The link economy v. the content economy

Jeff Jarvis makes an important point in The link economy v. the content economy about what the currency of the Internet is. Paraphrasing his point -- it's not about the content, it's about getting links. Content has become a commodity on the Web - you can get the information you need anywhere and everywhere. So for the content producer it's about getting links to the content, which translates to traffic, which translates to value, which translates to advertising.

It's a provocative argument - suggesting that content isn't important - but it's also a key transformative feature of digital news. The link economy is why we are hiring someone to help us distribute our content better on the Web. We're calling this person, who's a journalist, mind you, an audience acquisition editor. The Washington Post recently advertised for a similar position, a content distribution manager.

One could argue that we have all the content we need - we just don't have the links.