Comments on: Commenting is Dead. Long Live Commenting!

By: philbaumann

philbaumann — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:32:29 +0000

It sure is, and I think comments are going to flourish in a way they haven't until now. That's why I say "long live commenting". Thanks for you comment!

Phil

By: SarahStewart

SarahStewart — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:07:33 +0000

Interesting article – thank you. One thing that struck me recently was the development of the 31 Day Challenge run by Sue Waters & Michele Martin. There was a huge number of people taking part ion that Challenge which got us all thinking about how we comment on blogs etc. So I believe it is still an important way to communicate.

By: philbaumann

philbaumann — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:21:51 +0000

I like your idea of how Twitter and FriendFeed "catalyze discussions". That's a cool way to look at it.

Thanks for your comment, I'm see it'll fragment. I'll be curious to see how the discussion goes.

By: xavierv

xavierv — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:16:28 +0000

Hey Phil, I'm totally with you when you say we're getting "closer to a perfect word-of-mouth paradigm of information flow".

It might seem that discussions are fading away from blogs, but I think that discussion platforms like Friendfeed are taking the discussion from blogs, making it bigger, and then slowly re-distributing it back to the blogs (as we can see the FF feature on the RRW comment thread).

Twitter and Friendfeed catalyze discussions, but it takes an individual opinion on a personal site to spark those discussions.

By: philbaumann

philbaumann — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:34:07 +0000

I would just like to add to the post here. Perhaps I wasn't quite clear about my use of the word "dead".

At this time, it's an over-exaggeration to say "comments are dead" in a literal sense. It's just that we're seeing an expansion of how the commenting system works.

It's important that we all have a voice that gets heard. And I simply see a new way for us to get our voices out there. Traditional blogging is undergoing a change. Time will tell if we reach that critical mass of comment fragmentation that I guess I'm predicting.

What do you think. Am I out on a branch here?

By: philbaumann

philbaumann — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:01:32 +0000

Yup, and now it's in Disqus, which is going into FriendFeed which is…

By: 2bestrong

2bestrong — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:57:29 +0000

Whew… that was a mouthful!
(Uh.. was that a comment?)
As always.. another 'food for thought' post.

By: Corvida

Corvida — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:07:59 +0000

Shifted to FriendFeed - http://twurl.nl/obx15d

By: philbaumann

philbaumann — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:39:13 +0000

I'm with you Corvida. But the "commenting is dead..." is really getting at exactly what you're talking about. How we comment is of course changing, but I think we're going to see a lot more new ways to comment, and that's what I would call "evolving". My hope, and belief in fact, is that commenting is going to be more alive than ever before. It's a re-birth, as I see it.

Thanks for you feedback, Corvida.

Phil

By: Corvida

Corvida — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:31:43 +0000

I don't think commenting is dead. I think it has shifted to other mediums. People are still actively chatting and the social media concept is all about active participation and conversation. That's a form of commenting. It's just changing…or is it evolving?