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George of 90% Crud pens a letter to TiVo:

Dear TiVo Inc.,

Please create permalinks for episodes of television shows. For instance, when Boing Boing posts about a show, I want them to be able to embed a link that will add a show to my ToDo list using remote scheduling.

Do you see what I did there? I didn’t tell you to type b-o-i-n-g-b-o-i-n-g-.-n-e-t into your browser, then search for “douglas rushkoff coercion.” I just included a link and if you clicked on it you were taken to the exact morsel of information that I wanted to show you. Same concept, except for TV shows.

If you need help figuring out why this is a good thing, take a look at how many people link to Apple’s iTunes Music Store and how much money they make off of it. (hint: they’re making enough on those links that they’re paying people to link to the iTMS)

Love,
George

And a moment later…

Update: Looks like they have permalinks now, was that a quick turnaround or has this been there and I didn’t see it?

We ask you, dear reader, do you think it was a coincidence?! Actually, we think it was but, hey, anything to make blogs look good.

The point here is that permalinks are good and that is why we keep saying that a blog must have permalinks to be a blog. Why such orthodoxy? Because only half the job in blogging is to get the blog post up, the second half is getting it out there, which you cannot really do without permalinks. They are the ‘handles’ attached to the discreet piece of information on your blog that other people can lift out and run around the internet with it.