Rebel Roundup: A New Way of Link Dumping

Link dumps are so 2006. They don't require a lot of creativity, can be hastily put together, and - aside from my annotations - are rarely loaded with originally produced RCR content. They can be somewhat engaging, but are often just clicked through and quickly forgotten, as they rarely offer the reader with any news or insight they didn't already know of.

Just look at this one from earlier this year. It's not bad, but it's not particularly special either. There's a nice photograph of Marshall Henderson, a few links involving a basketball game that you all already knew the result of, a link to a fleetingly interesting story on the Student Union renovations, and a link to a more interesting story of a black man who allegedly enrolled in Ole Miss before James Meredith did, but only because people thought he was white.

The discussion was there, and there were jokes to be had, but for the most part I don't feel that there's a whole lot to get out of these types of posts for you the reader. Either I'm providing you with links on things you should already know enough about ("You mean we lost a basketball game last night?! You don't say.") or I'm directing you elsewhere to get your Rebel news. Of course, we don't at all claim to be some sort of authoritative news source on the Ole Miss Rebels, but we do like you fine people, and we'd like for y'all to feel that this is a place to get a good grip on what's going on with the programs we love while enjoying a fun conversation.

So, because of this, I am going to rethink the way we've been doing these Rebel Roundup posts. I don't think a traditional link dump + annotations cuts it anymore. What I think I'll try is something more like a conversation. Something like what you're seeing here right now. I could share a link mid sentence - as in "So, the Bulldogs aren't so super after all" - and then expound on it a bit. Instead of doing this with three, four, or five links, I'd be doing it with maybe just one or two. Perhaps I'll pop an embedded YouTube in the story as well if I'm feeling adventurous. It could be anywhere from 150 words to 1,050, depending on the subject matter and how much coffee I've had. It could be directly related to Ole Miss sports, or hardly related to Ole Miss at all. In a sense, I think of it as being a morning conversation with friends over a few cups of coffee - the kinds of conversations you have with your buddies after a long night of drinking, where people try to piece together both what happened and how exactly they feel about it.

As for now, I'm going to keep calling it "Rebel Roundup," even if I don't like that title whatsoever. If any of us can think of anything better, then we'll use it. But, for now, we'll just see how this works, and if it's something that both you and I seem to enjoy, then we'll keep on doing it.