Who is Will at MSNBC.com? How Does He Find Links?

Posted on June 16, 2005

MSNBC.com has posted a faq about its Clicked blog that contains links to interesting things on the Internet each day. The tagline for the column says, "My name is Will. This is what I clicked." According to the faq Will is Will Femia, a weblog enthusiast, who was previously a chat producer for MSNBC.com. Here is how Will says he finds the links that he clicks on:

My first turn is on the major blog indices like Blogdex, Daypop and Blogburst. After that I pass through some of the A-List bloggers whose readership is high enough that even if what their linking to isn't on a "most-linked" list, chances are good a lot of people are thinking about it.

Will says he also tries to find new sources and use reader feedback so that he isn't always traveling the same blog cliques for links:

The problem for the blog reader is that it's easy to get stuck in a rut as members of blog cliques refer to each other, leading the reader in the same circles. Sometimes it's easy to get out of the rut by looking for blogs on a new topic, but since this blog will focus primarily on news hobbyists, we'll also try to keep an eye on the non-A-List bloggers, sometimes with random clicking on lists like Weblogs.com, and again, from reader recommendations.