January 3, 2007 7 Comments

Scott Karp on Comments vs. Not

A really smart feller already, Scott Karp from Publishing 2.0 weighs on at The Blog Herald on the great comment debate (whether or not comments are part of the requirements to define a blog. Scott’s article has lots of interesting points ( read it here).

In some cases, people are looking at blogs as publishing pieces, where it’s a complete item, and doesn’t need comments. In my case, I want the comments because they’re part of a conversation. Hell, most of my posts aren’t as good as the comment sections.

What do you think?

Related posts:

  1. Capture Your Comments
  2. New Media Responsibility
  3. Comment Envy
  4. Slag

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  • Ed M

    I subscribe to the thought that there are as many ways to blog as there are bloggers. No one way is correct. Blogging for me is just a way of communication. What is interesting to me is this idea of communication.

    At Podcamp Boston we had a discussion about where blogging and podcasting fit into the larger picture of “social computing”. During this session I threw out the idea that blogging was mostly a one-way type of communication and a one-to-many model. This sparked an interesting conversation. One real interesting counter example to the one-way model came from Brian over at wis.dm. He stated that all those cross references in a blog, like this one by Chris about the comment debate over on Scott Karp’s blog, is a form of two-way conversation. As I read more and more blogs I see other examples of two-way conversations using tools like MobaTalk and even the use of social tagging like del.ico.us and digg.

    One reason I based my comments that “blogging is primarily a one-way communication” was on the comments themselves. From my blog reading it appeared that most blogs had a small number of comments as compared to blog entries and the time-frame for when people commented quickly ended on any single entry. After our PodCamp discussion I was really interested in what, if any, study had been done on blogging and comments to blogs. Here are some statistics and pieces of information that I would find interesting

    What percentage of blogs accept comments and what do not?
    What percentage of blog entries (that accept comments) have comments?
    What are the comments statistics (ranges in number of comments,averages, etc.)?
    what range of timeframes do comments come in to a blog entry?

    This type of statistical analysis could be extended to tracebacks and cross blog references. It could be extended even further to statistics to tolls like del.ico.us and digg. Is anyone aware of such a study?

  • Ed M

    I subscribe to the thought that there are as many ways to blog as there are bloggers. No one way is correct. Blogging for me is just a way of communication. What is interesting to me is this idea of communication.

    At Podcamp Boston we had a discussion about where blogging and podcasting fit into the larger picture of “social computing”. During this session I threw out the idea that blogging was mostly a one-way type of communication and a one-to-many model. This sparked an interesting conversation. One real interesting counter example to the one-way model came from Brian over at wis.dm. He stated that all those cross references in a blog, like this one by Chris about the comment debate over on Scott Karp’s blog, is a form of two-way conversation. As I read more and more blogs I see other examples of two-way conversations using tools like MobaTalk and even the use of social tagging like del.ico.us and digg.

    One reason I based my comments that “blogging is primarily a one-way communication” was on the comments themselves. From my blog reading it appeared that most blogs had a small number of comments as compared to blog entries and the time-frame for when people commented quickly ended on any single entry. After our PodCamp discussion I was really interested in what, if any, study had been done on blogging and comments to blogs. Here are some statistics and pieces of information that I would find interesting

    What percentage of blogs accept comments and what do not?
    What percentage of blog entries (that accept comments) have comments?
    What are the comments statistics (ranges in number of comments,averages, etc.)?
    what range of timeframes do comments come in to a blog entry?

    This type of statistical analysis could be extended to tracebacks and cross blog references. It could be extended even further to statistics to tolls like del.ico.us and digg. Is anyone aware of such a study?

  • Ed M

    I subscribe to the thought that there are as many ways to blog as there are bloggers. No one way is correct. Blogging for me is just a way of communication. What is interesting to me is this idea of communication.

    At Podcamp Boston we had a discussion about where blogging and podcasting fit into the larger picture of “social computing”. During this session I threw out the idea that blogging was mostly a one-way type of communication and a one-to-many model. This sparked an interesting conversation. One real interesting counter example to the one-way model came from Brian over at wis.dm. He stated that all those cross references in a blog, like this one by Chris about the comment debate over on Scott Karp’s blog, is a form of two-way conversation. As I read more and more blogs I see other examples of two-way conversations using tools like MobaTalk and even the use of social tagging like del.ico.us and digg.

