How do you think blogrolling will evolve?

The future that I see for blogrolling includes longer lists and more about pages. Most of the blogs I read outside of class don’t have about pages for their blogrolls explaining why the blogger chose to link to these sites. With blogrolls becoming longer and commonplace additions to any blog, the writer is going to need a convincing reason to get any readers to visit what he is linking to. A detailed about page requires more work than just pasting a URL into blogrolling.com (especially if your blog has a laundry list of links), but if the blogger is passionate about having readers visit these sites, it’s going to become a necessity.

What problems or issues have you encountered in reading blogrolls on various weblogs?

The only issue that I have encountered with blogrolls on other blogs is that sometimes the blogs that the reader is being directed to is no longer at that URL. Bad links are a general problem with a websites due to the changing nature of the web. A site with bad or outdated links instantly loses some credibility or professionalism because it tells the reader that the site is not current. It’s always a good idea to periodically check to make sure that your blog links still actually link to their intended sites. It’s better to have no links or blogrolls at all then to direct your reader to a URL not found page.

How important is evaluating an author’s qualifications?

With blogs, the author’s qualifications should be scrutinized more than any other media. With most online articles, the author has some credibility built in (or none at all) based on what company owns the site he is writing for. If the company is well known and credible, it is extending that credibility to its writers. Because anyone can have a blog, it becomes very important to know who the author is when evaluating his material. Admittedly, a blogger’s profile can be just as made up as anything written on his blog, but a little time spent researching on the web should allow the reader to form an opinion about whether the work is credible or not. For example, if a blogger is writing about societal issues in Iraq and claims to be professor of Middle Eastern Studies for an accredited university, then a simple follow up check at the university’s website should vouch for the credibility of that claim. Blogs that I toss out as having no credibility are those with no blogger profile listed or just a name attached to it. Another credibility indication is if mainstream media has links to or quotes a certain blog, you can trust that they’ve done their research in confirming that the blogger is qualified and credible.