go read it. I really like the idea behind this. I do have a question though. When you credit a site, do you credit the author, or the site? Say it's SimpleBits you pull this off. Do you state via Dan Cederholm or SimpleBits? (via Digital Web )

Post Info

Tagged As Big Ideas

Comments are Open (4)

Posted at 07:37 AM

Comments

phnk

I prefer to use the designer's name.

I simply love the rel/rev idea, really. It's almost like a cite tag here in fact, hm?

Posted by: phnk | August 27, 2004 06:43 PM

Tony

I tend to use the name of the person, but that almost seems like it lessens the value of the link. Maybe in the title of the link, name and site.

Yes, this is somewhat like a cite tag for credit links. I also really love this idea.

Posted by: Tony | August 27, 2004 07:56 PM

Derek Featherstone

This is a really good question... I've been using names, but I can't say that I'll always do so... perhaps this is something that changes over time?

Posted by: Derek Featherstone | August 29, 2004 09:41 PM

Tony

I have preferred to use the name, but the more I think about it, doesn't that somewhat 'lessen' the value, or branding, of that site?

Posted by: Tony | August 30, 2004 08:10 AM