How to Seduce Users Into Linking more

If hyperlinks are the skeleton of the web, we need to encourage more outwardly hyperlinks within posts, especially in mobile apps, where switching between web browser and the app, and copying URLs is more challenging compared with desktop environment.

Medium could pioneer this.

How about enabling contextual menus after one decides to link? The menu could automatically show some suggested target URLs based on a quick web search for the words selected. It could also show a list of recent browser bookmarks or even history.

Or, if the user has already connected Facebook or Twitter to her (Medium) account, the contextual menu can show a list of recent (or more engaged) liked, saved, or reshared URLs.

To make it more intelligent, there could be a few general sources like Wikipedia or The New York Times or The Guardian (again, based of an analysis of the user’s previous tendencies) from which the user can link to, given the keywords selected.

Let’s take linking mechanisms beyond simple pop-up boxes. We need to help people when they want to link to outside web pages. It’s time for a serious upgrade.