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07.18.07
Fewer Comments Doesn't Mean The Conversation Is Dying
 By
Shel Holtz
I've been pondering Mitch Joel's post lamenting the declining number of comments left on the blogs he reads. Readership has not declined, according to Mitch.
Instead, it seems readers are opting to comment by writing posts for their own blogs. Finding a way to revitalize trackbacks-which have all but vanished due to their vulnerability to spam-might be the only way to revitalize the conversation.
Back in September 2004, blogging innovator Dave Winer was interviewed by the Online Journalism Review in an article about comment spam. He noted then that he didn't believe comments were an intrinsic part of a blog.
Instead, Winer thinks commenters should simply run their own blog if they want to comment. While he thinks that all the war tactics by bloggers will ultimately fail, he says that Google itself could solve the problem by adjusting PageRank so that it doesn't weight links from comments as heavily as links within blog posts or on other pages.
Winer was a little ahead of his time. Not enough people had their own blogs in 2004 and comments were the only way they could join in the discussion. With far more blogs in operation today, it's easier for a lot of readers to use their own blogs to voice their opinions. And why wouldn't they? After all, every blogger wants his posts to be seen by his readers.
Personally, I believe a blog needs to have comments open (Winer's does not) in order to qualify as a blog (otherwise it's just a website for publication of personal commentary) but I don't see a dearth of comments as a sign that the conversation is quieting. I check Technorati daily for links to my blog and routinely find items that others have written about one post of mine or another. I sometimes leave comments on those posts or, if several bloggers have written about a single one of my posts, I'll follow up with a new post of my own. This is conversation evolved.
I don't believe trackbacks will change anything, however, even if we find a way to keep the spammers from using them. Many of us (myself included) have shut off trackbacks because of its vulnerability to spam. (Akismet handles spam on my blog but doesn't address trackbacks.) The reason shutting off trackbacks doesn't bother me, though, is that most people don't understand these technically challenging utilities to begin with. Try explaining trackbacks to someone who doesn't know what they are and watch the mask of confusion transform his face. The limited number of people who grasp trackbacks has always been so low that its use is far from representative of the general blogging population. (I have to admit that the hassle of leaving a trackback-writing my post, getting the trackback URL, returning to the original post, finding the trackback field, pasting in the URL-kept me from doing it in a lot of cases. Using Technorati, on the other hand, gives you one-click access to most of the posts that are talking about what you have written.
At a party, you can stand by the punchbowl where the conversation was taking place 15 minutes ago and lament that everybody has vanished. Or you can walk into the den where everybody has moved and where they are now engaged in a great conversation. So it is on the web. Follow the conversation wherever it goes. But the conversation is as strong as it ever was, if not stronger.
Update: In the comments, a few people have suggested trackbacks are, indeed, the answer. I've updated my Akismet module, which offers a trackback workaround within Expression Engine, my blogging platform, but EE still doesn't handle trackbacks in a way that provides for moderation. However, there is a lot of sentiment to the effect that trackbacks are dead, like this one, which includes reference ro Rubel's view of the issue.
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About the Author:
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self. |
