Friday, March 24, 2006

Waiting for the blog swarm to begin...

Can you hear the howls of indignation already?
Now, whenever you visit a Mobber-enabled blog (one that has that bit of javascript), your picture will appear along with those of any other readers with Mobber profiles who happen to be reading the same blog at the same time.

Now, you can view the profiles of those other readers and click to chat with them. I’m just not sure I’d want to be interrupted for a chat while I’m reading blog posts. And can you imagine what might happen to an A-lister who happens to be perusing a blog with his picture showing? How many chats would readers initiate with Robert Scoble or Michael Arrington? And, given that A-listers probably wouldn’t make themselves available for such chats, who’s left? Anybody you’d want to chat with?

Shel Holtz 03/24/06

[Bold emphasis mine; italics, his.]

Now, he makes a point immediately following that is really the crux of his argument:
Besides, blogs already come with a way to engage with the blogger and other readers. It’s called “comments,” and it’s asynchronous, a characteristic I appreciate. I can engage when it’s convenient for me, which is preferable to an interruption while trying to read a post.

But I wonder if anyone will catch that? Good luck with that!

Comments:
No, no, no...I got your point...I didn't think you were actually saying that only "A-Listers" were worth chatting with...I was saying that the sentence is unfortunately worded and struck me as the perfect excuse for a blog swarm by people who either a) don't read your post carefully or b) actually like to have something to swarm on.

Personally, there's only so much multi-taking I can handle. Adding chat to blog reading would probably push me right over the edge.
 
Sounds interesting, but the whole "getting interrupted" thing seems like it could be quite the irritant.
 
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