Internet trends: One Good, One Bad

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In our endless quest to inundate you with semi-recurring features, we present "Internet trends." This is a vaguely loose post in which we'll point out one good idea and one that should be erased from the Web for all of time.

Good
Weekly/daily headlines

Puck Daddy is the reigning king of the hockey blogosphere, but PD is a good king to its subjects. (I'm writing this while watching "Role Models" if the royalty stuff needs explanation) Greg W and Sean Leahy post their Puck Headlines twice a day and they don't just link the big guys. Bloggers big and small get listed and it is a fantastic way to give back to the blogosphere.

Greg W looks different without the cigar, doesn't he?

PD's not the only link-giver, as blogs like The Program, Stanley Cup of Chowder, (the possibly still defunct?) Going Five Hole and many others do that thing on a weekly basis. We try to offer something similar in the form of a weekly Morning Cycle.

That doesn't even include the countless cross-linking that takes place in "gameday" posts. The blogosphere is a beautiful place.

Bad
Cheap ways to "get more click-thrus"

No doubt about it: I'm an endlessly shameless self-promoter. Things that I once derided are now daily occurrences, from Twitter updates to Facebook status and annoying links.

And, naturally, I want people to stay on CLS as much as possible.

But some things are just flat-out lame, particularly stupid Web site gimmicks that add extra links just to boost stats. This came to mind while searching Rotten Tomatoes, one of my go-to movie dork sites. The Web site has a great "Five Favorite Movies" mini-interview feature with big names in the industry and this time, they asked one of my favorite jumbo jugged actresses, Carla Gugino.

IGN is one of the worst culprits in these "click thru maze" schemes

To see Gugino's five favorites, the site forced me to click on movie thumbnails. And I clicked ... one until it occurred to me that her movie choices mean nothing to me.

Doing (minimal) research, it wasn't surprising that RT is in the same network as IGN.com, a video game site infamous for posting photos that link ... to another link before you can get to the article.

Now, there may come a day when we sell out and do the same thing. Joining Twitter was a point of no return. But that being said, this is an annoying trend that we'd love to see end.

So, next time you come across these shameless re-routing links, go ahead and read the article. But then make sure to spend more time on their competitors' site just to turn the knife in on those gold-brickers.

Because greed is good, but being a douche doesn't serve anyone well.