Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Are Blogs Still Conversations?
For a long time now I've presented my "Four I's" of what distinguishes blogs from other web sites:
1. Immediate & accessible
2. Informal & Inside
3. Interactive
4. Inexpensive
I've even noticed those 4 descriptions picked up by others. (But of course stupid Technorati is misbehaving so I can't find the site I'm looking for to link to it. You try: Here's the Technorati link for this blog...will it go to anything past Page 1 for you? Grrrrrrrr.)
I'm starting to rethink I #3.
I mean comments are nice and everything, but are they really worth it?
A new blog I've been following, Blogthenticity (great name, right?) thinks comments are critical, and that as a blogger you have a moral obligation to spread your commenting seed everywhere you can. Hmmm...that sentence started out much differently than it wound up, huh?
Anyway, I wrote a rather lengthy comment explaining why I've come to disagree. Mostly two reasons:
1. The signal to noise ratio in comments is pathetic, and as I read more and more blogs I find I devote elss and less time to reading comments.
2. The idea that people will reciprocate is also dead. People mostly don't. And there are those who don't out of principal. They think you should do what I'm doing now: blog about their post, not just comment about it and expect them to come visit you because of it. Is this yet another link-loving, power-grabbing tactic on the part of wily whuffie-hoarding A-listers? Oh, maybe...but imitation is flattery and the attitude has spread.
BUt you can check out Blogthenticity's case here
1. Immediate & accessible
2. Informal & Inside
3. Interactive
4. Inexpensive
I've even noticed those 4 descriptions picked up by others. (But of course stupid Technorati is misbehaving so I can't find the site I'm looking for to link to it. You try: Here's the Technorati link for this blog...will it go to anything past Page 1 for you? Grrrrrrrr.)
I'm starting to rethink I #3.
I mean comments are nice and everything, but are they really worth it?
A new blog I've been following, Blogthenticity (great name, right?) thinks comments are critical, and that as a blogger you have a moral obligation to spread your commenting seed everywhere you can. Hmmm...that sentence started out much differently than it wound up, huh?
Anyway, I wrote a rather lengthy comment explaining why I've come to disagree. Mostly two reasons:
1. The signal to noise ratio in comments is pathetic, and as I read more and more blogs I find I devote elss and less time to reading comments.
2. The idea that people will reciprocate is also dead. People mostly don't. And there are those who don't out of principal. They think you should do what I'm doing now: blog about their post, not just comment about it and expect them to come visit you because of it. Is this yet another link-loving, power-grabbing tactic on the part of wily whuffie-hoarding A-listers? Oh, maybe...but imitation is flattery and the attitude has spread.
BUt you can check out Blogthenticity's case here
// posted by ElisaC @ 8:33 AM 
