Recently, Shawn Blanc, Patrick Rhone and others have been discussing attribution on the web. The tech web is especially incestuous, as the same 8-9 stories hit site after site daily. It’s important to identify both the source and the reference, or “via.” Here’s how I do it.

Imagine that website.com wrote a nice original piece. I first became aware of it by reading a link on coolstuff.com. In re-posting the story myself, I’ll note and link the website.com story in the body of the post. At the end of the post, I’ll include a link to the reference at coolstuff.com as a footnote of sorts, like so:

[Via coolstuff.com]

That way both sites get a link. The source is clearly identified in the body of the post while the reference (or “via”) follows, always using the same syntax. If you do it differently, I’d like to hear about it.

The long-planned inevitable has now been announced. With open-source-licensed web fonts, web font hosting, and add-a-line-to-your-header ease of configuration, Google has joined Typekit, Font Squirrel, Ascender, Font Bureau and others in forever changing the meaning of the phrase, “typography on the web.”

The Google Font Directory lets you browse all the fonts available via the Google Font API. All fonts in the directory are available for use on your website under an open source license and served by Google servers.

Oh, and Typekit? They’re in on it, and they couldn’t be more pleased.