Comments on: Missing the old days of blogging

By: “Is anyone still reading feeds?” – Josue Salazar by Colin Devroe

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:49:28 +0000

[...] Long-time friend Josue Salazar asks, via Twitter: “Actually, is anyone still reading feeds? I bet many mainly live off of content people are tweeting links about. Sensational content != good.” Sounds familiar. [...]

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:41:06 +0000

Ironically enough I happened upon this post via Michael’s tweet.

I cant disagree with the sentiments but I do however just wonder if it’s just an evolution of blogging into something more dispersed.

You might lose some of the intimacy but then I wager you may gain a wider audience from these disparate systems.

By: Michael Heilemann

Michael Heilemann — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:22:13 +0000

It’s a bygone era, and while it hurts to see it go, as comment conversations on ones blog was a much more personal and intimate affair than when similar conversations take place on a hosted service, I don’t fault the new services; they’ve simply made it easier for people to throw an opinion at someone or something.

But it’s a shame to see context go out the window. I have tons of old entries on a subject, for which there are very informative and entertaining threads that are even better than the accompanying entry. Now, if people comment on Twitter (a non-starter idea BTW), there is stab le connection between the tweet and the entry, and the context and conversation is lost.

On Facebook it’s better, as they at least have threads, but I trust them much less than I trust Google with my information.

You win some, you lose some.

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:23:13 +0000

I agree with you. But just so you know, this isn’t a complaint about not getting comments at all. I’m not too worried about that. And I certainly won’t change what I write about or how I write to force commenting – I just miss the old days where blogs were the medium.

By: Daniel Nicolas

Daniel Nicolas — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:11:39 +0000

I think twitter, etc. have enabled much shorter durations between responses. Anyone with SMS can use twitter, wherever they are able to bring their phone and have SMS service. Despite the internet’s rabid obsession leading to what is a growing trend of popularity, web enabled phones with modern browsers are in the vast minority.

This allows people to stay and be connected in a much more visible and immediate presence to those of us where the grass is greener and there is web access.

I think part of the issue is perception (as mentioned above), but also trending interests play a factor in this as well. I don’t know your audience for this blog, but you seemed to get a ton of replies when you posted your Random 60 videos, but there haven’t been many comments on your more recent posts. While I think it’s great to get comments, you shouldn’t change your message or your writing just to attract comments or controversy.

I think a slight change in the design organization to include a ‘comment’ link at the top and bottom of the posts displayed on the front page might improve your ‘reads to comments’ ratio. Sometimes if a post is sufficiently long enough, I’ve scrolled past the top and no longer see that ‘0 Comments’ and I’m looking at the tags, then next post. — I almost feel like I’m nit picking and I don’t want it to seem like that– I think in terms of flow, I like to read an article and then I look for a link to comment, but if it’s not right there at the bottom, I’ll just keep reading to the next post or look at the next picture.

Also, in a general terms, I think somewhere along the line we’ll figure out how to include the relevant ’social network’ conversation just in the same way we include trackbacks to other people’s blogposts in the same conversation