Joe Caiati:

John wrote like a mad-man in the beginning of Daring Fireball’s infancy and he kept writing and kept writing until his audience trusted and supported him. That is what has allowed John to have DF’s current format of commentary on link posts with bigger pieces written in between. […]

It is going to take hard work. Not everyone will be an overnight success, but if writing is a passion, you are going to want to get better each time you hit “publish”.

Here’s my take: don’t lean on link posts and expect them to get you to where John Gruber is. The long form is an essential part of the equation that cannot be overlooked. Rather than discouraging the use of link posts, Joe is encouraging a mindset.

For me, links are an important part of my workflow. They serve as a repository of articles that I can quickly recall months or years later with the site’s search bar. They allow me to make more than 120-character comments on news stories — which is typically about the length you’re afforded on Twitter when tweeting a link. But most importantly, they’re often a jumping-off point for longer form articles that I didn’t know I had in me. I can’t count the number of times I sat down to write a short link and ended up with far more to say than I originally expected.