Long live the blog: an annoyance at #linkinbio (aka Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn)
We don’t even notice it anymore — “link in bio”. It’s a pithy phrase, usually found on Instagram, which directs an audience to be aware that a pertinent web link can be found on that user’s profile. Its presence is so subtle, and so pervasive, that we barely even noticed it was an attempt to kill the web.
From Anil Dash on “Link In Bio” is a slow knife.
I’m frustrated that we’ve all been sucked into Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. They are amazing for sharing material and reaching out to audiences, however, they don’t want you to leave their platforms so they’re trying not to let you publish externally. LinkedIn demotes content not published within its own platform, Instagram is openly dismissive (as Anil’s post above acknowledges), and Twitter has a different effect (it wants just short posts but deep thinking requires more than 250 characters).
This is why I’m so excited by the likes of Substack, enabling people to publish like before (i.e. the free blog), but also then enable opportunities for payment. Patreon, Memberful (now owned by Patreon also) and BuyMeACoffee are similar concepts. I’ll always love the ‘free’ blog (I’ve been publishing since 2005) but there’s a time I consider options (you’ll see that little orange icon in the bottom right of this very page…….).
The future of the web is getting hit from multiple angles right now, and all of us being lazy and just publishing to the Instragrams and Twitters is one of the major ones. What happens if that company disappears and all your material has been controlled by them? At least here, I control where and how the material gets published - all while writing (usually) more than those 250 characters, or asking those on Instagram to click a link in a bio. For many, it won’t seem much to just mindlessly scroll whatever their feed of choice is, however I believe you’re giving control over to only one or two companies (and Google isn’t one of them).
What do you think?