Spend a Day Reading and Commenting
I hereby officially declare Monday, April 28th “Read and Comment” day. Instead of your typical post (or as well as), get out there and comment on some blogs. Contribute to their conversations. Find some good stuff and add to it.
Live in RSS for a day.
And then report back. Deal?
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Comments
Chris,
Your blog & the insight you provide is great.
I’m starting a new endevour which is based upon the need I’m seeing out & alot of the observations that you & others media-guru’s are making.
Looking foward to seeing you at PodcampNYC.
Marvin
Sounds like a great idea, get out of your walled gardens folks and go out there and say HELLO WHIRLD!
Darin
Uhh, I celebrated early. What I enjoy most about spending several hours immersed in reading and commenting is meeting new people. I discover new sites, new points of view, new solutions, new friends. The time spent is not as unproductive as it seems from the outside looking in.
Great Idea…
Maybe it should be the last Monday of each month let’s mak “Forth Monday” the “Read and Comment Day”
Sounds like a great idea, I am always trying to encourage myself to comment on more blog posts and a specific day for the activity might give it a good kick in the pants.
[...] Brogan makes the suggestion on his blog today that we take next Monday, April 28th, to take time to visit some other blogs and then leave [...]
I’m in, will put it on my calendar and send to some friends. I commit to commenting on at least 3 different blogs.
Will do, Chris!
I hereby declare today (April 23) “The day that Chris Brogan declared April 28th as the official Read and Comment Day” day.
Great idea! I have been trying to encourage my fellow students to comment on blogs from bloggers they admire, so maybe this will provide more incentive!
Take care.
Here’s a better deal:
The “big-time” bloggers (on whose blogs we sycophants comment each day) need to find they’re way to our blogs (those of us that have them) and “read & comment”.
Asking us to do something we already do ad nauseum is, with respect, somewhat redundant.
I’ll get an early start by dropping my first comment here. :o) Great idea to nudge folks to interact more.
By the way … is this going to be on the fourth Monday of April each year, or April 28 each year? I ask because I’m making a list of “Web holidays” for my own blogging reference. (Seriously!)
Or are you going to take the suggestion that this be a monthly thing?
Chris,
I have a *work day* habit of get up, read my favorite four blogs, comment, get to writing my own blog, then go read some more of my favorites, comment and then go find two new ones and comment.
It’s a full time job. :)
Of course there is also twitter time…
Just for you I will add in two extra blogs. OK?
Fantastic idea. I really haven’t been commenting enough lately. I blame Twitter for eating up all my spare time.
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Monday, 4/28, also just happens to fall at the beginning of National Volunteer week. So I’d propose a mashup: To combine “Reading & Commenting” day with “National Volunteer Week,” stop by the blog of a nonprofit who’s mission you support, and leave a comment offering a few words of specific advice or volunteering a few hours of your consulting services to help improve their blog and/or social media strategy.
As the founder of a fledgling nonprofit that’s keeping a blog as a diary of our experiment in social entrepreneurship, I think I speak for many social benefit organizations when I say we would welcome the opportunity to get feedback and suggestions from volunteers who “live and breathe” the blogosphere.
So, while you’re celebrating “Reading & Commenting Day” on Monday (which, btw, is a fabulous idea!), stop by a nonprofit blog - like ours at http://www.EpicChange.org/blog - and donate a few minutes of your time to give us some candid feedback & advice. We could really use your help, as could the causes we support.
Celebrate “Reading & Commenting Day” & National Volunteer Week: Make a comment that makes a difference :)
I actually spend my writing/posting day for doing that - sometimes Fridays, sometimes Saturdays, but usually weekly.
Good plan. I have been breaking out of the lurking habit lately, as a budding blogger myself, I realize that bloggers obviously want to be read, and what evidence of such would be left, if not for comments.
This is akin to the practice in daily life of commenting to people those random thoughts and observations that most of us keep to ourselves… ie: “I really enjoyed your presentation, thanks” or “I like what you have done with____” or just engaging in conversation, however brief about something that relates directly to the person.
Everyone has comments, too rarely they air them, online or otherwise.
It will be interesting to see the reports back on how this influences conversation.
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Ok, here’s my first comment of the day. It’s good you’re bringing attention to this, as I often get so consumed with reading that I don’t get around to commenting. Here goes!
This is a fantastic idea, Chris. I’m a little late to the game, seeing that Monday the 28th is rapidly retreating already, but I’ll do my best to contribute to the conversation on the blogs I read today (beginning with this one).
If it hasn’t already been addressed, I’m in favor of Carolyn’s suggestion: having “Read and Comment Day” fall on the fourth (or perhaps, to borrow from Arbor Day, the final) Monday of April each year.
Thanks for giving me a much-needed excuse to stop lurking and start contributing.
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Well, I’m halfway through my “Read and Comment Day,” and things are going well. I usually comment on a couple of things here and there, but today I’m making a concerted effort to focus on commenting, both on items I encounter in my Google Reader feed and in items that I find via Disqus.
Another way that FriendFeed users in particular can make sure they’re interacting with others in FriendFeed is to attempt to keep their personal weekly FriendFeed “comments” and “likes” above a particular level. I’m trying to keep mine above 100/week, but obviously any goal that allows you to interact with the community more is beneficial. The one drawback, of course, is that a comment that goes to FriendFeed is NOT going to the original blog or artifact, so you may or may not want to participate in this way.
Do you think conversation in blogs - in the comments will become extinct due to the uptake of Twitter? What is lost or what is gained by this faster form of conversation?
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/04/world-comment-d.html
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My results from your suggestion.
http://www.smallbizsurvival.com/2008/04/read-and-comment-day.html
I had fun, and enjoyed reporting in on Twitter during the day. Don’t miss @BarbaraKB’s suggestion that we make real world conversation on May Day.
I visited about 100 blogs and left comments on a little over half of them. Usually I tried to add to the conversation; if I couldn’t, I didn’t.
It took a few hours but it was an interesting learning experience.
My God, it was full of blogs!
In all seriousness, nice to check out some different blogs and different ideas.
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Chris,
This is a good idea — the date is now on my calendar — hope more people make a note of this.
Cheers,
-Nj
Deal.