b.cognosco

Why TrackBack?.

» I didn't get it at first either, and nor has everyone I've mentioned it to.

What makes TrackBack so important is, I think, the following:
Imagine that I read someone like Jon Udell (which I do) and I find an item of his particularly noteworthy or relevant to me.  I post it from my news page and add some editorial content of my own.

But if, like me, you are a relatively new blogger then maybe very few people read my item and nobody bothers to click through to Jon's original. My item never appears in his list of referrers.

This means Jon, likely, will not know that it exists. We could imagine further that Jon would have liked to know what comments I made but he never gets the opportunity.

TrackBack addresses this problem. It allows me as the author of an item to "ping" the original during the act of publishing. This ping does not require someone to read my item and then click through to his. Simply by publishing he is notified that someone has referenced him.

I think this is a very powerful idea and will help to get new bloggers into the space.  For those with interesting things to say the time to migrate from the fringe to the centre will be drastically reduced.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

My take (a first pass at understanding an amorphous structure and subject to change) -- This is potentially both useful and a major distraction. Someone like Udell, who has a near cult-like following and is doubtless linked by thousands of readers, will be swamped by public TrackBack pings -- rendering them almost useless. OTOH, people with small, faint voices can quickly discover who (if anyone) is listening. This is a useful service, one that could shorten the time it takes to find one's audience.

But what I think is more important is the KM/klog aspect -- where employees who are well below the radar screen but critically important to actually getting a solution -- never get heard or informed. It seems to me the TBping has potential for real improvement here.