    One reason I based my comments that “blogging is primarily a one-way communication” was on the comments themselves. From my blog reading it appeared that most blogs had a small number of comments as compared to blog entries and the time-frame for when people commented quickly ended on any single entry. After our PodCamp discussion I was really interested in what, if any, study had been done on blogging and comments to blogs. Here are some statistics and pieces of information that I would find interesting

    What percentage of blogs accept comments and what do not?
    What percentage of blog entries (that accept comments) have comments?
    What are the comments statistics (ranges in number of comments,averages, etc.)?
    what range of timeframes do comments come in to a blog entry?

    This type of statistical analysis could be extended to tracebacks and cross blog references. It could be extended even further to statistics to tolls like del.ico.us and digg. Is anyone aware of such a study?

  • http://www.mobatalk.com Michael Bailey

    I think that without blog comments it is only one persons published opinion and no real form of communication.

    One might equate a blog without comments to a homeless person wondering the streets, talking out loud. Sure, a lot of people hear what he has to say, but nobody is engadged in a conversation there.

    WordPress, while a fairly descent blogging platform, has let down the community by separating out the Entries RSS feed from the Comments RSS feed.

    There is no reason why a complete threaded RSS feed cannot be created instead.

    RSS itself, while extremely widespread and growing, actually needs to be wiped off the face of the internet and replaced by a new syndication standard.

    Feedreaders, whether online or standalone applications, need to be reworked and take advantage of a new syndication standard.

    There is quite simple no reason why a two-way, time-shifted conversation cannot take place through the use of a new form of feedreader.

    I am currently gearing up to launch MobaTalk, and after that grows legs and can stand on its own, then I have 3 other projects to tend to.

    What I’m talking about above with a new form of RSS and a new feedreader is actually the 3rd project that I have in mind, and unless someone beats me to it (doubtful, since it’s only a bunch of work, and no recognition, and zero VC money potential) then I will start on that project.

  • http://www.mobatalk.com Michael Bailey

    I think that without blog comments it is only one persons published opinion and no real form of communication.

    One might equate a blog without comments to a homeless person wondering the streets, talking out loud. Sure, a lot of people hear what he has to say, but nobody is engadged in a conversation there.

    WordPress, while a fairly descent blogging platform, has let down the community by separating out the Entries RSS feed from the Comments RSS feed.

    There is no reason why a complete threaded RSS feed cannot be created instead.

    RSS itself, while extremely widespread and growing, actually needs to be wiped off the face of the internet and replaced by a new syndication standard.

    Feedreaders, whether online or standalone applications, need to be reworked and take advantage of a new syndication standard.

    There is quite simple no reason why a two-way, time-shifted conversation cannot take place through the use of a new form of feedreader.

    I am currently gearing up to launch MobaTalk, and after that grows legs and can stand on its own, then I have 3 other projects to tend to.

    What I’m talking about above with a new form of RSS and a new feedreader is actually the 3rd project that I have in mind, and unless someone beats me to it (doubtful, since it’s only a bunch of work, and no recognition, and zero VC money potential) then I will start on that project.

  • http://www.mobatalk.com Michael Bailey

    I think that without blog comments it is only one persons published opinion and no real form of communication.

    One might equate a blog without comments to a homeless person wondering the streets, talking out loud. Sure, a lot of people hear what he has to say, but nobody is engadged in a conversation there.

    WordPress, while a fairly descent blogging platform, has let down the community by separating out the Entries RSS feed from the Comments RSS feed.

    There is no reason why a complete threaded RSS feed cannot be created instead.

    RSS itself, while extremely widespread and growing, actually needs to be wiped off the face of the internet and replaced by a new syndication standard.

    Feedreaders, whether online or standalone applications, need to be reworked and take advantage of a new syndication standard.

    There is quite simple no reason why a two-way, time-shifted conversation cannot take place through the use of a new form of feedreader.

    I am currently gearing up to launch MobaTalk, and after that grows legs and can stand on its own, then I have 3 other projects to tend to.

    What I’m talking about above with a new form of RSS and a new feedreader is actually the 3rd project that I have in mind, and unless someone beats me to it (doubtful, since it’s only a bunch of work, and no recognition, and zero VC money potential) then I will start on that project.

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